Summary
Epigraph
A quote from Philip Beck recounts the fact that the city of Saint-Malo, on the Coast of Brittany, France, was bombed in August 1944. Another quote from Joseph Goebbels states that the Nazis would not have been able to take power without the radio.
Part 0: 7 August 1944
1: Leaflets
Leaflets that say “Urgent message to the inhabitants of this town. Depart immediately to open country” fall from the sky on a small city in France, Saint-Malo. American bombers are coming and have begun to drop bombs.
2: Bombers
The perspective switches to the American bombardiers, who fly over the English channel towards the coastal cities they will bomb.
3: The Girl
Marie-Laure LeBlanc, age 16, is inside a house in Saint-Malo. She is blind. She is kneeling in front of and touching a scale model of the city she is in. There are buckets filled with water in the corner of the room, in case the water goes out again. She finds one of the leaflets in her window and smells its fresh ink. She can hear the airplanes coming.
4: The Boy
Werner Pfennig, an 18-year-old German Private, is 5 blocks north of Marie-Laure, in a building that was once a hotel, L’hôtel des Abeilles, or the Hotel of Bees. The building was once owned by a wealthy privateer with a fascination with bees, hence the bee murals in the building. Later the home became an elegant hotel, but over the past 4 weeks it has been transformed into a fortress. Werner is told to go into the basement. Above him, a detachment of Austrians prepare to fire off their cannon, a “high-velocity anti-air gun called an 88” against the American bombardiers. They care for the cannon as if it were a queen bee. As they fire the cannon they sing. Werner enters the cellar.
5: Saint-Malo
The people remaining in the city are prostitutes, nuns, drunks, the blind, and others who have been slow to leave. This town is the last German strongpoint on the Breton coast, even if it seems they are losing the war elsewhere. Rumors say that the Germans have built underground corridors, have stores of ammunition, and the like. Saint-Malo is a city surrounded by water on 4 sides. Anti-air batteries fire from the outer islands. Frenchmen imprisoned on an island called Fort National huddle and look up.
6: Number 4 rue Vauborel
Marie-Laure does not go into the cellar to hide. She instead goes to the scale model and selects the house she lives in, the house of her great-uncle Etienne. She releases a hidden catch and lifts the house up. In a series of motions she unlocks a chamber inside the house and releases a stone into her palm.
7: Cellar
Werner sits in the cellar of the Hotel of Bees and connects himself to a radio, wearing headphones. From this radio he can communicate with a transceiver upstairs in the hotel, as well as with two other anti-air batteries outside of Saint-Malo. Sergeant Frank Volkheimer and an engineer named Bernd join Werner in the cellar. Werner realizes he forgot water. The Austrians continue firing the gun 4 floors above. Werner thinks of his childhood, with his sister Jutta, and Frau Elena tying his shoes.
8: Bombs Away
The bombs drop, 480 bombs altogether, and the sky is filled with black specks. Marie-Laure’s great uncle, locked with others in Fort National off the shore, thinks of the locusts, a plague from the Old Testament. In the city, it is an avalanche, a hurricane, everything inaudible. The anti-air guns fire their last shells, the bombers leave the city themselves unharmed. Marie-Laure crawls under her bed holding the miniature house in one hand and the stone in the other. In the cellar where Werner is, the light bulb goes out.
Part 1: 1934
9: Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle
Marie-Laure is a 6-year-old in Paris with deteriorating eyesight. She is taking a tour of the museum her father works at. At the end of the tour, they arrive at a set of doors that no one is allowed to enter. The guide tells the children the story of a stone called the Sea of Flames. In the story, a prince in Borneo finds the stone in a dry riverbed, but on his way home he is robbed and stabbed. However, the stone remains clutched in his hand, and he manages to crawl home. There, he miraculously recovers. They begin to think the stone has healing powers. Jewelers say the stone is a large raw diamond, and they have it faceted, revealing its brilliant blue color with a touch of red at the center; thus it came to be known as the Sea of Flames. However, as the prince kept the stone, his loved ones began to die, and an army began to gather to attack him. One priest tells the prince of a dream he had, where the Goddess of the Earth told him she’d made the Sea of Flames for the God of the Sea, and was sending him the jewel through the river. But when the prince took the jewel from the dry river bed, the Goddess became angry and cursed the stone. The curse was that the keeper of the stone would live forever, but those he loved would be unlucky. Still, the prince decides to keep the stone. After his city is raided and all are killed, he disappears, and the stone does not reappear again for 200 years, at which point it appears in India. A Duke in Europe buys the gem, and his family members and servants begin to die or become ill. The duke thus has the stone locked in the vaults of the museum in Paris, with special instructions not to open the vaults for 200 years. Four more years remain before the vault can be opened. Marie-Laure asks why the stone can’t be thrown into the sea, and everyone laughs because the value of the stone is so high that no one would ever want to do that.
