Everything Is Illuminated
by Jonathan Safran Foer
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jonathan Safran FoerEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2005-09-01
ISBN: 0060792175
Number of pages: 276
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780060792176
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Book Reviews of Everything Is Illuminated
Book Review: Great Read
Summary: 5 Stars
Jonathan Safran Foer has written an amazing debut novel in Everything Is Illuminated. It explores the Jewish culture and history in the Ukraine. A young American writer, also named Jonathan Safran Foer, has come to this country to find his family's history. In particular, he wants to find the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazi's. In order to accomplish this, he engages the services of Alex Perchov, a young Ukrainian translator. The men take off an a journey of exploration and discovery, accompanied by Alex's grandfather and the family dog, Sammy Davis Junior, Junior.
Jonathan knows the name of the village his family came from, Trachimbrod. Unfortunately, that name is not on any maps, nor can they find anyone who knows anything about such a place. Finally, they find an old woman who says she has been waiting for years for someone to come and ask about this place and all that occurred there.
The book is told through several devices. Some of the narrative is Alex writing to Jonathan after Jonathan's return to America. These portions are where we find out Alex's story and his hopes and desires. Another part is the recounting of the journey they take. Finally, stories of the Jewish people in this region are interwoven with the current narratives.
Foer has written an amazing debut novel. It is, by turns, ribald, humorous, breathtakingly depressing, passionate and trivial. The stories of the families that made up Trachimbrod over centuries are told. It explores love, betrayal, kindness, violence, hopes for the future and actions grounded and caught in the past. There were scenes that made me laugh out loud, and scenes that brought me close to tears. This book is recommended for those readers looking for a unique reading experience that validates the human experience.
Summary of Everything Is Illuminated
With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man -- also named Jonathan Safran Foer -- sets out to find the woman who may or may not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Accompanied by an old man haunted by memories of the war; an amorous dog named Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior; and the unforgettable Alex, a young Ukrainian translator who speaks in a sublimely butchered English, Jonathan is led on a quixotic journey over a devastated landscape and into an unexpected past.
By turns comic and tragic, but always passionate, wildly inventive, and touched with an indelible humanity, this debut novel is a powerful, deeply felt story of searching: for the past, family, and truth.
The simplest thing would be to describe Everything Is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer's accomplished debut, as a novel about the Holocaust. It is, but that really fails to do justice to the sheer ambition of this book. The main story is a grimly familiar one. A young Jewish American--who just happens to be called Jonathan Safran Foer--travels to the Ukraine in the hope of finding the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis. He is aided in his search by Alex Perchov, a na?ve Ukrainian translator, Alex's grandfather (also called Alex), and a flatulent mongrel dog named Sammy Davis Jr. Jr. On their journey through Eastern Europe's obliterated landscape they unearth facts about the Nazi atrocities and the extent of Ukrainian complicity that have implications for Perchov as well as Safran Foer. This narrative is not, however, recounted from (the character) Jonathan Safran Foer's perspective. It is relayed through a series of letters that Alex sends to Foer. These are written in the kind of broken Russo-English normally reserved for Bond villains or Latka from Taxi. Interspersed between these letters are fragments of a novel by Safran Foer--a wonderfully imagined, almost magical realist, account of life in the shtetl before the Nazis destroyed it. These are in turn commented on by Alex, creating an additional metafictional angle to the tale.
If all this sounds a little daunting, don't be put off; Safran Foer is an extremely funny as well as intelligent writer who combines some of the best Jewish folk yarns since Isaac Bashevis Singer with a quite heartbreaking meditation on love, friendship, and loss. --Travis Elborough, Amazon.co.uk
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