Goodreads | Everything is Illuminated: A Novel

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Brian rated it:

(review of isbn 0060529709)

09/12/08

bookshelves: totally-awesome-books

Read in August, 2008

recommended to Brian by: Sammyatmiami
recommends it for: everyone

If I haven't layed out my good-book-philosophy yet, then I'll do it here. It needs to be done some time, or else any reviews I write would be somewhat out of context. So, here goes:

To me, there are two main parts, or aspects, of a book. One is the story, and the other is the way it is written. When I say "story", I mean everything that happens in the book, as it would happen in real life (or some other life, in sci-fi), while the "way it is written" is, of course, the wor...more

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Mike rated it:

(review of isbn 0060529709)

09/03/07

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in August, 2007

I watched the movie of this first and loved it. It was basically a movie about cultural misunderstanding and how people can be cruel without really knowing it. It is a story about what happens when you put an American and someone born out of the Soviet era in the same room and try to make them explain to one another why the other one thinks the way they do. In a word: hilarious.

After reading the book, I still like the movie, but it seems obvious to me that the filmmakers missed the point ...more I watched the movie of this first and loved it. It was basically a movie about cultural misunderstanding and how people can be cruel without really knowing it. It is a story about what happens when you put an American and someone born out of the Soviet era in the same room and try to make them explain to one another why the other one thinks the way they do. In a word: hilarious.

After reading the book, I still like the movie, but it seems obvious to me that the filmmakers missed the point entirely. The book, while still a hilarious exploration of an American immersed in post-Soviet culture, is so much deeper and weirder.

The story is (sort of) about the author, Jonathan Safran Foer. He is an aspiring writer in his early 20s who travels to Ukraine to try to find the small Jewish village of Trachimbrod where his grandfather grew up and to find the woman who helped him escape the Nazis during the war. He speaks no Ukrainian or Russian, and his only maps of the area are 60 years old, so he enlists the help of Alexander, an Odessa native of about the same age, his blind grandfather, who acts as their driver (if you have read any modern Russian literature you will understand not to question this kind of thing) and their deranged seeing-eye bitch Sammy Davis Junior, Junior.

Half of the story (the half on which the movie is based) is ostensibly written by Alex. He write in English with an accent, in that (I assume) it was written, then rewritten by looking up every third word in the thesaurus and replacing it with the least appropriate synonym. This section is a humorous, touching, narrative touching on the nature of friendship, grief and regret, among other things. It is accessible and easy to understand.

The other half (which is entirely ignored by the movie) is written by Jonathan, and covers the history of the village from the day it got its name in 1791 until its destruction by the Nazis in 1941, following the exploits of his ancestors. All of these sections have a very surreal quality. They jump around in time, different eras have glimpses into the past and future. Everything that happens is completely bizarre and makes no sense. It explores much more difficult topics, such as the nature of life, love, and art, and is in general much more philosophical and harder to get your head around.

These sections are split by letters from Alexander to Jonathan commenting on Jonathan's sections and introducing his own next section.

The weird thing about this book is that, at least for me, it gets frustrating to read the author's crazy attempts at philosophy. He wanders around so much, it seems like he is trying to write a little mini-story for every emotion he's every experienced in his entire life. Normally, I would discard a book like this and say, "Well, it's a young author's overeager first attempt, and he tried to cover too much." However, there are so many parts in Alex's letters and narrative where these things are addressed (once Jonathan says something like, "I want to be a writer, but I'm not good yet.") and Alex asks a lot of questions like Why do you write like this? and Why did you have the characters do that? The incoherence of it all becomes a part of the greater logic of the novel, which in turn provides an answer to the question, "Why did Jewish people stay in Poland and Ukraine when they knew the Nazis were coming?" This books answer, I imagine, would be, "Because nothing anyone did in the village's 150 year history made sense, why should they have done the sensible thing in 1941?"

The book is hilarious, moving and disturbing among other things. I can't help but be annoyed by its weird narrative and pointless philosophical musings, but given that it bathes itself in its own strangeness, it raises itself up and becomes a pretty awesome book....less

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Beth rated it:

(review of isbn 0060529709)

09/24/08

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Probably in the top 3 best books I've read in the past 5 years. It is not an easy book to read, and it is at times bizarre and vaguely offensive. But it is also hearbreaking and heartwarming and funny thought-provoking.