10: Zollverein
Werner Pfennig is from a German town called Zollverein, a coal mining town 300 miles north of Paris. He and his sister live in an Orphanage called Children’s House. The economy of Germany at the time makes rations scarce, and there is often little to eat. At seven years old, he has a way about him that seems to charm people; his hair is a milky white color. He is creative and curious, constantly asking Frau Elena questions about how things work. Frau Elena is a Protestant nun from Alsace (France), who tells the children stories in French about her hometown, and sings them lullabies in French as well.
Werner and his sister Jutta draw together, and Jutta has a talent for drawing. They also venture together to sift through garbage and find treasures or useful items. Sometimes they go to look down into the largest mine, Pit Nine, where their father died.
11: Key Pound
Marie-Laure is diagnosed with Bilateral Cataracts: she will never see again. She struggles to make her way through her own house; nothing makes sense to her. People pity her and her father. Her mother died in childbirth. She only feels safe in her bed, where her father sits next to her and carves his scale models.
After the despair passes, they begin a ritual where Marie-Laure and her father wake up together, drink coffee with lots of sugar, and then go to the museum where her father works. Her father is the museum locksmith, in charge of the key pound inside the museum, where thousands of keys are kept—handed out by him, and returned to him daily. Her father tests Marie-Laure’s memory by having her identify types of keys, and by placing random objects in her hands. He also has her begin to practice braille. Dr. Geffard, a mollusk expert, sometimes watches Marie-Laure and teaches her about different seashells, calling her Laurette. He likes to eat a roasted duck for lunch. Marie-Laure discovers her sense of touch through the objects in the museum. In the evenings they eat dinner, her father telling her where the food is on the plate by using the hands of a clock, and after supper her father works on his scale model of the neighborhood. Mondays are their day off.
12: Radio
Werner finds a radio when he is eight years old. It looks just like a spool of metal with electrical leads and an earphone. When he gets it home it doesn’t work, but after three weeks Werner figures out a way to rewire it so it does work. Finally, he is able to hear sound, a symphony of music. He passes the earphone to Jutta so she can listen too.
13: Take Us Home
Every birthday, Marie-Laure receives a gift from her father, a puzzle box that she has to solve to discover some item inside. When she turns 7, a puzzle box waits on the table where the sugar bowl usually is. After a series of tricks, she opens it and finds chocolate inside.
The model neighborhood that her father is making still does not make sense to her: she cannot match it to the reality outside their door. Marie-Laure’s perception of the neighborhood is filled with sounds and smells; the model is quiet and smells like sawdust. However, one day about a year after Marie-Laure has gone completely blind, her father takes her to a familiar path and asks her to lead them home, based on the model. She uses a cane to find her way around. However, Marie-Laure is not able to succeed at this task. Her father has faith that she can and will learn how to get back home.
14: Something Rising
Werner has become an expert at improving his radio. He gathers materials from supply sheds, and convinces local shopkeepers to give him unneeded items. Every evening he brings the radio downstairs so the other children can listen for an hour. All have different shows they like, including Frau Elena. Werner notes that mine production has increased and unemployment has dropped; better food begins to come to their orphanage, and they receive new Bibles, new clothes, and shoes.
In the fall of 1936, the children listen to a state-sponsored radio play about invaders sneaking into a village at night, plotting to murder children. The invaders are discovered, a patriotic march plays, and all are happy again.
