Talk:All the Light We Cannot See

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GA Review

This review is transcluded from Talk:All the Light We Cannot See/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Mike Christie (talk · contribs) 15:31, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

I'll review this. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 15:31, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Sources are reliable. Two of the images look OK; I've asked an image expert about the St. Malo image as I can't tell if the licence is valid.

• For the quote from Steph Cha, you've elided a bit in the middle, which is fine, but that needs to be indicated in the article by an ellipsis.
• Earwig reveals one issue with close paraphrasing from the Washington Post review. The source has "When the Nazis invade France in 1940, she and her father flee to the coastal town of Saint-Malo to take refuge with her great-uncle Etienne, a recluse still suffering shell-shock from the Great War. Unbeknownst to Marie-Laure, her father has been entrusted with the Sea of Flames or one of three exact copies". The article has: "When Germany invades France in 1940, Marie-Laure and Daniel flee to the coastal town of Saint-Malo to take refuge with her great-uncle Etienne, a recluse and shellshocked veteran of the Great War who spent his time broadcasting old records of his dead brother across Europe. Unknown to Marie-Laure, her father had been entrusted by the museum with either the Sea of Flames diamond or one of three exact copies". This needs rephrasing to be further away from the source.
• "who spent his time broadcasting old records ": I've read the book, but too long ago to remember the plot details. Shouldn't this be "spends"?
• "Marie-Laure and Etienne continue her efforts": "their efforts"? Or is it really just Marie-Laure? Or are you saying Etienne is only now getting involved.
• "Etienne is eventually falsely arrested": it's not clear what "falsely" means: was he not really arrested? Or arrested on a trumped-up charge?
• "Werner's entrance of Schulpforta": suggest "Werner's attendance at Schulpforta", or if it's really the entrance that alienates Jutta, then "Werner's acceptance of a place at Schulpforta". I think the whole sentence is a bit clumsy, though. How about "Jutta hates Nazi values and has been listening to French radio broadcasts relating horrifying stories about Germany's invasion, and is alienated from Werner when he accepts a place at Schulpforta"? Alienated is perhaps a bit strong, given that the next sentence describes an agreement between the two. Perhaps "angry with"?
• "When Werner asks for him to leave Schulpforta two years after entering to be with Jutta, Dr. Hauptmann fabricates Werner's age and convinces Nazi officials to send Werner to the military." I assume "for him" is an error? And Hauptmann doesn't fabricate Werner's age; he presumably forges documents or lies about his age.
• "According to Anthony Doerr, the first inspiration for All the Light We Cannot See during a 2004 train ride when he saw a man get angry over his call cutting out after the train entered a tunnel". No main verb.
• "The descriptions of various points of interest, such as battlefields and beaches, are rich and detailed;[9] nearly all the nouns in writing has an adjective next to it.[14]" This misrepresents the source; it makes it sound as if sprinkling adjectives on the page makes the writing rich and detailed, whereas the Guardian commentary is strongly negative on this point.
• Suggest cutting "subtle" or attributing it to a source; we shouldn't make value judgements like that in Wikipedia's voice.
• The story about the train ride and the phone call are given twice in the body; the second time should at most refer to the first, rather than repeating it in full.
• "much of Doerr's works": either "many of Doerr's works" or "much of Doerr's work".

Spotchecks:

