Book Review: "Franklin and Winston - An Intimate Protrait of an Epic Friendship" by Jon Meacham

Franklin and Winston: A Portrait of a Friendship (2003)

4 Stars out of 5

Jon Meacham

490 pages

Having recently read Doris Kearns Goodwin’s fine book on Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt (“No Ordinary Time: Franklin and EleanorRoosevelt, The Home Front in WWII”, 1995) I was captivated with her description of the closeness in the relationship between the US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. It was thus with some enthusiasm that I sought out and read Jon Meacham’s book on that very subject, “Franklin and Winston: “A Portrait of a Friendship” (2003). This was Meacham’s first book as an author, though his second actual published book (the first was as an editor). It is a remarkably clear and concise book written with apparent conviction in the character of the two men being profiled. Two men that most definitely stand up to Meacham’s comment: “…it does matter who is in power at critical points.”

FDR’s first meeting with Winston did not bode at all well for their future relationship: Winston had no memory of it, while FDR did not like what he saw in Winston’s brusque manner. It was at a party held in London, 1918. At the time, Winston was the former 1^st Lord of the Admiralty, while FDR was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. Even though they didn’t know it at the time, they had much in common: not just positions within each country’s navy, but as one might guess considering their occupations, great fascination in naval strategy and how it could be used in the defense of their countries; coupled with this was a similar thirst in both men for political power. They were also close to the same age (Winston was 43, FDR was 36), loved strong drink, tobacco, and both were filled to the brim with self-confidence and courage – twenty years later they would have ample opportunity to display these characteristics.

They renewed their stalled relationship in the autumn of 1939 when FDR wrote Winston to congratulate him on his re-appointment to the Admiralty. Winston had re-joined the Navy under Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain. This PM with his doomed strategy of trying to negotiate a lasting peace with Adolph Hitler did not care for Winston Churchill.  The problem Chamberlain had with Churchill was Churchill’s public enthusiasm for using the military to solve international disputes. Nevertheless, Chamberlain was clear-headed enough to see by September of that year that the English people needed a warrior, not a negotiator. Winston would shortly thereafter become PM and replace Chamberlain in May 1940.  Early in this period as PM, as the situation in Europe deteriorated further with the Nazis taking one country after another, Winston would devise a simple maxim: the only sure path to victory required getting the Americans into the war. He decided the needed tactic was to “woo” the American people with him and England as the suitor, and the Americans and FDR as the reluctant maiden.

Winston’s decision and actions taken in the “wooing” of FDR seemed in the context of Meacham’s book to often set Winston into a position of inferiority in the relationship between the two men. In some circumstances their relationship was as between two close families: they would spend 131 days together between 1939 and FDR’s death in the spring of 1945; but like families everywhere, they would have some very bad times as well. Their meetings together in the US would be amongst their closest as they spent various Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays celebrating simply (almost simply) as two close friends. I note it was “almost simply” as these gatherings were never just about the holidays: they were always meeting to formulate the needed plans to defeat Hitler.

Winston brought to these discussions a personal major lesson from history: the English defeat at Gallipoli in WWI. He had had a big role in the planning of that disastrous affair for the British and to a great degree it played in the back of his mind each time FDR, (Soviet Premier) Stalin and Winston discussed the long delayed invasion of France by the Allies. Stalin was fighting a brutal war with Hitler and pressed constantly for his two capitalist comrades to invade France in order to force Hitler to transfer some of his eastern troops to the western front and thus reduce the pressure on the Red Army. Winston fearing a repeat of the debacle at Gallipoli never seemed convinced that the Allies were truly ready to storm the beaches of France; he pushed first for a North African and then an Italian campaign. Despite the sympathetic manner in which Meacham presents these discussions, it frankly seems as if Winston was stalling; it certainly seemed so to Stalin. FDR in the meanwhile backed Winston on each of the two campaigns that came before Normandy, but his position in backing Winston never seemed fully whole hearted to Winston. Meacham on the other hand notes that it almost certainly was the right decision to delay the invasion to help up Allied forces in terms of materiel and troop experience. That being said, it still seemed as if the special two-way relationship between FDR and Winston was breaking down to some extent. It most definitely never became a solid three-way relationship with Stalin as an equal emotional partner. The special nature of the two-way bond changed in order to let Stalin into the relationship, and this fundamental change was overtly bothersome to Winston; meanwhile, FDR seemed oblivious to these effects.

