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The Illumination

3.36 of 5 stars 3.36 · rating details · 2,067 ratings · 517 reviews

What if our pain was the most beautiful thing about us?

From best-selling and award-winning author Kevin Brockmeier: a new novel of stunning artistry and imagination about the wounds we bear and the light that radiates from us all.

At 8:17 on a Friday night, the Illumination commences. Every wound begins to shine, every bruise to glow and shimmer. And in the aftermath of a f...more

Hardcover, 272 pages

Published February 1st 2011 by Pantheon (first published 2011)

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Mar 02, 2011 VegasGal rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-2011

I don't think I've ever been so engrossed in a book like this one, and enjoyed it so much (even recommended it) but then suddenly half way through the story something happened and I got the literary rug pulled out from under me. How can something go from an "awesome wow", to a fizzled bunch of yuck?

Since I happen to be a person who suffers from chronic pain, I found the main premise of this story to not only be intriguing but personally touching - It's about pain suddenly giving off light in eve...more

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Jul 04, 2012 Jane rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: recentfiction, favorites

I loved this book. It's a series of linked stories held together by the phenomenon of the "illumination" and by a journal of daily love notes from a husband to his wife. The Illumination causes pain to appear as an emanation of light from the part of the body where the pain occurs. Each of the characters experiences this phenomenon in some way, and each connects in some way or other with the character whose story follows theirs. But this connection is ephemeral, it's really the book that is the...more

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Jan 26, 2011 Nicola rated it 1 of 5 stars

Sometimes a good book is hard to read. Sometimes a hard book is good to read. Sometimes, a book is as good as it is bad. The Illumination was mostly the latter.

'The Illumination' is a phenomenon that suddenly occurs across the world, where physical aches and pains light up for all to see, and suffering becomes visible. The book follows 6 protagonists in a story hand-off that is spectacularly evenly divided and yet totally unsatisfying. Initially, we find ourselves in the company of a data analys...more

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Jun 26, 2011 Lexie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction

What a premise: Every person and creature on the planet lights up -- with pain. Whatever the wound, it's set ablaze. No more hiding our pain ... and every living thing is illumined to some degree. What happens when we perceive pain as light ...?

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Apr 30, 2013 Sarah Cypher rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Oh, if it weren't for the last chapter! I fell in love Kevin Brockmeier's writing for its sensitive existentialism (incidentally the same reason I admire Jane McCafferty's First You Try Everything: A Novel). I enjoyed his deft handling of what could be a plodding trope in the hands of a more sensationalist writer: wounds that are rendered into light. He explores his concept with the thoroughness of a genre writer, but follows a literary sensibility through a series of interconnected short storie...more

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Apr 24, 2013 Diane Gilbert-snyder rated it 2 of 5 stars

I picked up The Illumination on the strength of a good review. Also, it seemed like the kind of edgy, quirky fiction that is so popular now and I wanted to see how it worked. The novel is divided into six chapters, each starring its own protagonist. These protagonists are linked by their chance, brief, and successive ownership of the diary of a woman who dies in a car accident at the very beginning of the book. But they do not interact with one another and, once we finish a chapter, we never hea...more I picked up The Illumination on the strength of a good review. Also, it seemed like the kind of edgy, quirky fiction that is so popular now and I wanted to see how it worked. The novel is divided into six chapters, each starring its own protagonist. These protagonists are linked by their chance, brief, and successive ownership of the diary of a woman who dies in a car accident at the very beginning of the book. But they do not interact with one another and, once we finish a chapter, we never hear from that protagonist again. However, the book is not really about the characters. The stories never resolve, they simply explore the central theme again in different ways. That theme is suffering, and Brockmeier uses a science fiction conceit to explore it: in the first chapter, for some unknown reason that is never probed, light begins to pour from the wounds of every human being, so that all pain becomes visible—even beautiful.
Over and over again, Brockmeier describes pain with reverence. But, while this is interesting, about halfway through, I found myself “Fascinated yet vexed by the book," as one character put it (about another book). It began to seem tedious, due in large part, I think, to the author’s lack of investment in the growth of his characters. They are used to illustrate a theme and explore an idea, rather than for their own sake. They don’t interact with one another, or end up in a place that’s much different from the one in which they started, and their narratives never resolve. Brockmeier seems to find their pain more beautiful than they are.
Brockmeier is no slouch as a wordsmith. He knows how to create setting and atmosphere with incredible economy. An entire mood is described by the words “letting the silk bookmark trail over her wrist.” In the end, however, The Illumination was a little too gimmicky for my taste, despite the skillful writing. The book lacked soul, somehow. The characters were interesting enough, but the lack of a real narrative with a character journey, and the emotional payoff that makes stories so satisfying, made The Illumination, ultimately, forgettable to me. (less)