15: Light
Marie-Laure continues to try to lead her father home every Tuesday, but she does not succeed until she is eight years old. She studies the miniature of their neighborhood to count the number of benches and storm drains. When she is leading him home she counts buildings, trees, intersections, and the sounds she hears of branches. It is snowing on the day she leads them both home correctly the first time. When they arrive her father lifts her up and laughs, and they turn in circles together.
16: Our Flag Flutters Before Us
Two older boys at Children’s House, Hans Schilzer and Herribert Pomsel, join the Hitler Youth. They begin to carry slingshots and bully younger children. They sit in the town square and say, “‘Good evening… or Heil Hitler if you prefer.” They chant sayings about their flag, brag about their rifle training, and tease anyone who admires something foreign in a book. Frau Elena does not speak French around them, and watches them warily. Werner tries to avoid them, instead focusing his attention on popular science magazines. An official from the Labor Ministry comes to speak about work at the mines, which all boys will have to do starting at age 15. Werner thinks of his father who died in the mine, his body never recovered. The official from the Labor Ministry talks about coal as the fuel, and thus the foundation, of the nation.
17: Around the World in Eighty Days
Marie-Laure has begun to measure the things around her in the number of paces, drawing maps in her head. She explores by following hedges, cables, and pipes. She can identify the different smells of the different departments of the museum. Children she meets asks her questions about how it feels to be blind. Although she never knows if the lights are on, she doesn’t experience her blindness as darkness. In fact, she sees colors in her imagination and in her dreams. Different sounds and objects are associated with color for Marie-Laure. She gets lost inside the museum at times, exploring.
When she turns nine her father leaves a new puzzle on the table, as usual, and gives her a braille copy of Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days. She begins to read it and the braille becomes easier for her. She reads it twice through.
18: The Professor
Jutta and Werner find copper wire and bring it home to use on their radio. They think they hear someone talking in Russian. They stay up late listening to the radio. They hear a Professor speaking in French about the brain, and how it is locked in darkness but constructs a world full of light in the mind. He talks about how the coal in the furnace used to be a plant millions of years ago. Werner is fascinated because the man is talking about exactly the types of things that he is curious about. The broadcast ends in piano music.
19: Sea of Flames
Rumors circulate through the Paris museum about the Sea of Flames, what it looks like, where it came from, and whether the legend behind it is real. Everyone has a slightly different story of what it looks like and what the curse will do to a person. Marie-Laure knows it has been 4 years since she was told the story of the Sea of Flames on her tour of the museum. Marie-Laure asks her father if he believes in the curse. He says the tales of the curse are just stories. However, whenever anything goes wrong at the museum, the staff blames the diamond. Monsieur LeBlanc is called to build a special case to display the diamond, and Marie-Laure is never allowed to accompany him on his work. Marie-Laure spends time with Dr. Geffard, who tells her how diamonds and crystals grow over many years, and how the rock may have a long history of being worn by queens or pharaohs. Marie-Laure’s concern is that her father has not been anywhere near the diamond.
20: Open Your Eyes
Werner and Jutta continue to find the French broadcasts and listen to them. The Professor talks about how the brain works, the nature of light, sea creatures, and the North Pole. He gives experiments that Jutta and Werner repeat on their own. They want to know where he broadcasts from. Werner feels that the quality of the broadcasts degrades week by week. At night, while Jutta is asleep beside him, Werner fantasizes that he is an engineer in a laboratory looking through a telescope.
21: Fade
Marie-Laure’s father’s work on the special project comes to a close, he becomes available again to her to go on walks and errands. Nothing new happens at the museum. When Marie-Laure turns 11, she receives a puzzle: a wooden cube that takes 13 steps to open, with two bonbons inside. She also receives a new book, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea—the first part. The narrator in the book works at the same museum her father works at. She spends time with her book, seeing distant places described there.
22: The Principles of Mechanics
A vice minister and his wife visit Children’s House. All the children are on their best behavior. The minister and his wife eat dinner with the children. Werner sits with a book in his lap, The Principles of Mechanics. He is absorbed in reading, and at one point he looks up to find everyone staring at him. The vice minister asks if it is a “jew book” and confiscates it. Jutta tells everyone that her brother is good at mathematics and he will go to study with great scientists in Berlin. The vice minister says that the only place Werner will be going is into the mines. Everyone is completely silent for the rest of dinner.
