If Jules Verne were to write about a war time, he would use a similar perspective: The importance of radio. But I don’t think the magic presented by Doerr is as striking as Verne’s. Maybe because I was a child when I read Verne, thus it’s me who lost the magic not the author.

The war is presented not violently. Yes, it’s a war and it’s brutal for anybody, whether you are the winner or the loser. And bad things, horrible things happen in this book as well. But the descriptions doesn’t go into details of this brutality.

We had a discussion of this book, in this month’s book club. One of the points was about the things happened in Berlin when the Russian soldiers came to town. It doesn’t matter which side you are from in war, it is us humans who loses in the end. We learn absolutely nothing from it that we have been and will be at war since we existed till we cease to exist.