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Jan 14, 2013 Melanie Lamaga rated it 5 of 5 stars

The Illumination is a literary novel with only one fantastic element, but it’s a doozy: one day, inexplicably, the bodily pain of each and every human being on earth begins to manifest as a white light. Everything from a headache to leukemia shines out of the body like a beacon for all to see.

The story follows a sequence of people who come into possession of a journal of love notes, transcribed by a woman named Patricia, from the notes her husband left her on the fridge every day of their marria...more The Illumination is a literary novel with only one fantastic element, but it’s a doozy: one day, inexplicably, the bodily pain of each and every human being on earth begins to manifest as a white light. Everything from a headache to leukemia shines out of the body like a beacon for all to see.

The story follows a sequence of people who come into possession of a journal of love notes, transcribed by a woman named Patricia, from the notes her husband left her on the fridge every day of their marriage. She and her husband get in a car wreck just before the phenomenon called the Illumination begins. Thinking that her husband is dead, grieving and fatally injured, Patricia gives the journal to her hospital roommate, Carol Ann.

Carol Ann has landed in the hospital after she accidentally sliced off the tip of her finger. After a day or so, she realizes that she is not hallucinating the white light streaming from her fingertip; nor is the phenomenon hers alone. Her doctor says “Funny how quickly a person can get used to a miracle… if that’s what this is. The problem is, we’re in a hospital. Not exactly and environment conducive to quiet reflection.”

But it seems that perhaps the entire world must be “an environment not conducive to quiet reflection.” Once people have adjusted to the fact of the Illumination (including the naming of it) they politely pretend they can’t see the anguish blatantly displayed by one another’s bodies, and life continues pretty much as it did before.

Given that, the journal seems to take on a greater significance. It is perhaps everything the Illumination should have been but isn’t. The love to balance the pain.

Each person who comes into possession of the journal ponders the people who wrote and received the love notes (even Jason, the writer of the notes, ponders the man he was when he wrote them), and the existence of such an object in relation to themselves.

Once a character’s time with the journal is done, we leave them: Carol Ann with her cut finger and malicious ex-husband; Jason, the writer of the love notes, who falls in with a group of self-mutilating teens as a way to cope with the unbearable loss of his wife; Chuck, the emotionally abandoned, savant boy who sees life in inanimate objects and steals the journal to protect it from harm; Ryan, an uninspired missionary; Nina, a writer with chronic pain; and Morse, an emotionally disturbed homeless man who sells books on the street.

Each character’s story is compelling, though naturally I found some to be more so than others. There are no tidy endings to the individual stories, but cumulatively they build to a meditation on the metaphysical nature of human suffering.

This is not a novel that lends itself to easy readings. But for me, despite the flashy premise (pun!), The Illumination is at heart about the search for the profound in the mundane. The goofy, sweet sentiments expressed in the journal bear this theory out. For unlike the rest of the prose in this novel, which is gorgeously crafted, poetic without being ostentatious, and clearly the work of a master, the love notes taken from the journal seem entirely realistic, thoughts and observations that could have been written by any husband: odes to the beauty of small, personal moments whose significance and pathos transcend language.(less)

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Oct 10, 2012 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Like "The Age Of Miracles", this reads as a fiction book premised on one extraordinary event. In "The Age of Miracles" it was the 24 hour day expanding. In "The Illumination" it is pain giving off a visible glow. How would things change if we could see your finger glowing where you cut it, or a neighbor's stomach glowing where the cancer was spreading? Unlike "The Age of Miracles", "The Illumination" has a shifting narrator, as we read of the effects of the illumination on a cross-section of Ame...more

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Jul 29, 2012 Amanda rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2012

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Here's what I was expecting: Everyone on the planet suddenly experiences pain through light, and six strangers explore the way their lives have changed after "The Illumination".

Here's what I got: The stories of six people whose lives suck. I mean, their lives really suck. Oh, and their wounds emit light and there's a journal that connects them all together. But mostly, this is about how their lives all suck.