23: Rumors
Rumors circulate that the Germans are coming, that they can march for four days straight, that they impregnate every schoolgirl they see, and other horrible tales. Monsieur LeBlanc tells Marie-Laure that the director of the museum is not worried about this, so she should not be either. Nothing seems to change. She continues to read Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Dr. Geffard teacher her the names of shells and explains marine evolution. He also explains that almost all species that has ever lived has gone extinct, meaning humans may someday do the same. The smells of summer remain the same as usual to Marie-Laure, but in early autumn she feels she can smell gasoline underneath the wind, as if a huge machine were coming towards her.
24: Bigger Faster Brighter
Werner is required to join the State Youth because membership is mandatory; the boys are quizzed on fitness standards and nationalism about the glory of the country. Werner continues listening to the radio, going over the equations he copied from his mechanics book that was confiscated. He likes to repair things, such as sewing machines, and invent machines that can do things such as slicing a whole carrot at once. He begins to repair the radios of neighbors, and becomes popular among them. They pay him in marks (currency) or in food. One day Jutta tells Werner that a girl she knows was kicked out of a swimming hole for being a half-breed—i.e. a half-Jew. One of two boys who joined Hitler youth, Herribert Pomsel, now is 15 and working at the mines; the other, Hans Schlizer, is an unruly teenager who fights with Frau Elena.
25: Mark of the Beast
In November 1939 Marie-Laure is reading Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea in a park, when some boys come up to her and says, “They’re mad for blind girls, you know.” Her cane rolls off the bench, and even after they are called away by an adult, she is panicked. The stores are selling gas masks. She asks her father what will happen to them if there is a war. He tells her all will be fine, but she can hear him reading the news urgently. She has nightmares of Germans.
At the end of the chapter, before the next chapter begins, an italicized letter from Jutta appears. The letter is written to the “Professor” and states that they have not heard him in two months, and are worried that the Deutschland broadcasts are pushing out every other broadcast. She reports she has to come straight home from school now, even though she is not a Jew. Also, listening to foreign channels is a criminal offense. She also says that her brother will not help her send the letter, so she is going to send it herself.
26: Good Evening. Or Heil Hitler if You Prefer.
May 1940, Werner turns 14, the Children’s House celebrates, they listen to the radio. In one more year Werner will have to go to work in the mines. He hasn’t heard the Frenchman Professor on the radio in months. He hasn’t had his Principles of Mechanics book for a year. He has nightmares of being inside the mine, the ceiling crushing him. Outside it is raining; he looks out and thinks of it as the ever-expanding machine of Germany.
27: Bye-Bye, Blind Girl
The war is going to happen, and Monsieur LeBlanc works hard at the museum to prepare, safeguarding the precious items there. Marie-Laure observes spring continuing as usual. She turns 12, and although her father has been too busy to make her a puzzle, she receives the second volume of Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. People in the apartments around them are packing up their things. Marie-Laure goes to the museum with her father and tries to read, but she is distracted. In June, airplanes fly over the city, and they begin to lose radio signal. Marie-Laure feels she can sense a shiver in the air. She had thought everything was always going to be the same, but now what?
28: Making Socks
Werner wakes in the night and sees Jutta listening to the radio. She wants to know why she has to make so many socks in Young Girls League. Werner wants to know what Jutta is listening to; she tells him the radio is saying they are dropping bombs on Paris.
29: Flight
In Paris people pack up and hide their valuables. At the museum Monsieur LeBlanc is called to the director’s office; Marie-Laure tries to read, but is distracted by all the preparation. The museum is packed up and emptied. Marie-Laure hopes that this is all a puzzle, a game her father constructed. Distinct thumps begin to happen outside. Her father comes to get her and tells her to leave her book behind. They go back to the apartment and gather items for their flight. Marie-Laure's father tells her to go to the bathroom because it may be a while before she can again. They go to an area of the city she has never been before. Her father tells her they have tickets arranged on a train. However, the train station is full of people, all of them hoping for a train.
