LOL…I don’t think I would care for a Romancing the Stone-style serial!
@cartera45, I liked the image of you listening to All the Light We Cannot See at night in the dark. Seems like a great way to experience the book.
I searched German amazon to read some reviews, curious how the book is received in Germany. ( only 5 reviews- 4 5star and one 1star), if anyone knows how to locate this info, I’m interested.
Stumbled across this link - two 17 year olds are interviewed about their life during significant events in Germany. Spanning 100 years1914-2014
Unlike your relatives, Mary, Deiter. Was very proud of the German youth group, following his fathers footsteps.
http://www.dw.de/top-stories/when-we-were-17-youth-at-the-crossroads/s-101113
The small number of reviews on German amazon would seem to indicate that the book was not a hit over there. The one-star review on German amazon says that the book is full of stereotypes, is like a fairy tale, and the author has no idea about German life.
Note: I have not read the book. I have been following this thread because the book seems so beloved by so many people, and I was curious.
I am the type of reader that authors of historical fiction probably love: I don’t fact-check. Consequently, I never hyperventilate! 
However, the review posted by NJTM made me curious, so I decided to look up at least one fact. I found this:
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/germans-bomb-paris
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/40927084
Another lurker here. I read the book shortly after its publication in May. I really liked it and want to read it again at some point. I remember enough that I enjoy your posts but not enough to add my two cents. I think my reread will come sooner rather than later though.
Waving at all the CC Book Club discussion regulars. :-h I’m not at all surprised to find you here.
Happy new year Ignatius (waving back at ya ), NJTM and everyone else, too, especially mary13
NjTM, I actually put that one star German review into google translate.He/ she did say don’t read it.
In this interview Doerr, admits to the fairy tale comparison-
http://therumpus.net/2014/05/the-rumpus-interview-with-anthony-doerr/
Caraid- My first thought when Marie gave Werner the key was that she was giving him a sanctuary, a safe place to hide.
I wonder-but with tides flooding the cave, it wouldn’t be a place to hide for long.
Did anyone think of the ending of American Beauty, when Frederick’s days are spent watching bags blow in the wind??? Page 521- " Frederick spends most of his days on his back patio and watches the wind drive discarded plastic bags across the lot. Sometimes they fly high Into the air a fly unpredictable loops, before catching on the branches or disappearing from view"
Like watching birds.
It seemed like such a strange description, I thought it a nod to American Beauty-
Here - when the film maker teen speaks about “knowing there was an entire life behind things” - " that there was a benevolent force, and to not be afraid, ever "
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tB0th8vNLxo <:-P
^ You’re right, Mary. Paris was bombed a little bit, once. I figured that out myself and deleted the quote I posted by the reviewer who said Doerr was mistaken about that. 
^ NJTM, I think your deletion cross-posted with my response, but the historical info referenced in your original post actually led me to a lot of interesting WWII sites. I keep thinking of the line from the book quoted earlier, “Every hour…someone for whom the war was memory falls out of the world.” My late father fought for the Allies, my late father-in-law for the Axis. I’ll bet that for every story they told me, there are a dozen that they didn’t.
SJCM, thanks for finding Doerr’s comments on the fairy tale analogy. It’s woven throughout the book, beginning for Werner with “A world of berries and carrot peels and Frau Elena’s fairy tales” (p. 389), and for Marie-Laure with the story of the Prince and the blue stone told by the museum guide. The contrast between the harsh lives of the characters and the fairy tales they are drawn to is also reflected in the novel’s references to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea:
The words are echoed later when Von Rumpel says to the mineralogist, “A man of science, and yet you believe the myths. You believe in the might of reason, but you also believe in fairy tales” (p. 178).
Actually, I feel a little funny over here, like I’m being unfaithful. It doesn’t mean anything, I swear! It’s not you, it’s me!
I thought of “American Beauty,” too, but there was something else it reminded me of…drove me nuts and finally it came to me – a passage in Colum McCann’s *Let the Great World Spin/i: “Plastic bags caught on the gusts of summer wind…The bags often stayed up in one place, as if they were contemplating the whole gray scene, and then would take a sudden dip, a polite curtsy, and away.”
I remember because McCann got some grief from reviewers for the anachronism. Let the Great World Spin is set in 1974 and plastic grocery bags were not introduced into the U.S. until 1977, and not ubiquitous until the mid-1980s. The “Frederick” chapter of All the Light We Cannot See is also set in 1974; however, plastic grocery bags were in common use earlier in Europe than in the U.S. (Still, Doerr is probably pushing it.)
The is a short interview with Doerr in today’s NYT. More about him than the book although it does open with his explaination of how he approaches his writing.
H is beginning it now.