This situation started to seriously deteriorate during the conference in Tehran in 1943 and then worsen still more in Yalta in late early 1945. The Tehran conference is especially instructive. During this meeting, FDR decided he wanted a one on one with Stalin. His reasons are far from clear, but Meacham notes that like Winston he may have felt he could gain control of any situation if he could only form a relationship with the person with whom he was negotiating; and it would appear that Winston’s strong personality and similar desire to control the conversation was disruptive to FDR’s technique. In any event, FDR’s attempts to speak to Stalin alone while not completely hidden from Winston were still done without Winston’s full consent. It left Winston deeply hurt. This situation was badly exacerbated during at least one dinner conversation where FDR was bantering with Stalin and doing so at Winston’s expense. It worked (for FDR) to the extent that Stalin ultimately would erupt in laughter, but failed to some degree as Winston would leave the table deeply chagrined; likely feeling betrayed. The irony of this whole episode is that the take-away from these exchanges between the three was that both Winston and FDR felt they understood and could control Stalin – Eastern European history has shown that nothing could have been further from the truth.

Late in 1943, their relationship would recover from the emotional depths of Tehran as both the Churchill and Roosevelt clans would meet again without Stalin, this time in Quebec during the holidays. During these festivities new highs and lows would occur. Their relationship would regain its feet and both would feel that this period was one of the happiest of their lives. The lows (for Winston at least) would occur when he tried once again to delay the pending May invasion at Normandy (it was ultimately deferred to 5Jun, and then again to 6Jun due to weather). Winston would fail in his quixotic quest, and would again in July when he would try to divert some of the forces in France to another fight the British were waging in the Mediterranean. Winston was endlessly convinced of the wrongness in FDR’s comment that the “shortest route to Berlin was a straight line” (from Normandy); it seems almost like a monomania. He just never truly gave up on the idea of not going through France.

Poor Winston was to have one more rough meeting with Stalin and FDR; this one in Yalta in early 1945. The meeting could not have had more importance: the shape of the new world order following WWII. In Yalta as in Tehran, FDR would seek out private meetings with Stalin. The difference this time is that there may have been more to his reasons than a tactical sense he could out-maneuver Stalin better singly than with Winston present. This time there was publically stated evidence from multiple occasions of FDR’s growing impatience with Winston’s verbosity. FDR would in the presence of his own staff (and at least one occasion with a lieutenant from Winston’s staff) make cutting remarks about Winston’s long speeches and his continued opposition to the Normandy invasion plan. While these comments were generally about how wordy Winston could get, there was also evidence of a divide between the two men that was defined by how each viewed Stalin. It is certain that both saw the threat (Winston perhaps more clearly than FDR), but being the type of man that each of them were, they possibly also felt they each saw it the more clearly. However, Meacham adds a second idea: that due to his rapidly failing health, FDR was no longer physically the man that he once was; and with this thought, came an increasing personal sense that he had to win every argument to prove that he was still on top of his game. Whatever the reason, the once robust friendship between the two men was suffering as the war drew to a close.

In the two examples of the Tehran and Yalta conferences, Meacham amply demonstrates his strength as a writer of historical narratives. Via his research coupled with his astute analysis of FDR and Winston’s decisions and their consequences, the reader gets a very clear idea of not just what took place but also gets a fairly good sense of the thoughts and passions that ran through the primary actors in these stories. For example, Meacham’s descriptions of the emotional Winston (“perfectly content to cry in public”) and the publically cold FDR (Truman: “the coldest man I ever met”) leads the reader to wonder at how with these personality differences they could become allies, let alone such close friends. Meacham notes that Winston as the son of an Englishman and an American woman may have brought something unique to the situation in terms of personal history; that he clearly had an emotional tie to the American people that was tighter than most English politicians; and being the strategist that he was, he could see the distinct advantage in cultivating a close relationship to FDR as the leader of the American people. But for me, it still begs the question, was there something else that brought these two men so close? Had WWII not intervened, would they have become friends at all? It is to me a little frustrating that Meacham does not really ask this question, or the follow-up question: do great men arise in time of need, or do the events shape men into great men?