I was reminded of a song called "Jim" by King Missile while reading this. The song starts...more

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Jun 27, 2012 Casey rated it 3 of 5 stars

Wrote a developmental edit letter as my final project for Advanced Editing class... This is the beginning of that letter:

Since the structure of your book necessitates an edit that focuses heavily on the characters, I would be fascinated to know in which order you conceived of the characters and wrote the chapters. Which came first, the journal or the characters? Your writing is always based in an extremely unique concept, and yet you manage to see past that fantastical premise to the real human...more Wrote a developmental edit letter as my final project for Advanced Editing class... This is the beginning of that letter:

Since the structure of your book necessitates an edit that focuses heavily on the characters, I would be fascinated to know in which order you conceived of the characters and wrote the chapters. Which came first, the journal or the characters? Your writing is always based in an extremely unique concept, and yet you manage to see past that fantastical premise to the real human beings struggling behind it. The Illumination opens on a seemingly ordinary evening, when suddenly, all over the world, pain begins to emanate from bodies as light. However, the book is not actually about how the worldwide event of the Illumination affects the characters, it’s about how they deal with their individual torments.

*very spoilery extensive summary* In six loosely linked short stories, we meet six disparate people connected by a journal composed of line after line of short love notes. Each chapter stands on its own as a separate short story, and the characters only interact with each other when they pass the journal. Carol Ann, an extremely lonely divorcée, takes the journal from the bedside of a dead woman in the hospital. She is eventually forced to give it back to the woman’s husband, Jason, who is the author of the love notes. He gives up on life and turns to self-harm when he falls in with a predictably wild teenage girl who has moved into his home. Chuck, a boy on Jason’s street who has a form of autism, steals the journal from Jason’s home. Chuck has the ability to see the pain of objects, and he wants to fix the journal’s sadness and protect it from further harm. When he fails to do so, he gives the journal to a door-to-door missionary, Ryan, who quickly forgets the journal. He adopts his dead sister’s life as his own and travels the world, witnessing a string of natural disasters and tragedies. Nina, a novelist with an incurable mouth disease, finds the journal in a hotel nightstand. It inspires a short story in her latest collection, which she reads on her book tour as the mouth sores torture her and a young fan flirts with her. Morse, a homeless man with the ability to see into other people’s minds, selects the journal from Nina’s bookshelves when her teenage son trades him for a rare gaming book that Morse was selling on a street corner. Morse eventually watches the journal come to rest in the gutter while he is badly beaten for protecting his friend, a young gang member. A scientist musing on the eternal nature of light walks by, observing the badly injured Morse lying in the alley but failing to recognize that he should get help for Morse. In this letter we will work on applying consistency to character history and growth, examine the journal as a framing device and as a catalyst for plot development, and consider the overall theme and the book’s focus on darkness at the expense of light. *end summary*

Far and away the best chapter and the best character was Chuck Carter. He is absolutely wonderful, both as a character and as a driving narrative force. I know that you must have worked really hard on this section because a chapter composed almost entirely of ten-word sentences is no mean feat. The ten word sentences give Chuck’s voice a unique cadence. I like to take notes on the first read, and I only took two during Chuck’s chapter—the first was a big smiley face next to the section where Chuck examines the wounds the schoolyard bullies have inflicted: “For a few seconds, the light poured out like water. It hurt just a little too much to be beautiful.” This description of the Illumination was the one that I connected with the most. Chuck’s ability to see the pain of objects is a wonderful idea that the events of the Illumination allow you to express in a unique way. I particularly liked the beat near the end with the psychiatrist, when it was confirmed that Chuck’s “pretend dad” was not his stepfather or his mother’s boyfriend, but is in fact his real father: “Chuck explained the difference between real dads and pretend dads. He wrote down some of the clues he had uncovered.” I trusted Chuck, I took everything he said on faith because his autism made him so observant and so frank, so this moment was very moving. My heart broke for him, and I would have been happy to spend the whole book with him.