I am reading “Andrew’s Brian” by Doctorow. A fun fast read.
oregon101- I read that short interview and surprised to read that Doerr was now reading joseph Campbell- I just started reading " Myths to Live By- by Campbell- coincidence !!!
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/04/opinion/sunday/anthony-doerr.htm
And, Mary13 - seriously good memory. I’m glad you also, thought of American beauty. Kudos on remembering the “bag” issue with Let the Great World Spin. impressive.
Also, Mary you commented ( and others ) that you didn’t care for the ending chapters, being thrust into the present day. I agree it was jarring, after Ww2 chapters.
The scene with the grandson and the computer games, made me think about how we conduct warfare now.
Drones, operated from people in darkened rooms in Nevada.
And, the horrors of war, still going on, at this moment.
The US paid a company of psychologists 80 million to torture prisoners,held off shore.
Sorry to be a Debbie downer, but it was that final chapter, as unsettling as it seemed in the book, which made me realize just how short one person’s life span is, and what a speck we are in the cosmic scheme of things.
“so it goes…”
SJCM, I also have been thinking about the way we live and then we die and what a speck we are.
I would have appreciated the ending chapters far more if there had been indication that the characters had shared their stories with each other and thus found a common strain of humanity between them. Not the telling but just that they had an opportunity to talk to another person about their experiences.
I would have liked Jutta to have kept in light contact with Marie as her last connection to her brother. I felt it unfair that Marie did not tell Jutta that he had saved her life. It would have allowed Jutta to know that he was unchanged deep inside and given her comfort.
This is encouraging-the government and large companies, and the Catholic Church are pushing back against Pegid-
anti Islamic group in Germany ( right wing conservative anti immigrants group) which has been growing fast and holding large demonstrations. Pegida is an umbrella group attracting new nazis, too.
Cologne Cathedral lights went black, as statement against Pegida.
Marie is caught off-guard by Jutta’s visit, but she tells her to leave her address, so that she can mail Jutta the recording of her grandfather. I like to imagine that once Marie-Laure has time to reflect, she will also give Jutta the details of her experience with Werner.
Yet I think the novel rises above that feeling of melancholy by telling a story where one “speck” (Werner) finds and saves another (Marie-Laure) against overwhelming odds. I guess what I took away from the novel is that in the grand scheme of things, our lives may be insignificant, but our interactions with other human beings are not. What we say and do matters.
Much of the writing in the book is lovely, and emphasizes the striking beauty of small things that emerge from vast ones—be it the shells that Marie-Laure takes from the ocean and lines up on her windowsill or something that stands out in the sky: “The moon sets and the eastern sky lightens, the hem of night pulling away, taking stars with it one by one until only two are left. Vega, maybe. Or Venus. He never learned” (p. 202). I saw Werner and Marie-Laure in the same way—they brighten the world briefly by rescuing each other amid the vast and overwhelming chaos of world war.
^ lovely post mary13
You know the story about the man who walked along the beach, which is covered with starfish.
As he walks along he picks one up and throws it into the sea.
“Why bother " said a friend.
" because it makes. All the difference to the ones thrown in”
This book made me think of all the starfish left on the beach
Wonderful words of wisdom to live by.
I, also, assumed Jutta and Marie would become friendly. Oregon101, nicely stated " it would comfort Jutta to know that Werner did not change".
Was anyone else disappointed with the handling of Frederick?
Clever to have Werner send him a page from a copy of Audubon’s famous oversized books, but no note was written, no expression of regret or apology.
And, then an owl magically lands on the patio? A bit fantastical!
Re: Audubon- I recommend a wonderful documentary about Audubon’s life-
John James Audubon: Drawn From Nature. I watched this years ago, and instantly remembered how rare the " oversized" Audubon books are, assuming that is the one Frederick’s clueless mother purchased. Less than 200 produced.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/audubon-birds-america-book-soars-7-9m-christie-auction-article-1.1009326
Audubon represents those lucky people who discover their true passion, like Werner, Frederick, and Marie.
Have you discovered such a passion in your life? I’m still seeking 
I’d say I was saddened by his fate, not disappointed, and not surprised. It’s tragic any way you look at it – he is destroyed by boys who succumb to evil, struggling for their own survival. I am reminded of the quote, “All human sin seems so much worse in its consequences than in its intentions” (Reinhold Neibuhr).
As for the page that Werner sends, the “old” Frederick would not have needed a note—he would have understood Werner’s intention perfectly—and the disabled Frederick would not have comprehended a note. I think Werner sent the page more for himself than for Frederick; that is, as a way of acknowledging and atoning for the part he played in his friend’s fate.
Thanks for the link to the Christie’s auction. It was nice to see the folio and envision what Frederick had been so enthralled with. I couldn’t get over the cost–$7.9 million! And to think there is a private collector out there with that sort of expendable income.
SJCM, you mean it’s not the CC Book Club?!