Weirdly, I actually wrote a review of this book for something right after I read it:

Finishing this book was one of the oddest reading experiences I've ever had. I literally sat and thought about it for about thirty-five minutes, just flipping back over certain parts, cons...more Probably in the top 3 best books I've read in the past 5 years. It is not an easy book to read, and it is at times bizarre and vaguely offensive. But it is also hearbreaking and heartwarming and funny thought-provoking.

Weirdly, I actually wrote a review of this book for something right after I read it:

Finishing this book was one of the oddest reading experiences I've ever had. I literally sat and thought about it for about thirty-five minutes, just flipping back over certain parts, considering possible interpretations. And any book that can throw me into such deep meditation is most definitely worth talking about. This is the interpretation of the book that I came away with:

Throughout the novel, Jonathan is referred to as the "hero" by Sasha/Alex (I'll just call him Sasha from here on out). But I believe that Sasha ends up being the real hero. I don't think that Jonathan becomes some sort of terrible person, but it is telling that Jonathon and Sasha stop writing to each other. I believe it is because Sasha has come away with a much deeper understanding of himself from their trip, while Jonathan seems to have mostly come away with good writing material. Sasha becomes so angry with Jonathon's story because it is not truthful in the way that Sasha is truthful. Jonathan wants to take pieces of what he knows for sure, and embellish and expound and fictionalize it to make enticing fiction. In doing so, he does make his grandfather out to be a pretty bizarre person, taking only his supposition that his grandfather had a dead arm and a lot of teeth as a baby, and looking through his journal, and then making up this whole ridiculous story about how the Safran had affairs with over 2,000 women because they were strangely attracted to the dead arm. Sasha, on the other hand, comes away from the trip with a better understanding of, and deeper love for, his grandfather, and a commitment to truth. He realizes the value of truth in seeing what his grandfather had to live with and in coming clean on certain aspects of his life. For instance, he admits that he is a virgin, though he boasted in the beginning of how many women he was "carnal" with. And he is not especially tall, as he also boasted about in the beginning. He also embraces his love for Ukraine, giving his savings away and deciding to stay there and take care of his family. And he is finally able to stand up to his drunken father and banish him from the family.

So, I believe that the title refers to the way the past illuminates the present, and the present illuminates the past. But differently for our two "heroes". For Jonathan, he has found the material he needs to become the writer he believes he was born to be. For Sasha, he has found the truth he needs to become the man he wants to be. You could argue the levels of nobility of each. Jonathan writes everything down, documents the names on all of Lista's boxes, reads guidebooks on properly dealing with Ukrainians. Sasha listens to the stories, takes it all in, doesn't think to worry about each little detail to remember forever. Sasha is more concerned with understanding the heart of the truth, in short, while Jonathon wants the material to use later. In one final thought, I remember that Ernest Hemingway was mentioned at some point in the novel, I believe by Sasha in talking about Jonathan becoming a great American writer. I took an American Lit class in which we discussed the novel Garden of Eden by Hemingway, and the way in which Hemingway addressed the guilt of the writer who puts themselves and those they love in emotionally reckless positions in order to create good writing material. I just thought it was interesting that his name comes into this novel because of Jonathan's intentions. Not that Jonathan creates any sort of emotionally reckless situation, but he in some way sells out his family history in order to write an interesting book....less

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Katia rated it:

(review of isbn 0060529709)

