The Trouble With Werner

Pgs. 130-250
Addressed in this post: characters

We know from a certain TED Talk that a single story can be dangerous.

That's why the varying perspectives—similar in some ways, totally unalike in others—in All the Light We Cannot See are refreshing. Doerr's experimentation with how readers are supposed to feel about various aspects of the plot is not limited to the protagonists, Marie-Laure and Werner; he includes the points of view of other characters, such as Marie-Laure's father, Werner's friend, and a mysterious gemologist whose relationship to the main plot is often hazy.

It's hard to argue that Marie-Laure isn't likable. She's intelligent, generous, and kindhearted, despite life having been more than unfair to her. We root for her success and feel disheartened when things don't go her way—an instance that, despite her and her father's best efforts, takes place often (more often than it should in a child's life).

But Werner is a different story. In this section, we follow his character's academic and social ascent. As the world deteriorates, Werner's life is steadily improving; he floors a teacher with his knowledge of trigonometry and makes a friend, Frederick. We get a sense of his newfound wonder—his own internal Renaissance—when Frederick takes him on an excursion home, to Berlin:

"The largest city Werner has ever seen... Berlin! The very name like two sharp bells of glory. Capital of science, seat of the führer, nursery to Bohr, Einstein, Staudinger, Bayer. Somewhere in these streets, plastic was invented, X-rays were discovered, continental drift was identified. What marvels does science cultivate here now?"

Perspective, then, is everything: to most of the world in the early 1940s, the seat of the führer hardly looks like a desirable destination. But to Werner, there is no place more magical on Earth. The dark irony here is worth noting; while Werner values the science—the technological progressivism—that he associates with Berlin, nothing could be further from the agenda of the regime currently based in this city. After all, three of the scientists Werner mentioned were Jewish, and the fourth was married to a Jewish woman; surely Berlin is no place for them now.

Maybe Werner's distinct plight causes us to sympathize more with him than with Marie-Laure. At the very least, we perceive the characters differently because we think we understand the context of their struggles. With Werner, though, Doerr urges us to think outside of the box.

Another perspective that Doerr explores is that of Daniel LeBlanc, Marie-Laure's father. It's difficult to think of a person—fictional or real—who demonstrates his love for his daughter in a more sweet and genuine way than Daniel. From the start of the book, when he constructed a scale model of his Parisian neighborhood for his blind daughter to familiarize herself with, Daniel earns our respect and admiration.

Toward the end of this passage, Daniel, imprisoned in Germany, sends Marie-Laure a letter, in which he writes,

"Dearest Marie-Laure...I've managed to find an angel who will try to get this to you...You are not going to believe this, but you will have to trust me—they serve us wonderful food. First-class...I so look forward to the meals!...Be polite to your uncle and Madame too. Thank them for reading this to you. And know that I am always with you, that I am right beside you. Your Papa."

We hardly believe that the positive, even ideal, scene that Daniel illustrates is factual. But the purpose of his letter is to provide her daughter, who misses her only immediate family member dearly, with some comfort. This is about as far as we can get into Daniel's head, because chapters aren't narrated from his perspective, as in the cases of Marie-Laure and Werner. In a world that is cruel to Marie-Laure, Daniel serves as a kind of salve—a figure whom we know will always be there for his daughter, no matter what. That's what makes his disappearance all the more unbearable.

Meanwhile, Marie-Laure, in Saint-Malo with her uncle, Etienne, and Madame Manec, hopes for good news and receives nothing but more hardship. Early in this passage, she "sits at the square table, a plate of cookies in front of her," and watches through the kitchen window "the wit wit wit of a barn swallow, footfalls on ramparts, halyards clinking against masts, hinges and chains creaking in the harbor. Ghosts. Germans."

Is one of those Germans Werner? Not literally, of course, though it wouldn't be a surprise to find Werner shipped to the front lines of Germany's battle in France, Poland, or elsewhere. But Marie-Laure's paranoia raises an interesting question: will our two protagonists ever meet? So far, Doerr has done a masterful job keeping sappiness out of his deeply emotional work. If he crosses Marie-Laure's path with Werner's, I'm confident he'll do so in a nuanced, carefully calibrated fashion. For example, I don't think the two will fall in love, get married, and live happily ever after, turning the complex storyline into a stale cliché.

We can only hope that Doerr will maintain the complexity—challenging and frustrating because such a style often lacks closure—that he established in the first half of the book.

Note: There is no "tab" function available in Blogger, so block quotes are in quotations to mark their distinction.