Some of the things I worked on in the letter:
- The Illumination’s short story structure results in some challenges when it comes to character. The fact that we never (or rarely) get to visit with characters again once we’ve left them means the reader may make connections with the characters and then be forced to abandon them. This is not a bad thing as long as each of the six characters are engaging in their own ways—and, mostly, they are. But Carol Ann in particular feels incomplete, while Jason’s behavior is inconsistent.
- Obviously there needs to be variety when it comes to how each character deals with the journal. If the journal’s meaning for every character is too similar, the plot would become stale. However, the fact that the journal has almost no impact to Ryan—even though we see almost his entire life unfold, a structure unlike any other chapter—rings equally as false.
- Ryan’s ruminations on God and pain were excellent and came close to defining a theme for the book: “He did not believe—and who could?—in a God so hawkeyed and brutal, a God who bestowed a cancer here, a deformity there, for you a septic embolism and for you a compound fracture, selecting one person for grief and another for happiness like a painter experimenting with degrees of light and shadow. And which was the light, he wondered, and which was the shadow?” I think that we see so much of Ryan’s life because you felt that Ryan had to reach these conclusions over a long period of time. However, I think that two or three events could impact Ryan just as thoroughly as a whole life of disasters.
- The example of Ryan’s disasters is a place where the story is focused so tightly on the pain that it risks becoming only a litany of terrible events happening to people with no redeeming events to make their lives worthwhile. I can see why you plotted it this way, because the goal of the novel is to explore pain and how humans deal with it. However, isn’t the point of living through the pain to get to the “light” on the other side? Sometimes there is none, but most of the time it can be found in some form. The list of disappointments, tragedies, and miseries covered in The Illumination is long and unrelenting.(less)

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May 31, 2012 Emily rated it 4 of 5 stars

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

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Apr 22, 2012 Heather M rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Readers interested in what comes out of the Iowa Writers Workshop MFA grads

While beautifully written and beautifully imagined, I felt The Illumination lacked story and character development. It seemed a series of short stories around a central premise rather than a cohesive novel. I generally like novels that switch between the perspectives of multiple characters; however, the level of depth we are treated to in the characters lives in The Illumination never passes the surface level. Few of these characters change throughout their sections; I don't believe any change f...more

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Apr 20, 2012 Christina Tang-Bernas rated it 4 of 5 stars

The premise of this novel is that all our wounds, our pain, our diseases are illuminated with light. So, walking down the street, we can see all the people around us and their afflictions. There is no hiding it. Does this make us have more compassion? More understanding, perhaps? Do we become beautiful through our pain and suffering? These are questions this novel asks and it plays out through a series of characters and their viewpoints, who are all connected by one book full of love notes that...more

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Apr 11, 2012 Elizabeth rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people who want to know who the cutters among us are

Shelves: 2012

What a beautifully written and affecting book. I can't help but think that if you liked it or not, you would ponder a lot of ideas that are brought up within it. When wounds start displaying themselves through light some media pundit coins it the "Illumination". We're talking any wound from lung cancer to a stubbed toe, sometimes the light might radiate and other times it might sparkle. Now that we can view all of each others physical frailties so clearly a number of things come up. What is the...more

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Jan 20, 2012 Paul rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: general-novels

This was an odd one and I have mixed feelings, I want to give it 3.5 stars. The idea is a good one; one day, very suddenly everyones pain is illuminated; shines in the form of light. Cuts and bruises, cancer, arthritis etc all shine from peoples bodies.
The story revolves around a journal put together by a wife whose husband left her a note on the fridge every day. These notes started "I love the way you...." The notes have been pasted in a journal. This journal travels between six people, each...more

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Jan 18, 2012 Grace Herndon rated it 2 of 5 stars

When I first read the back of the book I was very intrigued and interested, however as I read the book I became less and less enthralled in the story. This book is written
very simply and there isn't much depth to any of the characters. I didn't feel a connection with any of the characters and I think this is partly because this book follows the story line of several different people. I also didn't feel as though this book had a purpose or a point to make to the readers.
One of the main aspect...more

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Nov 06, 2011 Blaire rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction-speculative

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

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Aug 10, 2011 Patty rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: readin11

This book had an Interesting concept and characters but a little sad. Each character is the main protagonist of each chapter and it would have been nice if at least once the ending turned out happy. Plus the end of the book let me down. This might be a spoiler if you plan on reading this book but I thought maybe everything would be pulled together but I didn't get that satisfaction when I reached the end.