30: Herr Seidler
A corporal comes to the door of the Children's House and asks for Werner. Frau Elena is very nervous, as is Werner. Werner goes with the man to the house of Herr Seidler. Rudolf Seidler lives in the nicest house in their town, and Werner has never been this close to it before. Inside Werner is surprised by the luxury of the home: the thick carpet, the smell of cake, and the huge elaborate American radio. Werner is introduced to Herr Seidler and asked to fix the radio. Herr Seidler's wife sits nearby the radio reading a magazine. Werner nervously takes a look at the inner workings of the radio and talks to himself, saying "think" out loud. He finds the problem, a simple one, and fixes it. The radio begins to work and Frau Seidler is delighted, commenting that he fixed the radio just by thinking. She comes over to the radio, and Werner observes that she is barefoot and has smooth white calves. Herr Seidler invites Werner to eat cake. Werner is presented with four pieces of cake dusted in powdered sugar with a dollop of cream. Herr Seidler acknowledges that cream is forbidden, but simply says that he has his ways. He also says he likes the posting in the coal town, although there are more desirable places for posts, such as France. He comments that Werner is very smart and should go to a specialized school. Werner responds that he has no money. However, Herr Seidler says he will write a letter to this school, which specifically wants working class boys like Werner. Werner returns to Children's House, and Frau Elena and Jutta anxiously greet him. Frau Elena is relieved that they only wanted Werner to fix the radio, and not for questioning about Children’s House. That night Werner destroys his own small coil radio by crushing it with a brick.
31: Exodus
Marie-Laure and her father wait for the train to come for hours, but it never does. They decide to walk. The streets are all filled with cars and with other people walking. Marie-Laure observes the voices of the panicked people around her. They reach the outskirts of Paris. Marie-Laure's heels are bleeding. She and her father go into a half-mowed field of grass near a farm house, which looks as if the farmer had stopped in the middle of his work. They eat some bread and sausage and Marie-Laure asks her father where they are going. They are headed to the house of a man who the museum said will help them, named Monsieur Giannot, in Evreux. While Marie-Laure sleeps her father takes a blue stone out of his tool kit. He has one of 4 stones made to look like the Sea of Flames. 3 stones are fake and one is real. One decoy is at the museum. The other two stones are with other museum workers who also have safe havens in different directions. Monsieur Leblanc wonders if the one he has is real. He wakes in the night to see a plane flying over and then bombing in the distance. He realizes there are many planes above him, and he gets the sensation as if he were looking down rather than up: down into an ocean of hungry fish.
Analysis
The book begins with an epigraph containing two quotes. The first quote tells the reader details about the bombing of Saint-Malo that occurred in 1944, and how it was carried out. This quote sets the scene for Part 0, as well as for the upcoming parts of the book that take place during this bombing, giving historical facts to add setting and background details. In addition, there is a quote from Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Minister of Propaganda of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. Goebbels' quote is an insight into the minds of the politicians running the Third Reich, who were very aware that the dissemination of their propaganda via radio specifically, was essential to the creation of the movement of the Reich, the formation of the Nazis, and the belief and trust in the Nationalist ideology—a theme that is woven throughout the novel, interlaced with the motif of radio transmission.
In Part 0, the narration starts in medias res—in the middle of the action leading toward the climax later on in the book. Doerr specifically chose to start here because of the historical nature of the novel: he knew it should not be a surprise that the bombing of Saint-Malo occurred; what is new about this narrative is the characters and their reaction and survival in this context (Smith). Marie-Laure and Werner, only 5 blocks from each other, prepare for the bombing. In a great use of contrast, Marie-Laure is filling buckets with water, while Werner forgot water; Marie-Laure is on the top floor of her house, while Werner is in the cellar of his hotel. Both have items of value with them: Marie holds on to the Sea of Flames, and Werner has his radio. Part 0 creates a mood of suspense, as the characters await their fate in the bombing. Also, the switch in point of view in each chapter allows the reader to see from multiple perspectives, location-wise as well as internally in the thoughts of the characters. This sets the structure for the rest of the book, which shifts perspective every chapter.