10/17/07

Read in September, 2007

I'll have a hard time trying to express how I feel about the actual topic of Everything is Illuminated. The Shoah, family, the nature and function of memory, Postwar Ukraine, self-definition via others, one's ancestors, and the place you are from, be it Trachimbrod via America, Kolki via Odessa, or elsewhere.
What first grabbed me about this book (picked up off a lover's bookshelf while the cake was baking) was the form of it. It's structure alternates between three general types - the 'author's' novel,...more I'll have a hard time trying to express how I feel about the actual topic of Everything is Illuminated. The Shoah, family, the nature and function of memory, Postwar Ukraine, self-definition via others, one's ancestors, and the place you are from, be it Trachimbrod via America, Kolki via Odessa, or elsewhere.
What first grabbed me about this book (picked up off a lover's bookshelf while the cake was baking) was the form of it. It's structure alternates between three general types - the 'author's' novel, set in the shtetl of Trachimbrod, starting in 1790 and dealing mostly with his direct antecedents and the life of the shtetl itself, letters from Alex, his Ukrainian translator, sent to him in America after their search (more on these later), and <Alex's memoir>, the first-person recallection of their search.
Some of the best comedy in the book is language-based, relying on Alex's use of English and sometimes imperfect grasp of idiom. I was reminded a little bit of A Clockwork Orange, just in the way the language makes more of a point about Alex than his own descriptions of the girls with whom he has 'been carnal', his surety of himself as 'a premium person', and his 'to make brick shit' excitement re: his dreams of accounting school in America.
Foer (or at least, the character named Foer) is described by Alex as 'the hero', but it is Alex, Grandfather, Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior (the seeing-eye bitch of Grandfather) who lead us through the present and Trachimbrod itself which guides us through the past.
Anyway, you should read it.

Review via email to Rabbi:
It reminded me very strongly of A Clockwork Orange, which in and of itself is both praise and censure. I was impressed by the way its form and language shaped the story, and felt that the characterization of Trachimbrod as a community and organism was one of its strongest elements. I always find that nostalgia, even for places and times that never existed, is one of my strongest connectors to novels (I'm suceptible to 19th century prose for just this reason, the way some people are to toothaches). The world-building of a small place full of people who seem to resonate throughout time, partially through naming conventions and written reconds, but also through memories and the hazier continuity of blood and influence caught me up and made me reflect on the nature of personal history. Luckily, I can reflect on history while knitting, so it didn't interfere with my time too badly.

While I felt the story (and character, really), of Jonathan's search was sold short, I ended up minding less than I thought I would, since by that time I'd fallen in love not only with Alex's malapropisms and ornately bizarre English, but with his slow awakening to what his life is, as opposed to what it could be, through lies, self-deception, and a romanticism that clings to the youngest and oldest most strongly. His pleading with 'the hero' to allow for Brod to be happy, to allow that perhaps Augustine was found in the book, even if not in life, I identified with a lot.

The book struck me as somewhat idealistic, while admitting its own blindnesses and delusions, while refusing to sacrifice them all. Maybe it's my fondness for my own romanticism that made me connect so firmly to Alex, and all the people in Trachimbrod, who kept endless records of their lives and wrote novels of love and loss that they stored in a big room, rarely if ever to be read. That belief in the small, selfish acts of memory and feeling that make a place beautiful and a people sad but thoughtful.
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Jim rated it:

(review of isbn 0241141664)

05/17/08

Read in January, 2003

recommends it for: Those seeking fresh voices in literature

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

This brilliant debut novel by Jonathan Safran Foer is a deeply-felt imaginative achievement. It is wholly recommendable, even if it is only half of a good book. The half that is good--no, great--is so worthy as to overshadow the book's other half, which is, sad to say, an embarassing if rightly-intended misfire.

The half that is successful is the tale of the fictional Jonathan Safran Foer's search for the story of his ancestors. It is successful as a story, but especially in the way it is ...more This brilliant debut novel by Jonathan Safran Foer is a deeply-felt imaginative achievement. It is wholly recommendable, even if it is only half of a good book. The half that is good--no, great--is so worthy as to overshadow the book's other half, which is, sad to say, an embarassing if rightly-intended misfire.

The half that is successful is the tale of the fictional Jonathan Safran Foer's search for the story of his ancestors. It is successful as a story, but especially in the way it is told, in the hilarious, fractured, malapropriate voice of Alex, the Ukrainian translator/guide. Alex's way of speaking jumps instantly into the pantheon of great narratorial voices in literature, right next to Huckleberry Finn, to whom the technique hugely owes allegiance. Foer is doing the Twain bit of putting his story in the mouth of of a speaker of "substandard English," and of letting this voice become, eventually, poetic and utterly profound. It is a great and a wonderful achievement.