The origin of Great Men/Great Leaders is a subject really worth discussing further and one I think about a lot. Examples of such men can readily be found by reading about certain American presidents (Washington, Lincoln, Wilson, and FDR in particular).  While it is certainly true that learning about such Great Men of American history in the context of their individual times of war may leave one awed at what each of these men did in terms of preparing our country for war and in prosecuting the war, it always for me leads to the real question: where do such men come from? And in the case of Winston and FDR, did their close (and productive) friendship also arise as a result from the same forces (i.e. the demands of WWII)? These may well be a kind of question that does not have a solid, generally true answer. In the case of FDR and Winston Churchill though, there can be no question of their individual greatness, the value of their partnership during WWII, and the world’s considerable benefit derived from that relationship.

“Franklin and Winston: A Portrait of a Friendship” is an excellent companion piece to the aforementioned Goodwin book on the Roosevelts during WWII. While she does an excellent job of digging deep into how people’s personalities can play critical roles in world events, Meacham’s book and style brings needed content and analysis. Meacham’s utilization of heretofore un-accessed letters from Pamela Churchill Randolph (married to Winston’s son during WWII) and interviews with many of those still living that observed the interaction between Winston and FDR bring useful insight and authenticity to the subject material. More critically though, Meacham brings his careful eye to both the events and the two principals’ histories and behavior (e.g. one of my favorite bon mots: “Governing was what Churchills and Roosevelts did”). These two men may well have “loved to hear their own voices”, and their relationship may have had its low points, but their separate insistence of being involved in all strategic decisions during the war, and their use of a strong hand in running the military would be essential elements in their ultimate success. Such a team combination of skills, attitudes and training would combine in these two men to bring out their greatness in leading their countries over the fascists of WWII.

This is a book worth reading in order to better understand the events of WWII and also to gain some insight into the minds of two men that helped shaped the course of the 20^th century.

Book Review: "No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II"

No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II (1994)

5 Stars out of 5

Doris Kearns Goodwin

759 pages

Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Pulitzer Prize winning book “No Ordinary Time” describes the war years of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. Goodwin begins her chronicle in May of 1940 and largely concludes it in April 1945 after FDR’s death from a cerebral hemorrhage. Goodwin relies on extensive interviews with the people that knew the pair as well as an exhaustive review of their private correspondence and other key secondary historical sources. “No Ordinary Time” is not in the definitive biography category, but it is a good example of the style that Goodwin has also brought to her biographies of Theodore Roosevelt/William Howard Taft and her study of Abraham Lincoln and his cabinet. In each of these books, Goodwin’s research and style of writing lend her books both great historicity and a sense of personal connection to her subject material.

For me, the best part of “No Ordinary Time” is the section devoted to 1940. Having grown up in the sixties, I have had an inborn sense that America was always ready and willing to defend herself; in fact, ready to defend any country or group of people that needed defending from the tyrants of the world. To be sure, there is considerable naiveté in such a belief. Like any country, the US will always ensure that her needs are first being met whenever she ventures into war. But the willingness to intervene or the actual lack thereof were striking features of the period leading up to WWII and indeed continued well into the war as FDR and his advisors actively chose not to defend the rights of Americans of Japanese extraction, or only reluctantly chose to move to defend the rights of Black Americans, and in awful fact chose not to take certain actions to reduce the carnage experienced by the Jews of Europe.

Goodwin spends some little time explaining the personal histories of FDR and ER. He was the only and thoroughly adored child of a wealthy couple made up of an aged father and doting, younger mother. The death of FDR’s father and the now enhanced attention his mother could now foist on him helped create a remarkably secure but terribly secretive (as regards his inner life) adolescent, and in time adult. ER’s situation could not have been more different. She grew up in a loving and nearly equally prosperous family as her fifth-cousin FDR, but unfortunately for her, also in the home of an alcoholic father – one who would die and leave his family in some fiscal and emotional straits. Fortunately for ER, her uncle, the older brother to her unfortunate father was Theodore Roosevelt. TR took an active interest in the family of his younger brother and did make various attempts to help ER’s family situation. But like FDR, the situation of her youth, the cauldron from which she would arise shaped ER just as surely as FDR’s far more secure childhood shaped his. ER would grow with an unquenchable desire to intervene on the behalf of the less fortunate, but quite likely just as insecure in her most intimate relationships as FDR was secure in all of his. It is easy to over generalize but based on Goodwin’s recitation of the events leading to the adulthood of FDR and ER, it is tempting to draw some conclusions about their remarkable and troubled marital union.

