Editor’s note: “All the Light We Cannot See” is one of many wonderful selections on the Aleteia 2024 Summer Book List. The book was chosen at the suggestion of our friends at Well-Read Mom, who have included “All the Light” in their recommended summer reads. We asked Aleteia’s Tess Barber, who has long participated in a WRM group, to write about the book and share her Well Read Mom experience. Readers are also invited to check out a generous offer from Well Read Mom at the end of this article!
Maybe you’ve heard of Well-Read Mom, the movement quietly spreading around the world to help moms “read more and read well.”
I’ve been a Well-Read Mom group leader for six years this summer, and I don’t know if I can even tell you what it has meant to me over the years, but here’s an attempt.
My oldest two children were ages three and one, and I had just found out I was pregnant with my third child, when I decided to start leading a Well-Read Mom group after hearing about it from a college friend.
After studying Great Books in college and working as a book editor for a few years afterward, I found the transition to being a stay-at-home mom overwhelming. On the worst days, I felt like the part of me that loved literature and learning was withering away. Every moms’ night out seemed to turn into talking about potty training or doing laundry. I wanted something more.
Regaining my love for literature
I was drowning in motherhood, and Well-Read Mom threw me a life preserver. Leading the group brought back to my life literature and powerful, deep conversations about it. I felt like my mind was coming alive again, kindled into flame by a spark of truth and goodness in the Well-Read Mom books and discussions.
The experience was a revelation. I didn’t have to lose who I was in motherhood. Nor did I have to give up the things I loved. I could read great books and hash them out with my friends in rich discussions while also being a great mom.
A few months after starting the group, I looked around at the assembled members and began to tear up as I told them, “This book club is the thing I look forward to the most every month.” I’ve never lost that feeling of transcendent wonder and abiding gratitude for what Well-Read Mom brought back to me.
A summer of reading
Well-Read Mom book groups meet throughout the academic year but take a break over the summer, only offering some recommended summer reading. The summer recommendations are a chance both for long-time members to revisit old favorites and for women new to Well-Read Mom to try out the experience.
This year, the recommendations are Hannah Coulter by Wendell Berry (an old favorite of mine) and a book that I’d never read before called All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.
All the Light We Cannot See was new to me, but probably not to most of you reading this. Besides being a Well-Read Mom reading selection a few years ago, the 2014 novel sold over 15 million copies and spent more than 200 weeks on The New York Times Best Seller list. The novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and Netflix turned it into a miniseries that was released in November 2023.
Why read “All the Light”?
How can I describe this World War II-era historical fiction novel? Haunting. Gripping. Heartbreaking. It tells the story of a young orphaned German boy, forced into service in Hitler’s army, who crosses paths with a blind and brilliant girl who is a member of the Resistance in occupied France (it’s worth noting that some blind people have spoken out against her portrayal, although the book shows her to be capable and courageous). This book is unlike anything else I’ve read and shines a light on unforgettable characters and stories.
I had the chance to catch up with Colleen Hutt, Director of Vision and Outreach for Well-Read Mom, about why this book was chosen. Each year, the book list for Well-Read Mom follows a theme, and All the Light You Cannot See appeared in 2016-’17 during the “Year of the Friend.”
“With so many wars happening around the world, we felt this would be a timely selection to revisit this summer,” she said. June concludes the “Year of the Seeker”; “Many characters in this novel are searching. We felt this vintage selection could apply to what is happening now in the world and be a great bridge from this past year.”
Accepting the challenge of great literature
I’ll admit I struggled to get through some of the more upsetting scenes in the book, consistent with what you’d expect for a novel about the horrors of World War II, so I asked Hutt about how to read these books especially from a Christian perspective. She said:
Many great books contain upsetting, challenging, offensive, or even evil content because the story of humanity is the story of fallen people. We must allow ourselves to be challenged within reason and grapple with man’s inhumanity to man.
Great literature holds a mirror to every reader, asking them to examine places of light and darkness in their own hearts. Cruelty, sin, and darkness exist, but our faith assures us that death need not be the end for us. We read great and worthy books much like we experience the Easter Triduum — we cannot arrive at Easter Sunday without living through Good Friday.
Characters that speak to us
Several characters and scenes from All the Light We Cannot See hold special relevance for the work of Well-Read Mom.
“Our literary canon is like the cans of peaches Madame Manec lovingly cultivates and preserves and puts up on a shelf to be discovered when we are hungry enough to search for nourishment,” Hutt said. “There is plenty of darkness in the world today, but there is wisdom in our faith and Western tradition waiting to give our bodies and souls new life.”
At another point, the main German character, Werner, asks a profound and haunting question: “Why bother to make music when the silence and wind are so much larger? Why light lamps when the darkness will inevitably snuff them out?”
Hutt responded, “Why bother trying to be good in this world when so much is against us? Anthony Doerr offers a response in the title. Our world is one of visible and invisible realities. The light that is exhausted for a brief time here is not the only light there is. In fact, the light we can see with our eyes is a fraction of the light that exists. This gives me hope that every gift of one’s self is counted in the invisible spectrum of light and goodness waiting to be brought forth on the last day.”
Seeking light in community
I couldn’t help but think how much her words reflect my time with Well-Read Mom, a years-long journey of seeking out the hidden light in community with other women.
“Well-Read Mom is for all women, as biological motherhood is one facet of motherhood,” Hutt said. “Madame Manec was a mother figure to her community and to Marie-Laure. By her feminine genius, she offered critical resistance to the evil around her. She worked to preserve and build culture. This is Well-Read Mom intends to do — to be a place where women see the value of their daily gifts of self, to build and preserve culture, and to take care of our hearts through reading and friendship.”
My conversation with Colleen made me particularly grateful for all the women over the years who have been members of my Well-Read Mom group. All of you who have moved away, you are missed at every meeting! And all of you who attend now, it’s a joy and privilege to share this monthly time together! As for my readers who might be interested in Well-Read Mom, you can find a group near you on their website. If you’re in the Chicago suburbs, I’d love to have you join mine!
Attention, Aleteia readers! Well-Read Mom is currently offering their summer reading resources free of charge. Visit the link to learn more.
And today we celebrate...