Part of what is terrific about this is that Alex's voice changes throughout the course of the narrative, as he learns more correct English from his writer-idol, Foer. So the book shows not only a narrative arc, but a corresponding arc of style as well.

The Alex-spoken chapters alternate with the supposed novel about his ancestors which the fictional Foer is writing, and which Alex progressively comments on when his sections come around again. Unfortunately, the quaint story of the ancestors in their small village doesn't have the brilliance of Alex's parts. This whole section of the novel reads like a Jewish folktale, full of magical-realist touches, but somehow it doesn't have a stamp of truth or real honesty to it. it comes off as cloying and precious, to tell the truth.

It might be argued that this quality was a very deliberate choice by the author. The idea here, completely supported by the novel as a whole, would be that the real story of the ancestors and their destruction in the holocaust is so harrowing that it cannot and should not be remembered by the fictional Foer. So instead, he creates this folktale version of events, with wild and magical characters and so forth.

Sure, I see that. I know that that is part of what is going on. The contrast between the story as told and the harrowing history as we eventually discover it it huge. But for me, it didn't work. The magical-realist nostalgia sections have to have an integrity and an honesty at their heart. And these are lacking in that, lacking in some deeply-felt spirit that would connect them with reality. They seem cartoony. They are trying way too hard. This is not Isaac Bashevis Singer, but is trying hard to be, and the attempt becomes embarassing after awhile.

The film version of the novel very rightly left out this half of the story entirely, and was very true to Alex's narrative. It worked, I thought, quite well.

As I said at the outset, though, the Alex parts are so well done, so strong and funny and well-told, that they carry the novel. Though only half-successful, this is a very good book. ...less

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Lucy rated it:

(review of isbn 0060529709)

06/03/08

Read in June, 2008

This book is hard to piece together. It's even harder to write about.

If Everything Is Illuminated had to be categorized onto one shelf, I'd assign it a spot alongside other books about the holocaust. Or maybe about love. No, it's about friendship. Scratch that...it's really about loneliness.

Whatever it actually is about, Jonathan Safran Foer seems to be too odd of a man, and definitely too odd of an author, to define the book or narrow its focus. The minute the reader does, Foer changes ...more This book is hard to piece together. It's even harder to write about.

If Everything Is Illuminated had to be categorized onto one shelf, I'd assign it a spot alongside other books about the holocaust. Or maybe about love. No, it's about friendship. Scratch that...it's really about loneliness.

Whatever it actually is about, Jonathan Safran Foer seems to be too odd of a man, and definitely too odd of an author, to define the book or narrow its focus. The minute the reader does, Foer changes the tempo and direction of the book. Sometimes, the stories of cruelty are cover-your-eyes horrible. Sometimes, the situations are uncomfortably obscene. Sometimes, the story and characters are folklorist-y bizarre. Sometimes, it's modern-age hilarious. A lot of the time, it's furrow-your-brow confusing. Everything definitely did not get illuminated for me.

With broad, sweeping strokes, I'll attempt to give a basic summary of the book. A young 20 year-old Jewish man, whose name also happens to be Jonathan Safran Foer, travels to the Ukraine in an attempt to track down a woman in a photograph named Augustine, who saved his grandfather from the Nazis. To help him, he hires a tour guide/translator named Alex, whose English appears to have been mostly learned directly from a thesaurus. The nouns and verbs he chooses are almost always slightly off, but kind of, sort of close, and the reader is forced to translate almost all of Alex's narrative into actual English. Part of the book is written as letters from Alex to Jonathan as explanations for his translations and editions. Some of it is what the character Jonathan Safran Foer writes as his novel (after his return from his trip) and some of it is narrative of the actual trip, given by Alex. When the parts are put together as a whole novel, the reader is forced to be quite patient and thorough to finish the book actually understanding all of what happened, and even more willing to be content with its loose ends that will never be tied.

While Alex's broken English can certainly be funny, it slows down the pace of the novel (because it's impossible to read it fast) too much. Thankfully, his conversational skills do improve and his letters to Jonathan towards the end are much more accessible. Additionally, because both Alex and Jonathan are young and male, there is quite a bit of sexual humor that turns out to be quite harmless, and even slightly endearing, but still makes the overall effect a bit R-rated.

