I was speaking with someone at church before Christmas about reading, admitting that I hardly ever read non-fiction, and she recommended a few books for me. Book recommendations are right up there with blind dates in my opinion – if you refuse them you imply you don’t trust the recommender, but accept and you have all the anticipation of absolutely hating it, and the awkwardness of letting the recommender know your opinion of their tastes. I had just finished Elinor Oliphant is Perfectly Fine, based on a coworker’s glowing review (after getting only halfway through that potato-peel society book, suggested to me by another co-worker), so I was a bit wary of yet another promise of “it’s just delightful.” But this colleague said the two things that make any recommendation irresistible: one, that the book used words beautifully, to the extant you would want to go back and read certain passages over again; and two, that there were places in the book that were cruder than she would wish but – it was grudgingly admitted – they made sense in context. Strangely it’s the latter comment that means the most. It gives me the freedom to come back and say “it ended up being too crude for me,” if I just can’t get through it. It gives me permission to be a prude, when normally that’s something I have to hide or make excuses for. It also means that there will be no nasty surprises. There may be nasty things, but at least they won’t be a surprise. Yes. I like my fiction with twists, not trapdoors.

So I put a hold on All the Light You cannot See, by Anthony Doerr, and waited. It finally came in just before new years, but I wasn’t able to pick it up until Saturday morning. And then I had bread to bake, and laundry to do, and all in all I didn’t get it started until after 3. You can probably guessed what happened next. Yes, Reader, I finished it. And, because this is one of the things I want to grow in, I’m writing up a little impression for it. Not a review, because I’m bad at those, but a “thoughts and take aways.”

And of course, the first thought is that it was beautifully written. The words painted a vivid picture, a real 3-D world that called for us to step into it. Now I want to go to France and tour Saint Malo. I want to go through the exhibits in Paris’ muesem. To breath the salty air of the one and eat the food of the other. Even though one of the characters – the one who, really, shows us the most – is blind, the book has a deep impression of color. Bright, bold, subtle, everyday, extravagant colors. Perhaps the continual use of texture in descriptions gives the colors something to hold onto, like sauce on ridged pasta. But it’s not just the colors, the format of the book also was masterful. The book is divided into time periods instead of chapters – some lasting weeks, some merely lasting days. Inside each period the narrators trade back and forth, like a tide, in short views, sometimes no longer than a half page. Just as the narrators’ experiences weave back and forth, so do the time periods: going forward almost to the end, then back to the beginning, skipping ahead a month, falling back a week; until finally narrators and tenses meet. The format – meaning the words and construction – of this book is wonderful. It sometimes feels like there are so many stories to be told, we’re all rushing to get them down on paper as fast as possible and don’t have time to pretty them up. This slow, intentional building of a story shines as a hopeful gem of craftsmanship.

Which is a contrast with its content. Because All the Light you Cannot See is about the second world war. The beginning, the middle, the end. The deceptions, the disruptions, the deaths. So many kinds of death. It’s about loss and living. About denial and realization; knowledge and learning; drive and disillusionment. This book didn’t leave me feeling awful to be a human, it left me feeling awful because I am human. No flaw in our nature went unexposed. Greed? Cowardice? Complacency? All are displayed by the author’s pen – Doerr doesn’t have to make them up, only puts down what is there. There is no shadow large enough to hide the evil that humans are capable of. And, honestly, the book doesn’t leave one with a hopeful, humanistic “but we can overcome our nature” kind of feeling. Just as the beauty shown was everyday, so was the grossest misuse of power, love, intelligence. The impression I’m left with is “the only beauty we have in us as human beings is brought forth in delighting in the beauty of nature – the beauty of this wonderful, complicated, world.” This isn’t something the book ever says, you understand, it is only the conclusion I’ve reached after reading it. If I were in college, that would be the essay I’d want to write. Even now, it’s tempting. Naturally, no one reads in a vacuum, but there is so much in the book that supports this feeling – I would love to discuss it with someone who had a different impression of it!

Of course, because I pulled an all nighter for this one, my memory of it is already a bit misty, like a dream. I really should go back and reread it, but the subject matter is not the kind of thing that invites return trips. Not because of the forementioned crudeness (which was an occasional thing in the latter half of the book, and fairly easily skipped), but the terrible depth of evil. Of blatant disregard for other people, of actual joy in using and hurting anyone perceived as weaker than ones-self. Of our willingness to close our eyes. . . . Once you’re out of it you feel free, like the mummy has finally been vanquished, the labyrinth escaped, the long night over. How could you go back? We cannot hide the darkness – ought not, maybe – but we can turn resolutely from it and run, even as it breaths down our backs and tangles around our ankles.