• FN 15 cites "the book moves with the brisk pace of a thriller novel"; source has "the book moves with the pace of a thriller", which is too closely paraphrased.
• FN 9 cites "Many of the characters, even the heroes, are flawed in some way to make them seem real"; source has " All, even the most heroic and likable, are flawed in some way, as real people are (and people in novels often are not)." This is not quite what the source says; the problem is that in paraphrasing a slight change in meaning has crept in. The reviewer is praising the outcome, not saying why Doerr made the choice to give them flaws.
• FN 13 cites "Much of the novel deals with ethical themes. During the novel, Germany's attempt to acquire all of Europe leads to its downfall, while Von Rumpel tries to acquire the Sea of Flames, highlighting the dangers of possession. Another theme is the nature of sacrifice; Daniel gives the Sea of Flames to Marie-Laure to keep her alive despite the curse leading to him being arrested, while Werner is forced to reluctantly risk his life for Germany." The source doesn't mention the curse.
• FN 15 cites "The novel also deals with dilemmas such as choice versus fate and atrocity versus honor". This is too close to the source; I think you'd be better off here quoting rather than trying to rephrase.
• FN 15 cites "much of Doerr's works play on his fascination with science and the natural world": the source has "Doerr's fiction often reflects his fascination with science and the natural world". THis is too close.
• FN 17 cites "When the story is taken to the present day, a character imagines the abundance of electromagnetic waves flowing from cell phones and computers." Source has "Doerr ... brings his novel into the present. One of his contemporary characters imagines the electro­magnetic waves coursing into and out of computers and cellphones". This is too close.

I am going to stop here and fail the article. I didn't quite finish the prose review, but there's too much copyediting needed, and too many instances where the source has been too closely paraphrased, to fix at GAN. Once you've fixed the paraphrasing issues, I suggest a GOCE copyedit before renominating. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 17:08, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

GA Review

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

This review is transcluded from Talk:All the Light We Cannot See/GA2. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Chiswick Chap (talk · contribs) 13:33, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

I'll do this one. Chiswick Chap (talk) 13:33, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

Comments

This article reads well now, benefiting from the editing since its first GAN.

• I'd normally be slightly concerned to see 5 Publishers Weekly refs, but they're just for sales figures. The facts-and-figures paragraph is rather dense with similar statements about numbers of copies sold: it might be more digestible in a table or graph rather than as somewhat repetitive text, but I don't think we can really mandate that here at GAN.

• I've seen tables and graphs used in TV show articles to depict the Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic scores of each season (e.g. Breaking Bad), but I have never seen an article (literature or otherwise) use a graph or table to depict sales figures, not even in a featured article. I'm not sure what to do to make the paragraph less dense. Lazman321 (talk) 05:17, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

• Kirkus Reviews, too, is quite a borderline source; its reviewers certainly do their best when they are instructed to look at a book, but they are often (aka usually) paid to do so by the author or publisher, so one might want to remove the mentions. Still, they are here among a mass of other publications expressing the same opinion so no great harm can be being done, even if they are to little benefit.

• The lead is of suitable length, appropriately linked, readable, and helpful.

• The Plot summary is well-structured and helpful. It's quite long but not unduly so, to my mind. I can imagine some reviewers proposing cuts to it but that seems to me a matter of taste and balance.

• The Background and writing, Style and structure, and Themes sections are appropriately detailed and reliably cited. I've made a couple of small copy-edits.

• The Publication and reception section seems to cover the main points. I doubt if the two things should really be combined, as the print details form a distinct topic from critical and scholarly reception.

• There's not much information about the publication history of All the Light We Cannot See (unless you consider sales figures to be related more to publication than reception, which I don't), and one of the few facts known about its publication history is that the success of the novel led to many reprintings to keep up with demand. That is why I combined the two topics into one section. This does seem to be allowed; Casino Royale also combines the publication and reception sections into one, and The Great Gatsby mentions the publication date in the reception section. Both articles are featured articles. Lazman321 (talk) 05:17, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

• The book has been translated into Danish, French, German, and Spanish. This should be mentioned in the Publication section; best would be to cite the first edition of the book in each of these four languages, e.g. Doerr, Anthony. Translated by Andrés Barba and Carmen M. Cáceres. La luz que non puedes ver (in Spanish). Barcelona: Suma de Letras, 2015.

• Being translated into other languages is sort of expected for commercially successful works, so unless secondary sources mention this, I won't be including this information.

• The Television adaptation section is ok; personally I'd avoid the "It was announced..." style as too much like a news site for Wikipedia; all we need to say there is that Netflix planned four episodes, etc.