There are so many characters to keep track of and I'm not exactly certain if I figured out who was who and if they mattered. Ultimately, I think most didn't matter because, again, I think the take-home message is meant to be about the horrors of the holocaust and how good people can do bad things. If not, then I missed a whole lot.

If you do attempt this book, read it patiently. It might help to read it as part of a group effort. Then, perhaps if you're able to talk it through and everyone brings their own understanding into a collective whole, everything about this novel might actually BECOME illuminated....less

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Hannah rated it:

(review of isbn 0060529709)

10/27/07

Read in August, 2007

recommends it for: The Word Everyone Doesn't Quite Match Who I would Recommend this To.

This could easily be my favorite book. I'll tell you why, but first let me explain a few things.

[One:] The book can be described has having three parts. Sort of. Sections of it are written by Alex. You should know that Alex is Ukrainian and speaks English as a second language. It is very obvious that English is his second language.

[Two:] Alex works in his family's tour-guide type business. They have an American client named Jonathan who comes to Ukraine to study things for a book he's ...more This could easily be my favorite book. I'll tell you why, but first let me explain a few things.

[One:] The book can be described has having three parts. Sort of. Sections of it are written by Alex. You should know that Alex is Ukrainian and speaks English as a second language. It is very obvious that English is his second language.

[Two:] Alex works in his family's tour-guide type business. They have an American client named Jonathan who comes to Ukraine to study things for a book he's writing. He's searching for a woman who saved his family during the holocaust. After he goes back to America, he and Alex write letters. The sections of the book that are italicized are letters that Alex has written to Jonathan.

[Three:] There are other parts of the book that have a wavy heading and a date on them. This is the story of Jonathan's ancestors. These parts are my favorite. Though it's not clearly stated, I like to think of these sections as the book Jonathan is writing.

In the beginning Alex is very arrogant. It's hard to read because Alex uses words out of context, wanting to use the word with the most syllables. A good example is that he uses the word rigid instead of hard. "I was stuck between a rock and a rigid place." After a while it's comical, but it takes some getting used to.

I think it takes a genius to write in any language and make it seem as though he didn't grow up speaking it.

As with most smart people, Jonathan is notably awkward. That's the best way to describe him.

My favorite character in the book is Jonathan's Great-Great-Great-Great-Great-Great (Give or take a few Greats) Grandmother. She is found floating after her father crashes his carriage in The River Brod. No one knows who she is-Both of her parents die-and they elect Yankel to raise her. He's a sad sad man. I appreciate this part of the book because of the way Yankel talks to her as an infant, and as she grows up.

It's very progressive. You see the characters grow, and I like that in a book. I like to see things and people improving, and that's what happens here. I felt like a wiser person upon finishing....less

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Robert rated it:

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01/23/08

bookshelves: finished, owned-and-gave-away

Read in July, 2003

Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated (Dutton, 2002)

My, what a clever novel!

In any case, that, I imagine, is what Jonathan Safran Foer kept saying as he was writing this. And really, much about it is clever. The comparisons to A Clockwork Orange are completely unwarranted, as Alex, Foer's Ukrainian hero, destroys the English language in a quite different way than does Burgess' Alex. (A less politically correct but more conceptually accurate comparison would be Charlie Chan, as writ...more Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated (Dutton, 2002)

My, what a clever novel!

In any case, that, I imagine, is what Jonathan Safran Foer kept saying as he was writing this. And really, much about it is clever. The comparisons to A Clockwork Orange are completely unwarranted, as Alex, Foer's Ukrainian hero, destroys the English language in a quite different way than does Burgess' Alex. (A less politically correct but more conceptually accurate comparison would be Charlie Chan, as written by Earl Derr Biggers.) Foer's intertwining of stories is also quite clever, and his use of the two narrators to tell the main storylines.

However, with all the cleverness going on, Foer seems to have forgotten in many places to actually insert a novel. Threads pick up in odd places and then die with no fanfare, never to be resurrected again; the story has holes without being told an enough of an impressionist way to allow the reader to fill in enough blanks; the characters are obviously there as vehicles to carry off the cleverness, instead of being fully-realized human beings. In other words, this is a linguistic roller coaster, not a novel.

