All the Light We Cannot See

If you have not seen the series based on the book “All the Light We Cannot See” by Anthony Doerr, I would recommend you get some popcorn and binge-watch this series. It is well worth the time. The series is set in Saint-Malo, France during World War II and recounts the activities of the French Resistance.

I am always drawn to movies and series from this period of heroes and heroines. This period was a time when humanity was at its best and shined when it was surrounded by great darkness and at its worst was hauled into the light for all to see. This story exemplifies all that is good about humanity and all that is not. This will be the first article in this series.

In the storyline, there are several significant characters. The central characters are Daniel LeBlanc, a locksmith at the Museum of Natural History, his daughter Marie Laure who is blind from birth, Etienne LeBlanc who suffers from PTSD and is the reluctant leader of the resistance, Madame Manec, the sister of Etienne, Werner Pfennig a German teenager who is conscripted in the German army and Reinhold van Rumpel an officer of the SS. The next few newsletters will discuss the heroic qualities of each. Qualities, if cultivated, are present in each of us.

The first character I would like to explore is Marie Laure LeBlanc. The series starts with Marie as a young child being raised by her father in Paris after the loss of her mother. Despite the loss of her mother and blindness from birth, she is a joyful child with a keen sense of her ability to learn and an inner strength that comes from facing her blindness and turning that into a strength. That leads to her first quality, curiosity.

She is inquisitive by nature, asking questions, searching her surroundings, listening for clues, and persistent in her search for truth. The search for truth seems to be her primary driver. This drive to find truth is what leads to her curiosity and in the end significant wisdom for a person of her youth. Because of this drive, she joins the French Resistance against the Nazis. Her curiosity and search for truth also help her develop the heroic quality of fortitude.

Fortitude is the quality that allows her to face danger with courage and remain stalwart in her defense of truth. Her fortitude gives her the strength to face down the nazis even with the threat of bodily harm and death. In one of the series' more important scenes, she continues to send out her coded messages across the airways knowing she is being tracked. She stood for what is right and good and aided in the victory over evil.

We all struggle in our battle for what is right and good. Sometimes we fail, sometimes we win. We must lift each other along the way, as the main players did in Marie’s life.