However, except for the chapter that describes the characters that use self-mutalation as a...more

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Jul 29, 2011 Carolyn added it

Shelves: fiction

This book is difficult to rate: I almost compromised with a "4"; but am not sure the definition "really liked it" is quite right. The ideas in the book and material for discussion get an easy "5"; the stories of six recipients, threaded together with a traveling journal, get mixed reviews. I would not recommend this book for readers desiring closure to stories; I would recommend it to readers desiring thought provoking ideas and stimulating book club material. This book may raise more questions...more

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Jul 06, 2011 Kirstie rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people interested in realistic fantasy, creative fiction

I really enjoyed the topic of this book more than anything else..the idea is that somehow our wounds-be them cuts, bruises, or cancerous tumors radiate light...some feel it's beautiful and some try to disguise it. The novel explores a few different perspectives of people finding out then living with this oddity, which is what becomes termed "The Illumination" itself. We meet a photographer, an author, a young boy who refuses to speak, an evangelist, and a homeless bookseller as well as all of th...more

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Jul 04, 2011 Alex V. rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This artful and clever meditation on light, language, and love could become the most poetic Julia Roberts/Tom Hanks movie ever with the right director lacing together these stories rife with cinema-ready devices: how a book of love notes passes from hand to hand and life to life, how suddenly all of our pain manifests itself as light hanging around and pouring from our bodies, how we are yadda-yadda interconnected by our yadda-yadda living in the world. I don't mean this any of this as a negativ...more

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May 29, 2011 Elyse rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-club

I have to say, this book just didn't leave much of an impression on me. I finished and thought to myself, "Maybe I've overdosed on multiple-narratives in my reading recently." But then I wanted to dive back into George R. R. Martin's "A Storm of Swords" immediately, so it's not the format that got me. "The Illumination" reminded me of "Blindness" meets "Cloud Atlas." But when the global affliction in "Blindness" went unexplained I wasn't bothered, and in "The Illumination" I just couldn't suspen...more

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Apr 11, 2011 Amy rated it 3 of 5 stars

This novel asks the question, "What if our pain is the most beautiful thing about us?" It's a compelling question, and the premise of the novel--that anywhere and anytime a person experiences pain it becomes illuminated so that everyone can see it--is ripe with potential. The common tie between characters in the novel, in addition to their pain,--Patricia's journal in which she records the messages that her husband leaves for her on the refrigerator every morning to reveal one new thing that he...more

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Apr 05, 2011 Tim Storm rated it 4 of 5 stars

Anyone who's read The Brief History of the Dead knows that Brockmeier is capable of creating beautiful poetry from fantastical scenarios. In The Illumination, the fantastic premise is that pain is manifest as light emanating from the bodies of those who suffer, and Brockmeier doesn't disappoint with his poetic treatment of the phenomenon. One of the things that kept me reading (and here I might get a little too close to spoilers, so don't read on if you haven't read the book; just know that I re...more Anyone who's read The Brief History of the Dead knows that Brockmeier is capable of creating beautiful poetry from fantastical scenarios. In The Illumination, the fantastic premise is that pain is manifest as light emanating from the bodies of those who suffer, and Brockmeier doesn't disappoint with his poetic treatment of the phenomenon. One of the things that kept me reading (and here I might get a little too close to spoilers, so don't read on if you haven't read the book; just know that I recommend it) was the hope that we might be provided with some sort of cause/explanation for the light. By the end, we are given a subtle, poetic explanation, but not one that brings the six distinct chapters together. I craved just a little more narrative unity between the various character sketches--especially given the fact that none of the individual chapters was all that strong in terms of its story arc. It's not that nothing happens; it's just that the chapters are character sketches more so than stories. David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas also lacked narrative cohesion, but each of its separate sections were well-plotted in themselves, so I didn't finish the book with the same sense of story-craving that I got at the end of The Illumination. Had he provided a real explanation for the light, the story may have approached science fiction, and I think Brockmeier prefers to stay on the fantasy side of surreality--a preference I share in my writing and reading. (A rule of fantasy and fairy tale is that the magic should not be explained; it is normalized and normative, as Kate Bernheimer says.) But this is perhaps Brockmeier's central problem in many of his stories; his premises long to be explained, and he creates much of his tension from that longing for explanation, unlike, say, Kelly Link, who conjures up even weirder worlds but never hints that we might learn why the worlds are weird. Maybe the difference is that Brockmeier starts his characters in realism and then pushes them into the fantasy where as Link begins and ends in the fantastic. In any case, I found The Illumination an enjoyable read; for those who don't need story as much as I do, this book won't disappoint. (less)

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Mar 18, 2011 Alex Templeton rated it 3 of 5 stars