Not to say Foer doesn't write well when he forgets about the tricks and applies himself. Especially in the novel's last eighty pages, there are scenes of great beauty and tragedy that are conveyed in powerful manner that make the reader sit up and take notice. (The emotionl impact of every last one of them is dramatically undercut by Foer's following each with a needlessly scatological and/or pornographic piece of attempted humor, each of which fails because of its positioning, but the tragic pieces themselves are extremely well-written.) Unfortunately, these scenes are all too few. One of them is going along swimmingly until he decides to interject a Rick Moody-esque three-page unpunctuated sentence. Horrid. (And a trick he repeats a couple of times afterwards, also throwing in run-on words. Even more horrid.)

The book is billed as a comedy, and Foer tries to carry it off as such, but when the finest-written scenes are those of tragedy, it's hard to call it a success as attempted. Foer has the makings of a fine dramatic writer, once he gets away from being so consciously clever. ** ...less

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Martine rated it:

(review of isbn 0141008253)

01/17/08

bookshelves: film, magic-realism, modern-fiction, north-american, postmodern

Read in January, 2004

I'm not sure how I feel about this, one of the most overhyped novels of the early noughties. On the one hand, it undeniably contains flashes of genius. It is original, inventive and ambitious, which is great. On the other hand, it has a few aspects which annoyed me, and that, I think, is less good.

In a nutshell, Everything Is Illuminated is an amalgam of three interconnected stories. The first is that of a young Jewish American (bearing the same name as the author) who visits the Ukra...more I'm not sure how I feel about this, one of the most overhyped novels of the early noughties. On the one hand, it undeniably contains flashes of genius. It is original, inventive and ambitious, which is great. On the other hand, it has a few aspects which annoyed me, and that, I think, is less good.

In a nutshell, Everything Is Illuminated is an amalgam of three interconnected stories. The first is that of a young Jewish American (bearing the same name as the author) who visits the Ukraine in an attempt to find the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis and without whom he himself would never have been born. This part of the story is told by Alex, the flashy young Ukrainian who serves as Jonathan's interpreter. Alex's subsequent letters to Jonathan, written in a bizarre, highly ornate and seriously mangled kind of English, make up the second storyline. Finally, the third storyline consists of the magic-realist novel Jonathan writes about life in his grandfather's Jewish village before the Nazis destroyed it. Together, the three storylines tell a tale of friendship, guilt, family secrets, atrocities, opportunities, dreams and ways of dealing with drama which is at turns funny and shocking and occasionally beautifully nostalgic.

As I said, there is much about the book that is to be admired. Foer is undeniably a gifted writer. He relishes his stories and has a lot of fun sharing them with the reader. Sadly, though, he is rather uneven, following passages of great beauty (especially towards the end of the book) with scenes which are so crass that they completely ruin the effect. He also tries a bit too hard to be clever and original, coming up with gimmicks and typographical idiosyncrasies which are interesting at first but do rather distract from the narrative. And then there's the book's main gimmick, which is Alex' mangled English. While frequently funny, it is also entirely unconvincing from a linguistic point of view, and I'm enough of a linguist to care about such things. Halfway through the book I got so fed up with Alex' overwritten language that I began to dread his parts of the narrative. I doubt that was Foer's intention.

So. Yeah. It's an interesting tale, but I wish Foer had waited a few years before telling it. I'm pretty sure he'll mature into an excellent author; this story just happened to come a bit too early in his career to live up to the hype.
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Sarah rated it:

(review of isbn 0141008253)

02/27/08

bookshelves: fiction

Read in February, 2008

recommends it for: anyone who doesn't mind an unconventional structure and sometimes pretentious prose

This book has all the makings of a great heroic quest -
The hero? An American by the same name of the author
The task? Find the woman whose family saved his Grandfather from the Nazis.
Long perilous journey? through Ukraine seeking out Trachimbrod, a town that seems to no longer exist.
Side kick? Alex, our hero's young Ukrainian translator, whose has obsession for pop-culture and interesting interpretations of English idioms.