Goodwin uses a layered approach to her biographies wherein she begins a description of (say) the events of May 1940 when Hitler is on the very cusp of waging a devastating aerial bombardment of England and how and why FDR and ER would respond to both the international events in FDR’s case or the plight of the American Negro in ER’s case. Having narrated an historical record for both FDR and ER, she uses inference and occasionally more direct explanation for their action. Why was FDR so driven to help England and his close friend Winston Churchill; why was ER as equally driven to improve the situation for America’s Negros (I use the term the Goodwin has chosen and presumably the times chose to use), or the mine workers, or union members, or enlisted men, or and the list is a very long one of Americans not well served by the wealthy and powerful.

As noted above, I found the efforts made by America and FDR to first move from a position of absolute unpreparedness to become the “Arsenal of Democracy”, to move from strict isolationism to waging wars over two oceans, to move from being a bystander to world events to being a shaper of world events. Goodwin narrates a long involved tale that describes the various legal and legislative machinations made by FDR when he set up Lend Lease to first help England and later the USSR and Joseph Stalin. Added to the considerable difficulties FDR faced in moving a very recalcitrant congress to establish the means to help these two erstwhile allies, he also faced immense hurdles in turning American’s peacetime manufacturing energies into wartime powerhouses: making tanks and airplanes instead of cars, making gunpowder instead of ceramics, and making transport ships at a rate faster than the German U-boats could sink them – something they did not do very well until 1942. However, by 1943 America was supplying her own military and that of the English and the Russians, and doing it at a pace that was several factors higher than the early targets for planes, tanks, ships and armament that were initially thought to be impossible to achieve. Goodwin goes to great lengths to demonstrate just how integral FDR’s vision and most importantly his leadership went into creating this powerful force for good.

At the same time, ER continued her work as America’s conscience. Prior to the outbreak of war and following the near catastrophic (in a marital sense) discovery by ER of FDR’s romantic relationship with Lucy Mercer (ironically one of ER’s aides), ER had sought to find her own way; a way that supported FDR but was in many ways independent of FDR. Throughout their marriage, ER protested time and again her love for FDR, but her actions clearly show her first priority was a passionate desire to be busy; to be busy working tirelessly helping others. ER travelled the US in the years prior to WWII always acting as the eyes and ears for a president limited by his job requirements and physical condition. Their dinners on the evenings of her returns to DC appear to have been one half familial reunions, one half business meetings. According to Goodwin, this type of life was essential to keeping FDR more fully informed of the effects of his social legislation, was essential to ER’s desperate need to help the downtrodden, but perhaps most of all, critically important to ER’s sense of self. On those occasions when events conspired to force her into a traditional First Lady role, she chafed; on the many other occasions when she could break free and do some good, she bloomed.

Thus when WWII dawned in Europe and even more so following 7December1941 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and forced America to finally enter the war as more than an arms merchant, ER was very ill prepared for the second place (or worse) position the previous decade’s social programs had to take. FDR was overwhelmingly preoccupied with conducting the war, and after a long day of having done so, was rarely prepared to face ER at dinner and her constant push for the rights of Black America, of Americans of Japanese descent, of housing for workers, of European Jew immigration to America, and of many other “rights of man” types of issues. Worse for ER and her goals was the simple fact that the level of racism in 1940’s America would startle an American in 2015. Racism was rampant in the government and the military. The mere concept of equal protection under the law for Black Americans in the Navy, for example, was so non-existent, the longest battle fought during the years of 1940 to 1943 was whether Black sailors could perform any job outside of the mess hall. In Detroit as the burgeoning population of workers swelled to work in the arms industry based there, fights over housing became violent and always seemed to have a racial component. Americans in the 40’s not only did not have any sense of equal protection, they did not seem to think it was ever even a question; it was simply natural that WASP rights superseded all others – there was never any question of this basic fact. And when ER as she so often did in her daily newspaper column called for recognition of such rights, she would receive letters of startlingly insensitivity telling her she was a troublemaker, the source of the various riots over the denial of such rights, and that she really should just go home and take care of FDR as any good wife would. Needless to say, ER did not do any such thing.