• The images are appropriately licensed. The "source" section on Commons for the Saint-Malo photo seems a bit odd but the licensing there is fine. Personally I'd crop the image to more of a widescreen format, colour-correct it, and format it to be a bit wider (|upright=1.35 or similar) but those aren't GA matters.

• You might like to consider including a small image of the electromagnetic spectrum such as File:Electromagnetic-Spectrum.svg to show visible and invisible components, with a suitable caption reflecting the text mention, as it seems quite central to the book.

• I've actually considered this. The problem is that I would like the image to be just enough details and interesting visual elements to be easily understandable at a glance given the context. The image you linked to is too bland to be understandable at a glance. There's another image I know of is way more visually interesting, but it also has extraneous elements. When I have more time, I could edit out the extraneous details with Adobe Illustrator, upload it as a separate image, and add it to the article. Lazman321 (talk) 05:17, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

• The 'See also' would fit better in context at the head of the 'Publication' section.

•  Done Lazman321 (talk) 05:17, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

• Giving Doerr a navbox for 4 entries (2 novels, 1 short story collection, and one adaptation) does seem close to overkill, but that doesn't concern this GA.

Summary

This article is essentially at GA level now. I'd be pleased to see a few small changes as mentioned above before we move there formally. Chiswick Chap (talk) 14:07, 27 January 2023 (UTC)

I've addressed the concerns that I could. Lazman321 (talk) 05:17, 28 January 2023 (UTC)

All right. You haven't even mentioned the TV section but I think I know what you'd say.

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cielquiparle (talk) 14:52, 2 February 2023 (UTC)

(

• Comment or view
• Article history

)

Doerr, author of All the Light We Cannot See

• ... that the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All the Light We Cannot See (author Anthony Doerr pictured) contains a sympathetic Nazi? Source: [1][2]
  • ALT1: ... that the critically and commercially successful novel All the Light We Cannot See (author Anthony Doerr pictured) contains a sympathetic Nazi? Source: [3]
  • ALT2: ... that writing the novel All the Light We Cannot See took Anthony Doerr (pictured) ten years, much of which was spent researching World War II? Source: [4]
  • Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/WVPX-TV
  • Comment: ALT 2 is for if other users find the phrase "sympathetic Nazi" to be too uncomfortable for the main page. I'd argue, though, that including the phrase and having it seem to be near statements of the novel's success and appraisal ("e.g. Pulitzer Prize-winning") would make the link really enticing to click due to it evoking sensationalist curiosity.

Improved to Good Article status by Lazman321 (talk). Self-nominated at 18:24, 28 January 2023 (UTC). Note: As of October 2022, all changes made to promoted hooks will be logged by a bot. The log for this nomination can be found at Template talk:Did you know nominations/All the Light We Cannot See, so please watch a successfully closed nomination until the hook appears on the Main Page.

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

Image: Image is freely licensed, used in the article, and clear at 100px.
Freely licensed: Used in article: Clear at 100px:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: I don't see "sympathetic Nazi" being an issue. Gog the Mild (talk) 17:36, 29 January 2023 (UTC)

Plot (multiple issues)

I’d like to recommend reverting the plot section to the version that existed prior to changes made by user Melacorn. The current plot is based on the miniseries and even refers to it as a “film.” Once reverted, the plot could use a copy edit, as well. PacificBoy 06:37, 8 November 2023 (UTC)

• You could've been WP:BOLD and done it yourself. I'll just revert it myself. Lazman321 (talk) 02:09, 9 November 2023 (UTC)

Etienne broadcast live, not in Morse Code.

I think Etienne speaks into a microphone for his broadcast, not broadcasting in Morse code as the article now says. 98.157.248.71 (talk) 20:56, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

Frederick's beating does not leave him amnesiac

When Frederick is severely beaten, he suffers brain damage that keeps him from being to communicate or care for himself, not amnesia. 98.157.248.71 (talk) 21:10, 19 April 2024 (UTC)