The book is structured as letters...more This book has all the makings of a great heroic quest -
The hero? An American by the same name of the author
The task? Find the woman whose family saved his Grandfather from the Nazis.
Long perilous journey? through Ukraine seeking out Trachimbrod, a town that seems to no longer exist.
Side kick? Alex, our hero's young Ukrainian translator, whose has obsession for pop-culture and interesting interpretations of English idioms.

The book is structured as letters between "the hero" Johnathan and Alex after Johnathan has returned back to the States. We never get Johnathan's version of the events that have unfolded, only his fictional account of what happened centuries ago in the town of Trachimbrod. Alex's letters narrate their journey to seek out Augustine (the young daughter of the family who saved his grandfather's life during the Holocaust) and also provides commentary on Johnathan's writing and commentary on Johnathan's commentary on Alex's writing.

If it sounds confusing - that's because it is. I picked this book up in the Melbourne airport for something to pass the time between Australia, New Zealand and home. I put it down as soon as I got back with really no intention of ever finishing it. It wasn't exactly airplane reading. "The hero's" fictional history of Trachimbrod was such an abstract and seeminly unconnectable subplot, and Alex's broken English was bordering on obnoxious. I gave it another chance though, because I am currently teaching Holocaust literature, so it seemed like a good time to finally finish the book.

I'm glad I did.

The plot picked up and regained purpose. The communications between Alex and Johnathan became poignant. At times I felt like a voyer reading these letters; Alex's honesty and self reflection is piercing. Somewhere along the way, his lack of a firm grasp on the English language actually enhances his ability to express the complexity of the human condition. Alex takes on a life and personality. I found myself feeling for him as I had during my first introduction to Holden Caufield. Don't get me wrong. I'm not equating Everything's Illuminated with Catcher in the Rye, but Johnathan Safran Foer has certainly created a character who will stay with me....less

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Katie rated it:

(review of isbn 0060529709)

01/03/08

bookshelves: all-time-favorites

Read in December, 2006

I read this after Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and didn't like it as much (why do read the same author's book if not to get another fix of the words that first hooked us?), but what I love about Foer are the small details he weaves into the story. The movie was AWFUL, and not just in the way that most movies about books are awful. Beware.

Favorite Part:
"To my unborn child: I haven’t always been silent, I used to talk and talk and talk and talk, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut...more I read this after Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and didn't like it as much (why do read the same author's book if not to get another fix of the words that first hooked us?), but what I love about Foer are the small details he weaves into the story. The movie was AWFUL, and not just in the way that most movies about books are awful. Beware.

Favorite Part:
"To my unborn child: I haven’t always been silent, I used to talk and talk and talk and talk, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut, the silence overtook me like a cancer, it was one of my first meals in America, I tried to tell the waiter, “The way you just handed me that knife, that reminds me of__” but I couldn’t finish the sentence, her name wouldn’t come, she was locked inside me, how frustrating, how pathetic, I took a pen from my pocket and wrote “Anna” on my napkin. “And�� was the next word I lost, probably because it was so close to her name, what a simple word to say, what a profound word to lose, I had to say “ampersand” which sounded ridiculous, but there it is, “I’d like a coffee ampersand something sweet,” nobody would choose to be like that. “Want” was a word I lost early on, which is not to say I stopped wanting things -- I wanted things more -- I just stopped being able to express that want. I lost “come” one afternoon with the dogs in the park, I lost “fine” as the barber turned me toward the mirror, I lost “shame” -- the verb and the noun in the same moment, it was a shame. I went to a tattoo parlor and had YES written onto the palm of my left hand, and NO onto my right palm, what can I say it hasn’t made life wonderful, it’s made it possible. “I” was the last word I was able to speak aloud, which is a terrible thing, but there it is, I would walk around the neighborhood saying, “I I I I.” “You want a cup of coffee, Thomas?” “I.” I know I’m not alone, you hear the old people in the street and some of them are moaning, “Ay ya yay,” but some of them are clinging to their last word, “I,” they’re saying because they’re desperate, it’s not a complaint it’s a prayer, and then I lost “I” and my silence was complete."...less

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Debbie rated it:

(review of isbn 0060529709)