The war years for FDR and ER were difficult years for them as a couple, for ER’s passionate pursuit of rights for all Americans, and for FDR’s physical health. According to Goodwin, by mid-1944 FDR’s health was in a dangerous decline. America and her allies had both the Japanese and Germans in retreat, but the path for FDR to help get them there had ruined his health. He suffered from extremely high blood pressure, his heart was greatly enlarged, and his strength was failing. Now was the time, if ever she was going to do so, that ER should at the very least curtail her activities and spin more time with a man that desperately needed such companionship. But that was not in her nature; she did not seem to see the need in his eyes and she certainly never changed her behavior to meet his needs. Instead, their daughter Anna who had being filling the role of substitute First Lady for nearly a year met her father’s request to arrange an reunion with FDR’s old flame, Lucy Mercer. This relationship continued up to the day of FDR’s death. It was an unfortunate position to place Anna, and yet was a strange kind of symbol for the unusual partnership between FDR and ER. That someone that loved them both, which wanted to help them both was forced to try and find a middle way to please them both at the very end of their marriage.

It’s hard to read “No Ordinary Time” and not be simultaneously impressed and disappointed in ER and FDR. They were both people of towering abilities, leadership and vision, and yet so very human. FDR couldn’t not flirt or worse with a significant number of women that came into his life, while ER could hardly extend the love she wrote of so often in her letters to FDR or her children. His extroverted, overly self-confident pursuit of any relationship he wanted stood in stark contrast to her constant withdrawal into the introvert’s private seclusion any time she felt over-whelmed by events. And yet, between the two of them, it is impossible to find any couple in American history that have done even half as much as the two of them did during the war years of WWII. Goodwin’s book won’t tell the reader too much about the war at the front, but it will tell you a lot about two very gifted people and what they accomplished for America. This book is a must read.

Movie Review: Unbroken

Unbroken (2014)

Three Stars out of Five

PG-13

Louis Zamperini: Jack O’Connell

Phil Lewis: Domhnall Gleeson

Cpl/Sgt Matsuhiro “Bird” Watanabe: Miyavi

Director: Angelina Jolie

Writers: Joel and Ethan Coen (re-write), Richard LaGravenese and William Nicholson (first draft); book: Laura Hillenbrand

Cinematography: Roger Deakins

As an adult male (and quite often as a youth), I must admit, I have fantasized seeing myself in any number of situations wherein I would prove as heroic as the real-life Louis Zamperini. Why this man is not more often held up to modern America as a hero; a hero anyone would want to emulate, is a small mystery to me. Here is a man who grew up with his Italian immigrant family in Torrance California during the depression. As a juvenile, he was frequently in trouble with the law; but via the intervention of his older brother, he soon found himself saved in a sense via his remarkable abilities as a runner; abilities that allowed him to excel at the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany. By WWII, Zamperini had become part of the American war effort by working as a B-24 bombardier in the Pacific. At one point in 1943 his plane was forced down due to mechanical problems; he then spent 47 days at sea on an open raft. His trials, as bad as they were on the raft, were only just beginning. He and his plane’s pilot Phil were found (rescued really seems the wrong term) by a Japanese warship. “Zamp” finished the war in three different POW camps subject to the extreme cruelty of his camp commandant. He survived and forgave his captors. Most can only dream of such heroics.

This compelling story was told in book-form (2010) by Laura Hillenbrand. In 2014, director Angelina Jolie brought an adaptation by Joel and Ethan Coen, Richard LaGravenese and William Nicholson to the silver screen. Zamperini’s story is indeed inspiring, but the movie is somewhat less so. There is little to no character development and almost zero emotional connection to the viewer during the last third of the movie. The movie’s final section (the time in the POW camps) seems almost like a detached documentary. The movie starts more promisingly with interior scenes depicting a cramped B-24 while it is under attack and then again later in the movie while Zamperini is adrift, lost at sea. I found the opening sequence of a fleet of American bombers coming towards the viewer out of a crystal blue sky to be inspiring, to create a sense of pride in what America and men like Zamperini did in WWII. Moments later when the plane is under attack by anti-aircraft guns from the Japanese-held island of Nauru and by its defending fleet of fighters, the viewer gets a visceral feeling of how tight the quarters were in such a bomber. And more to the point, a sense of just how close to death, each member of that plane’s flight crew was to death.

Similar reactions were felt by me during the 47 days Zamperini spent with Phil and Mac (who died after 33 days in the raft). Initially, Mac was held up as a problem, but as a result of their ordeals together and possibly through Zamperini’s positive influence, Mac becomes a real member of their little raft-crew. But like so many other aspects of this movie, when Mac does die, there is little emotion felt by the viewer. The scenes on the raft that do work though, work very well. There is again a sense like that felt on the plane, though in this case the almost agoraphobic sense of the ocean’s vastness versus the claustrophobic interior of the plane. And in these scenes, rather than the impersonal forces of death in the air coming from the flak and the enemy Zero’s, this time it is from the uncaring and dispassionate ocean. Zamperini and his fellows are shown gradually dying from the effects of exposure, hunger and dehydration. In these scenes, there can be little more emotion from the characters than those shown of exhaustion and the growing acceptance of their pending deaths. Jolie and her writers are indeed able to capture both the physical and emotional changes overtaking the three men on the raft. Like the early scenes in the B-24 under attack, the simple emotions related to survival and fear are well displayed.