The jacket copy of this novel-in-stories asks, "What if your pain were the most beautiful thing about you?" Having read this and a couple of other of Brockmeier's books ("The Truth About Celia", "The View from the Seventh Layer"), I can say that this is an entirely appropriate question. Few writers write about suffering quite as exquisitely as he does. If I were one of those types that assumed things about writers based on their writing, I'd say that Brockmeier must have be a pretty angsty soul....more

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Mar 05, 2011 Jennyreadsexcessively rated it 4 of 5 stars

Here’s a book that I really liked and yet I do feel that it is terribly flawed. The author imagines that one random day all people begin to radiate light from their pain and injuries. Anything from a hangnail to internal cancer is clearly visible. I expected the novel to show the compassion that humanity would surely exhibit if we could easily identify anyone’s suffering. And yet here, sadly, the characters remain isolated and do not reach out to one another.

The novel opens with woman who accid...more

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Mar 01, 2011 Holly rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2011-reads

Before page 65 I was already growing impatient with the premise: I didn't require any more extended descriptions of light pouring from wounds. I also found the writing/story a little sentimental, romantic, cheap, and obvious. Brockmeier's earlier novel A Brief History of the Dead, had an intriguing premise, but there the reader projected the inevitable conclusion the concept requires/contains (a Bardo-like city where the dead carry on their lives until all the humans on Earth who remember them a...more

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Feb 22, 2011 switterbug (Betsey) rated it 3 of 5 stars

In this quasi-dystopian and poetically rendered, if uneven, book of five interlinked stories, we are introduced to a new era of the world, dubbed by journalists as The Illumination, whereby pain is illuminated like a neon glow, so that everyone's physical torments are seen by others, and there is no camouflage for people's physical (and, in some cases, emotional) afflictions. You glow brightly wherever there is pain in your body. As a motif, it is a mixture of fascination and gimmick.

A journal o...more In this quasi-dystopian and poetically rendered, if uneven, book of five interlinked stories, we are introduced to a new era of the world, dubbed by journalists as The Illumination, whereby pain is illuminated like a neon glow, so that everyone's physical torments are seen by others, and there is no camouflage for people's physical (and, in some cases, emotional) afflictions. You glow brightly wherever there is pain in your body. As a motif, it is a mixture of fascination and gimmick.

A journal of love notes written by a young husband to his wife over their years together provides a connection between all the stories, and a weaker, less effective thematic link. The journal symbolizes a poignant and authentic love, and the etch of great loss. Almost every sentence in the journal begins with "I love it when you...", which becomes cloying.

So now there are two gimmicks to this story, and it was important to me that the author rise above this conceit and give me something above the vehicles he used. He accomplished that well in the first story, and the journal (beyond the passages) becomes more than mere device. Additionally, Carol Ann's emotional fatigue paired with her almost childlike hope engaged me. Her awkwardness and reticence was genuine; the story of her injury was potent.

The second story, Jason, pertains to the author of the journal. It was unnecessary and heavy-handed, as it (over)explained the journal's incipience and felt contextually repetitive. It was as if Brockmeier didn't trust that the rest of the book would properly convey this information.

Chuck is the mute ten-year-old of the third story. It was the most maladroit of all the tales, too earnestly trying to convince the reader of Chuck's endearing precocity. It was also exhausting, as it repeatedly reminded the reader of what we already understood about the widespread "Illumination."

The next story, about the evangelist, Ryan, was heavy-handed. Besides the repetition of the "Illumination" syndrome without any further insight, the authorial management was too pronounced. Additionally, Ryan's lifetime grief was quite a stretch that didn't transcend for me.

The best story of the five was Nina, an author suffering from chronic lip ulcers. It felt organic, and Brockmeier's poetics was wonderfully hungry and haunting instead of his tendency towards sententious cliché. I engaged emotionally and admired the author's figurative language. I didn't feel that Brockmeier relied on the journal or the "Illumination" pandemic to convey a powerful theme of *pain as the most beautiful thing about us.*

The final story, about a homeless street vendor, Morse, was tedious and static. The idea of an Empath, which could have added perspective, blandly overreached.

