All the Light We Cannot See
Have you ever heard, or read, a story that filled you so very, very, very full…of thoughts, emotions, responses, images…?
A story you hear told aloud…a written novel you hold in your hands…both are so similar to, and so different from, each other.
Both are magnificently complex, but the complexities are very different in nature.
A told story abounds with the richness of oral language…
- simultaneous energies of…
- tone and pacing,
- gesture and sound effects,
- movement of body and melody of voice,
- silence and posture and
- pitch and volume and
- physical proximity to the teller and
- the teller’s quick-witted response to an audience member’s laugh or a nearby barking dog or…you-name-it!
A novel in your hands is replete with the gifts of written language…
- plot twists and characters’ thoughts,
- thousands of specific details, and intricate subplots,
- precise vocabulary and creative formatting and
- intriguing flashbacks and literary devices, and
- you can always page back to check on something you’re not sure you’re remembering just right (if only you can find that page!)…
I just finished reading the 530-page novel All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
– and I am rent with emotion and imagery and memory. It is both a story that is utterly foreign to my experience [it follows two children, a French girl and a German boy, through World War II] and so deeply connected to my own life [most particularly my experience of being a devoted little sister to my big brother, but also the pure and wild wonder of how inner imaginings, dreams, current sensations and childhood memories all weave intricately into most moments of one’s life]…all evoked by Doerr’s intricately crafted sentences, written and re-written and edited and printed for us to hold and read.
I remember listening to storyteller Noa Baum’s “Impossible to Translate, But I’ll Try – True Life Israeli Stories”
– her fringe performance at last July’s NSN 2014 National Storytelling Conference. At the end of it…I was rent with emotion and imagery and memory. So many of the specifics of Noa’s growing up in Israel are so utterly different from my own Midwest American childhood – and yet I also heard so much that deeply connected to my own life…all delivered with graceful presence and beautifully-timed humor and exquisite intimacy and thrillingly expressive voice and fun accents, and Noa’s captivating energy – all the magnificent elements of Noa’s creative command of oral language, delivered in the power of the mutually-experienced moment.
I don’t wish to “choose between” written stories and storytelling (nor between books and movies!) any more than I want to choose between my Mom’s world’s-best pumpkin pie and hot buttered popcorn!
(You can read about the food of the gods, popcorn, and my brother’s tyranny, in this previous blog post, if you like.) Depending on the context or timing I may indeed prefer one over the other at any given moment – but don’t ever make me say that one is superior to the other! They’re different and wonderful and nourishing in their own ways!
So…I devote my life to storytelling: it’s powerful and beautiful, moving and nourishing, and heart-opening.
So is the novel All the Light We Cannot See. This oral storyteller recommends it.
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It’s been two whole months – I’m glad to be back to the blog!
To be embarrassingly frank, I hope you missed me! – well, the Story Crossings blog! It’s been two months since my last blog (on Storytelling and World Cup Soccer!) Life got very, very full and complex July-into-August this year….Some of it was very good: the National Storytelling Conference in Phoenix, Arizona, and the Network of Biblical Storytellers Festival Gathering in Black Mountain, North Carolina. I expect to draw on some of those many and rich experiences for future blog posts.
Till next time – thanks for reading! – Pam
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