The problems with the movie don’t occur until the final third of the movie when Zamperini reaches the first of two POW camps shown in the movie’s version of his trials. That Zamperini faces very real physical danger is amply shown. Upon arriving in the camp he quickly earns the antipathy of the Camp Commander, Cpl. Watanabe (aka The Bird). It is repeatedly shown that Watanabe is one of those staples of prison movies wherein the guard or warden is a psychopath. Why Watanabe is so fixated on Zamperini is largely unclear; is it due to Zamperini’s Olympic athlete status, is it due to Zamperini’s attitude towards Watanabe, or what – it is not clear. What is clear is that Watanabe will make Zamperini’s life miserable and that the latter will live on the edge of death for almost two years as Watanabe takes him right up to the point of execution before backing away. Physical danger, yes, but what is going on in Zamperini’s mind? Ably portrayed by up and coming Hollywood star Jack O’Connell, the viewer is simply not exposed to much in the way of the internal turmoil felt by Zamperini or of the emotions driving Watanabe. There are two scenes that give a hint for each: Zamperini’s reaction to making a radio broadcast from Tokyo aimed at his mother, and a late scene showing a photograph of a presumed childish Watanabe standing by his uniformed father. Was Watanabe trying and failing to impress his father as a prison warden, was he as an enlisted man (refused officer status in Japan’s army) trying to live up to his failed attempt to become a commissioned officer by beating Zamperini and the other prisoners – maybe, but it is far from clear. And was Zamperini suffering internally as he so briefly showed following the radio broadcast – again, it is not clear. It is close to impossible to believe that no matter how brave and resilient the real Zamperini was, that he was not facing his own feelings of failure and desperation. These ambiguities were the biggest flaw with the movie, and ultimately why it was not a critical success (it was largely a commercial success) in my opinion.

As Jolie’s second directorial effort it shows promise for her vision with respect to the physicality of events, but offers areas of improvement when it comes to visualizing the internal landscape of her characters.  She almost seems to rely too heavily on the artistic vision of her cinematographer, Roger Deakins. Consider again the opening scene of the American bombers coming out of the clouds and a setting sun; beautiful and inspiring, but did this vision (as great as an opening scene as it was) drive Jolie’s vision for the movie? Was she so caught up in creating a paean to Zamperini, a man she clearly admires, that she overlooked the importance of telling his story in such a manner that his moments of weakness and doubt were clearer; and in being more clear to the viewer, that much more compelling a vision of a hero?

The movie is worth seeing: the story is one for all Americans to know, the cinematography is beautiful and inspiring, and the acting is very professional. I do recommend it, however weakly due to the lack of emotional contact.

Book Review: All the Light We Cannot See

All the Light We Cannot See (2014)

Four Stars out of Five

Anthony Doerr

Anthony Doerr has written two full length novels of fiction and two more of short stories. “All the Light We Cannot See” is his second novel; written ten years after his first novel “About Grace”. It was worth the wait for Doerr and readers alike. “All the Light We Cannot See” was listed number one on the NY Times Best 10 Books of 2014, was runner-up for the National Book Award, and did win the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. It is told for the most part in two first person story arcs in the era leading up to and through WWII: the adolescent and blind Marie-Laure in France, and the slightly older Werner Pfennig in Germany. The novel seems to suggest the oft-told tale of young love, but there is in fact much more to this story.

Marie-Laure lives in Paris with her locksmith papa, M. LeBlanc. He works at the National Museum where he often brings Marie-Laure. She went blind at the age of six. While at the Museum, she learns to love sea shells through the influence of a kindly researcher. She learns from her father an enduring love and patience. He spends much of his spare time helping her learn to cope with her new state of blindness. His techniques include making for her a scale model of their Parisian neighborhood and to sharpen her mind, he makes small wooden puzzle boxes. At the same time, in Zollverein Germany, Werner and his younger sister Jutta are adjusting to life as orphans. They live in the Children’s Home; a home run by a kindly, French- and German-speaking matron. During these early years, it is revealed that Werner has an unnaturally high aptitude for fixing radios, and that his sister has one for empathy.