Brockmeier has a rich, dream-like imagination, but this 250+ page dilatory book could have been shortened into a brief novella, with the stale excess and repetition removed. A deft edit to eliminate the saggy elements and boilerplate platitudes would leave us with the unflinching, vibrant parts. (less)

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Feb 08, 2011 Judy rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: readers with imagination

Shelves: 21st-century-fiction

Readers of my reviews may have noticed that I am attracted to the whimsical, the magical, the fantastic, in novels. Kevin Brockmeier surprised and startled me with his first novel, A Brief History of the Dead. I wondered how he would do that again in his second.

The Illumination is another work of sheer imagination laid over the gritty reality of modern life. Brockmeier uses the device of an object which passes through the hands of six characters, in this case a book of love quotes. It is a jou...more

Readers of my reviews may have noticed that I am attracted to the whimsical, the magical, the fantastic, in novels. Kevin Brockmeier surprised and startled me with his first novel, A Brief History of the Dead. I wondered how he would do that again in his second.

The Illumination is another work of sheer imagination laid over the gritty reality of modern life. Brockmeier uses the device of an object which passes through the hands of six characters, in this case a book of love quotes. It is a journal kept by a young married woman whose husband left her a love note everyday. "I love the way you kiss. I love the way you shake your head when you yawn. I love the way you alphabetize the CDs, but arrange the books by height." She copied his notes into her journal each day. But then she dies and the journal is taken by another woman who had shared the hospital room where she died.

Meanwhile, during the hospital stay, a phenomenon occurs all over the world. Each person's bodily pain shows up as light, causing wounds and illnesses to glow and glitter. One might wonder if such an aesthetic limning of pain would bring about a more compassionate world. As the love journal passes through the hands of five more characters in the following months, the answer proves to be: not necessarily.

A story featuring so much pain and adversity does not induce cheerfulness. I found myself feeling sorrowful and even horrified at the loneliness, the unfulfilled dreams, the hopeless nature of so many people's lives. All the imagery of injury, disease, pain; all the illumination of flesh, organs, muscles, cells and nerves were almost too much. Some characters deal with pain by numbing it, some attempt to rise above it, some even inflict pain on themselves or others to block out existing suffering.

The blurb on the back cover of The Illumination says, "What if our pain was the most beautiful thing about us?" I emphatically do not agree that Kevin Brockmeier believes any such thing. He leaves each of his six characters with their stories unresolved, just as he leaves the questions he raises about pain without clear answers. What he did for me was open new ways of thinking about the Buddhist precept that life is suffering. Most of all, due to his beautiful writing and his ability to infuse the tedious world with magic, he took me away for a while and left me with a renewed sense of wonder. What if there is more to life than pain?(less)

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Jun 17, 2011 Adam rated it 3 of 5 stars

A really great read. I was afraid that the whole "light" part was going to be a gimmick that carried the story, or at least that it would be the focus. In reality, the illumination is just one of the many threads that weaves throughout the story. It's the slight light that gives us permission to enter into the lives of the many people you meet.

The book is much more a look at the dichotomy of love and pain, those who are understood and those who aren't, the many many different ways that we experi...more

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About Kevin Brockmeier

Born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, Brockmeier received his MFA from the Iowa Writer's Workshop in 1997. His stories have been featured in The New Yorker, McSweeny's, Crazyhorse, and The Georgia Review. He is the recipient of an O. Henry Award, the Nelson Algren Award, and a National Endowment of the Arts grant.

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Quotes from The Illumination

“Sometimes they rose up inside her, these moments of fierce happiness, kindling out of their own substance like a spark igniting a mound of grass. It was a joy to be alive, a strange and savage joy, and she stood there in the warmth and destruction of it knowing it could not last.” — 6 people liked it

“Occasionally, in the stillness of a taxi or an airplane, she would catalog the pleasures she had lost. Cigarettes. Chewing gum. Strong mint toothpaste. Any food with hard edges or sharp corners that could pierce or abrade the inside of her mouth: potato chips, croutons, crunchy peanut butter. Any food that was more than infinitesimally, protozoically, spicy or tangy or salty or acidic: pesto or Worcestershire sauce, wasabi or anchovies, tomato juice or movie-theater popcorn. Certain pamphlets and magazines whose paper carried a caustic wafting chemical scent she could taste as she turned the pages. Perfume. Incense. Library books. Long hours of easy conversation. The ability to lick an envelope without worrying that the glue had irritated her mouth. The knowledge that if she heard a song she liked, she could sing along to it in all her dreadful jubilant tunelessness. The faith that if she bit her tongue, she would soon feel better rather than worse.” — 2 people liked it

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