This book is a masterful narrative of World War 2, a rather surprising look at the war through the perspective of Marie-Laurie, a blind French girl who may (or may not) possess the “Sea of Flames”, a unique diamond said to have dark and mystical powers; Werner, an unsuspecting young German soldier with a passion for radio technology; and Sergeant Major van Rompel, a somewhat villainous German art-hunter. The story revolves around the German occupation of the French town of Saint-Malo, and the hunt for the Sea of Flames.

One of the strongest and most interesting elements in this work is its dazzling array of textures, brought to life through the narrative of Marie-Laurie. At times I almost found myself jealous of her story - even though I can’t imagine that a blind French girl caught in the German occupation could be all that pleasant - because of her opportunity to touch and sense some of the marvelous images in this story: particularly the scale model of her hometown, lovingly created by her father, or the wall of snails in the sea-alcove by the beach.

The book is also deeply concerned with radio technology, both for its applications in warfare - as a way to locate militarily important points on a landscape via triangulation; and its applications in communication - as a way to bring together people who are many miles apart around a shared idea. Indeed the entire plotline is organized to resemble a radio wave, with the plot oscillating between (on the one hand) the pre-war childhood years of Marie-Laurie and Werner, and (on the other hand) the teenage years of both of our heroes, revolving around occupied Saint-Malo. It’s a very clever way to bring this rather technical concept to life through the arc of the story, although it can be a bit challenging to read at times.

Relatedly, I also found myself very much fascinated by the idea of recursion which plays such a central role in this book. After all, the key to the story is the scale model of Marie-Laurie’s house, which sits at the edge of the scale model of Saint-Malo, which sits in the second floor of Marie-Laurie’s house, which sits at the edge of the town of Saint-Malo. The idea of worlds within worlds appears again and again - in the snails that Marie-Laurie studies, in the secret messages she brings home from the baker’s, and so on. I very much enjoyed this artistic manifestation of a mathematical concept which was very much en vogue at the time and which (I think, but am not sure) greatly shaped the development of radio technology.

It’s impossible to read this book without commenting on the moral dilemma of its characters. While Sergeant Major von Rompel is, after a fashion, a kind of villain, he’s actually rather humane in his interaction with others, and his motivations are at least understandable. And while we think of Werner as a sympathetic hero, he is after all still very flawed: he is perhaps the character who does the most (among those we meet) to support the Nazi war machine, and he is not any sort of great hero for humanitarian values. The best one might say of him is that he’s not an overt sadist; but he is definitely complicit in the greater Nazi effort. To my mind this book lives in a category with The Book Thief, as a work which reconceptualizes German complicity in the crimes of the Nazi regime in what’s perhaps a troubling way. It’s not at all clear how we are supposed to feel about Werner, and it is a confounding question for the reader.

On the whole, this is a fascinating work, and it leaves the reader with a lot to think about, and even more memorable scenes and images. I found it quite worthwhile.