09/21/07

Read in September, 2007

The book is smart, sassy and youthful. Prodigy is not a word that comes to mind, like with Donna Tart and others, because the book seems to want to be youthful so much it steps over that wisdom-beyond-the-years you expect from someone who is called a prodigy. Carson McCullers was not a youthful writer. Her writing was ageless. Jill McCorkle was very wise at a very young age. I get the feeling this book it targeted at college aged kids or maybe the crowd under 30. And that is OK. Nothing wrong wi...more The book is smart, sassy and youthful. Prodigy is not a word that comes to mind, like with Donna Tart and others, because the book seems to want to be youthful so much it steps over that wisdom-beyond-the-years you expect from someone who is called a prodigy. Carson McCullers was not a youthful writer. Her writing was ageless. Jill McCorkle was very wise at a very young age. I get the feeling this book it targeted at college aged kids or maybe the crowd under 30. And that is OK. Nothing wrong with that at all. A great market. We should all hope this continues to be a great market. It shows we are reading!

The writing shows a playful, fun attitude towards language. He truly loves to write. You can tell. He loves language. But it gets so cutesy and silly, and the sex is so college- boyish, that his wise, sensitive side gets mowed over.

And I think this writer is very wise and very sensitive so that is a shame.

The premise is not original--a jewish writer who tries to find that one person who saved his grandfather and thus gave him life. This idea that saving one life saves many many more is a theme in Schindlers List. It has been looked at before. But what I think was interesting was Foer's compassionate look at something else that happens when humans in groups behave badly. Yes, people abused live with scars. BUT the abuser also lives with scars. The guilt of those influenced by cults or war bullies is a scar in and of itself. Being bullied into bullying another human being will destroy one. A very intelligent and compassionate statement.

It is a powerful theme, very nicely delivered. His backdrops into historical magical realism got a bit silly and distracting. Way too much 'tell' that pushed me away. I felt he needed to go read a show- versus -tell writing book. If we are not brought into scenes, into characters we get bored. All of that distracted from a very original and very wise story.

I look forward to his writing. I think this is a writer who will get amazing as he matures and feels less need to point to himself or hide behind his humor. He needs to step out. He has some wonderful and brilliant things to say.

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Sarah rated it:

(review of isbn 0060529709)

10/19/07

Read in September, 2007

recommends it for: everyone

10.06.07. Two things:
1. this book rocks, and i am dying to finish it but also wishing it would go on forever, because it has that super-amazing blend of intelligence and humor and corniness and adventure and satire and tragedy and cliche and originality that makes me freak out in a good way.
2. i am in love with this new technology i discovered at the library recently...the concept is ingenious and so so so perfect for me because of what i do for a living. there is an entire single book (for...more

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Graeme rated it:

(review of isbn 0060529709)

05/03/08

Read in April, 2008

This gets an extra star for a truly funny gag that carries the book for the first fifty or sixty pages. That's surprising and impressive mileage for a simple bit (the narrator, a non-native English speaker, relies heavily on a thesaurus, so that "a hard journey" is "a rigid journey"), but after it wears off -- grinding agony.

Foer wants to be Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but his magic is insipid and his realism is lazily dishonest. He consistently goes for an easy lie over a ...more

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Kevin rated it:

01/12/08

Read in December, 2007

The London Times review quoted on the cover said, "it will blow you away"--and it did, I must admit: what a strong voice for someone 25 years old! The book deftly weaves different notions of time together, unwinding its story in several temporal registers at once. The three different forms of writing--Safran's own account of his Jewish family's prehistory (i.e., late 18th century to the outbreak of WWII) in their shtetl Trachmbrod, in what is now the Ukraine; "Safran" the c...more

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Erin rated it:

(review of isbn 0060529709)

10/26/07

Read in October, 2007

my best friend calls me a cheater when it comes to reading books because i always watch the movie before the book. i guess watching the movie before reading does kind of dull the reading experience- but this time i felt it was a MUST that i saw the movie before i read the book. i mean, the movie to this book was so good! & when i started reading it- the experience was totally different. also, i would've been so confused while reading this book if i hadn't watched the movie. the book is about...more

Everything is Illuminated: A Novel

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