Marie-Laure flees Paris with her father in 1940 as the Germans approach. Unknown to Marie-Laure, her father carries a precious diamond called the Sea of Flames. The museum’s intent is to get the diamond out of Paris and away from the onrushing German army. Marie-Laure and her father end up in the coastal town of Saint Malo, where he builds for her another scale model of their new home town. Werner has joined a school for the gifted or well-connected. He again demonstrates his abilities, this time to the local engineering professor. He also makes a friend with the far too compassionate Frederick, an avid birder. Werner has a first-hand observation of how a movement of bullies (i.e. the Nazis) disposes of such people as Frederick. Werner eventually joins a small detachment within the Wehrmacht that is tasked with using his radio skills to track down illegal radio broadcasts. His assignments eventually bring him to Saint Malo and into contact with Marie-Laure, and into contact with Sergeant-Major Von Rumpel. Von Rumpel is on a personal quest to track down the Sea of Flames.

The structure of the novel is very current in its frequent use of fragmentary sentence structure and parallel story lines. It is a little unusual in the brevity of the various chapters. Until the later parts of the novel are reached, the chapters are almost always less than two pages long. This allows the reader a sense of rapid movement through the lives of the various actors in the drama. It also gives a sense of the simultaneity of the events. What is Werner doing as Marie-Laure taps with her cane down some boulevard in Paris; this quick chapter structure helps give that understanding. I cannot personally understand the use of fragmentary sentences to tell a story, but again it seems like it is the intent of Doerr to use this style to help propel the book rapidly forward. The story telling is also told with a number of flashbacks. There are sequences in August of 1944 where Von Rumpel is closing in on Marie-Laure while Werner and his colleague Volkheimer are trapped in a basement that are intercut with scenes earlier in the war. The interleaving of these story lines helps to build dramatic tension and to increase interest in Marie-Laure’s and Werner’s backstories.

Another note on the structure of this novel requires mentioning, and that is the apparent deep understanding Doerr has of certain areas of knowledge. Werner’s story allows the reader a sense of how radios function, while Marie-Laure’s story gives the same reader a sense of Mollusca and the wide variety of snails that a blind girl might find so interesting. Doerr also employs passages from Jules Verne’s “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” to create a fictional world within Marie-Laure’s world. These passages help to build understanding for the life of a young blind girl caught up in the throes of war.

But what about the deeper meanings that might lie beneath the story of Werner and Marie-Laure; her story seems fairly straightforward: a young girl, dependent on the kindness and love of those that know her. Her personal development does not contain any surprises or psychological barriers. She simply must survive the war, find her father, and get back to Paris. Werner on the other hand does have some psychological hurdles to leap. Early in his life, he destroys a radio that meant everything to his sister (a sister that is held up in the novel as one who does care about the welfare of others – be they German or not); he did this to protect her from the authorities, but also because Werner always finds it easier to go with the flow than to fight for what he believes in. Time and again, Werner makes similar choices: when Frederick is beaten or when the various partisans he is hunting prove to be merely people trying to live their lives and not the desperate and vicious enemies he expected. Werner slowly does come to the conclusion that he has been making wrong choices, and finally does something for someone else to demonstrate the point. He also finally does something for himself near end of the war to atone for his errors.

“All the Light We Cannot See” has an elegiac ending that suggests an explanation for the title. That is to say, the lives, the souls lost to the air, are like light that cannot be seen. It suggests also in the actions of Werner an explanation why decent, intelligent Germans became caught up in the one of the worst horrors ever perpetuated by Man. Perhaps poor blind and reactive Marie-Laure is a stand-in for the situation France found herself in during WWII. But for me, the best parts and aspects of this book are that it gives a fairly unvarnished view of life during wartime: the starvation, disease, helplessness of most people, the blind loyalty of the various armies involved. There is no sense of the flag-waving enthusiasm often seen in war stories. Instead, there is just a quiet desperation felt by almost everyone in this story coupled with a desire to get back to a normal, non-war time life. And of course, there is also that sense of all those lives lost during this awful war, those children, young adults, and families torn apart forever. The book is not written in a highly emotional tone, but after reading it, it is unlikely the typical reader could walk away from it without feeling an intense emotional pain at all that loss.