As mentioned in the epigraph, although it is clear at this point in the war that the Germans are losing, Saint-Malo is still a German strong point. The German hold over Saint-Malo it is clearly felt by Werner and by Marie-Laure, the intense nationalism for the Reich still present in the city. Werner notes it in the spirit of the Austrian Detachment, who iare singing while they fire their cannon. Part 0 end with the blinking out of the light in the basement where Werner is, highlighting theme of light and darkness and the motif of vision and seeing. As the bombs come down on the city, the point of view shifts for a moment to Etienne, Marie-Laure’s great-uncle, who sees the black dots filling the sky and thinks of the locusts descending, alluding to the Bible.
In the first chapter of Part 1, Marie-Laure is introduced to the myth of the Sea of Flames. Marie-Laure sees the meaning of the allegory more so than anyone else: although she has not yet completely lost her vision, to her the value of her life currently lies in her father, whom she loves and admires. As a demonstration of familial love and loyalty, to her it seems clear to her that the diamond should not be in the hands of a human, because when in possession of the diamond, that holder is endangering those he loves. Marie-Laure’s uncanny ability to see more than others around her is demonstrated by this childhood insight. Furthermore, although the myth is told to the children as part of their tour to the museum, they are shown nothing more than a door; thus imagination is required for them to picture the story in their minds.
Part 1 characterizes the protagonists in the way they are as children: curious and imaginative. The narration provides insight into their interests, their personalities, and the people who are important to them. This part also sets the scene for what Marie-Laure and Werner’s lives were like before the war. While neither Marie-Laure nor Werner have much economically, both have a life rich in familial love and loyalty, an important theme; through this resource, the characters are able to survive trying times.
The theme of Science and Technology is introduced in both narratives. In Werner’s narrative, he and Jutta discover the radio, and he discovers his talent for fixing and using it. In addition, he reads various books and magazines on science, and both he and Jutta begin to tune in to a French broadcast with lectures on science for children—they are especially impressed by the one that details the history of coal. The juxtaposition of darkness and light is poignant in the Frenchman’s descriptions: both in the description of the brain that is locked in darkness but creates a world of light, and in the irony of coal, which, coming from the darkness of the earth and burning light in their fire now, may have also absorbed sunlight millions of years ago as a plant. Marie-Laure's science fascination takes place at National Museum of Natural History, a place where she learns she does not have to see in order to discover the magic of science. She can touch and feel textures; she can get lost in the exhibits and be brought safely back to her father. She learns the most under the gentle guidance of Dr. Geffard, who teaches her of the magic of Mollusks. In addition, the theme of imagination and science and technology are displayed in Marie-Laure’s love of Jules Verne’s novel Around the World in 80 Days.
Part 1 builds to a climax as the war looms in Germany and France. Werner and Jutta note that the Deutschland broadcasts, which share nationalist propaganda, overpower almost all of the other broadcasts, beginning to develop the theme of the overpowering nationalism present in Germany in this time period. The nationalism comes with a tone of fear as well, as foreign things are looked down upon. Jutta is inclined to oppose this ideology, questioning why a half-Jewish girl would have been kicked out of the play area, and listening to French broadcasts detailing the bombing of Paris. On the other hand, Werner succumbs to this fear and is inclined to conform to this nationalism, in the end crushing their forbidden radio.
Meanwhile, Marie-Laure’s heightened and ironic ability to see what is coming foreshadows Germany’s attack on France, as smelled by Marie-Laure in the gasoline underneath the wind. Marie-Laure tries to withdraw into her Jules Verne book and imagination to avoid the reality of the war around her, but is unable to. As she and her father flee Paris, her father also tries to employ the use of imagination to comfort Marie-Laure, but the overall mood surrounding them does not escape her, and she is withdrawn and morose. As this section comes to a close, Daniel LeBlanc reveals that he has one of four versions of the Sea of Flames, possibly the real diamond. Thus the symbolism around it—is this stone shaping his destiny? will it keep him safe, give him eternal life, is it causing the war around them?—comes to question, and the dramatic irony of the reader knowing of the presence of the diamond adds to the suspense of the plot.
