Everything Is Illuminated: A Novel
by Jonathan Safran Foer
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Book Summary Information
Author: Jonathan Safran FoerEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-09-30
ISBN: 0061686670
Number of pages: 400
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Book Reviews of Everything Is Illuminated: A Novel
Book Review: Not a casual read, but one that requires focus, and the pay-off is extraordinary.
Summary: 5 Stars
The first time I picked up this book I got through the first chapter and put it away. I was not captivated and did not have the patience to continue. However, I spoke with my son about it, and he maintained that this may be his all-time favorite book. I picked it up again, months later, and fell absolutely in love with it. If you want to select something to read rather quickly or for pure pleasure, you may be better off choosing a light murder mystery or science fiction adventure. However, if you are interested in something different than perhaps anything you have read before, with unusual and occasionally confusing language conventions (and choices of words), I highly recommend this book. I definitely want to read it a second time and will. It is important to know that slogging through the first few chapters is critical, thinking about each word as you read, and waiting for those internal questions you ask to be answered. Some answers come unexpectedly and others come predictably at the end. This is not a vacation novel; this is a book to choose when you are dedicated to reading and becoming a part of a story that is multi-faceted, difficult to read in places, and sometimes confusing. I think it is more than worth working through. The "English" gets easier to read as the narrator learns to speak/write better. The story is largely funny, sometimes heartbreaking, but not a typical Holocaust experience. I loved it and I hope you will read with patience and dedication, as your focus will be rewarding and you will discover what an incredible imagination this young author demonstrates.
Summary of Everything Is Illuminated: A Novel
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.
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 naïve 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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