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A Promise of Things To Come Apr 23, 2002 (45 of 47 found this helpful)
This is in many ways a brilliant book, brimming with energy and invention. Foer is blessed with enormous talent and I have no trouble at all imagining him becoming, in time, one of the major writers of the dawning century. This book, however, is not an unqualified success.
In a way Foer was betrayed by the very reviewers who were somersaulting backwards in order to help him. I was expecting the book to be utterly hilarious but the effect fizzled because the reviewers had already related the best jokes. He was betrayed by them also in the sense that they built such unreasonable expectations into the minds of readers that it would be difficult not to disappoint. Foer only adds to the trouble through his hyper-ambitious title. No, everything is NOT illuminated by reading this book. The themes are a recycling of things I've heard before, very often in places like Hollywood movies. To praise the virtues of love and compassion is not illuminating: it may be true, but it is not new. Foer has his heart in the right place, but that may be part of the problem. I get the sense that he is trying too hard to please. There is nothing wrong with giving your reader pleasure (God knows so few writers even know how) but in order truly to illuminate, in order to allow the reader to walk away with his world in some way changed, one must be ready to challenge, and perhaps even, to insult. Perhaps the success of this novel will embolden Foer to take off the kid gloves and hit us hard the way that, say, Philip Roth does.
I don't agree with the reviewers who complained that Alex's English is either unrealistic ("no Ukranian would speak English that way") or offensive. Yes, it is true that after a while the shtick begins to seem like one long Yakov Smirnoff routine, but the REAL butt of the joke here is not Ukranians or foreigners in general, but the English language itself. Every writer is perfectly entitled to play these games with his tools, with language, and this was one game which could only be played through the mouth of a hypothetical learner of the language. Here there is authentic light. Anybody who argues that it is unrealistic or offensive is missing the point completely. The Trachimbrod sections, on the other hand, read a bit too much like Garcia Marquez Lite. This is not surprising because I read in an interview that Foer adores Marquez, but he may well be advised that, as a writer, it is dangerous to love what you love too much, or too openly. He may learn more by reading more of the authors he DISLIKES.
For all of that, though, he still has the potential to do great things.
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GLITTERING DEBUT, THAT YOU *SHOULD* READ, BUT.. Oct 18, 2003 (194 of 225 found this helpful)
Foer is a pretty endearing writer, no doubt, and one who is already on my watch list. But this novel is not something I'd be seen heaping praises on, as several other reviewers have been.
The book's narrative is inventive, mildly funny (depending on your sense of humor) and occasionally even strewn with streaks of universal wisdom. But some of Foer's devices of story telling seem a little, er, affected.
The lead-in into the novel is a bit wobbly and I took time to warm up to the goings-on -- in reality, the it is a tapestry of SEVERAL stories, the prime theme being one of a young American Jew named Jonathan Safran Foer (eponymous as the author, note) who travels to the Ukraine searching for the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis in 1941. We read of his search through the eyes of his Ukrainian guide and translator, Alex, whose imperfect English provides comic relief.
Part of the story of Jonathan's search is told in straightforward prose, but part is told through letters from Alex. Other stories are told in dreams or in plays. Concurrently, we also get the story of several of Jonathan's forbears, going as far back as 1791.
Much of the novel's humor stems from Alex's under-developed English and his posturing antics. Such comic relief is deft, but the all too frequent flights of lyricism stink of affectation to me, not of staggeringly impressive command of language or anything. Foer is no Wodehouse, not yet.
Everything Is Illuminated is ultimately more of an experience than a book, an episodic, thoughtful and rewarding work. But perhaps you may want to start with a fresh slate instead of a baggage of high expectations, a mistake I made. It is not worthy of a pedestal, but definitely worth a read if only for the sheer boldness of the narrative. Pick it up!
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Storytelling doesn't have to shout Nov 21, 2005 (50 of 56 found this helpful)
Somewhere, buried in Everything is Illuminated is a poignant, moving, original story about a man searching for the woman who saved his Grandfather from the Nazis. Aiding him in his search is the most endearing character in the novel, Alex, who writes English by always searching for a thesaurus term to replace the plain original word - resulting in a highly entertaining brand of comically prolix English. This device is the best narration technique in the novel (although not, as many critics in the blurb claim, a linguistic achievement on a par with Burgess in A Clockwork Orange).
The rest of the novel, however, is taken up with an aggressive array of flashy modern narrative devices - magic realism, hysterical realism, Jewish confession etc., all of which blast the reader with great 'look at me' demonstrations of the writer's virtuosity, but lack any sense of pacing, rhythm, balance and poise.
The principal gripe I have with modern novels such as this, is that in such a competitive, overcrowded market, young writers feel pressured to burst out with something dazzling and innovative, often invoking a range of literary techniques (as Foer does) without really understanding how they can be used most effectively. If the New York publishing scene was less preoccupied with hyping up flashy new bestsellers, and let talented young writers develop slowly, modern novels might have a chance to display some of the quiet literary inspiration that is the hallmark of past masterpieces.
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Amazing Debut - Illuminating To Say The Least Jun 5, 2002 (17 of 17 found this helpful)
I want to pick at this book, to poke at holes and make fun, but I simply can't. This riveting, hilarious, deeply disturbing and sad book is not like anything I've ever read. I don't know higher praise. Yes, it is precocious and agile like A HEARTBREAKING WORK OF SHATTERING GENIUS; the self-referential style is also reminiscent of David Foster Wallace (although without the footnotes). But it is something all of its own, and although reviews may try to describe it, the only way to capture what is great about it is to read it. You can believe the reviews that say it tells two stories, intertwined, and that that they eventually converge in surprising ways. But that doesn't begin to scratch the surface of the achievement here, and I can't adequately encourage the serious reader to dive into every dense paragraph and find all the delights that are there. This is not an easy read, but it is so rewarding, both in its comic highs and tragic lows, that to miss it is to miss out. I just closed it, and couldn't wait to let anybody who might care know that they should rush to it; it is worth the rush.
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Everything Is Illuminated Review Aug 21, 2005 (15 of 15 found this helpful)
I bought Everything Is Illuminated because I needed a summer reading book and I had heard great things about it. It's the kind of book I don't normally choose, because of the subject matter and the format. I assumed it would be boring, but since I had little else to read, I decided to give it a shot. The story follows a twentysomething American named Jonathan (Foer makes himself the main character even though the story is fictional) who goes to the Ukraine to look for a woman who he believes saved his grandfather's life during World War II. All he has to help him is a photo of her with her family and his grandfather, her first name, and the hope that she's still alive. His guide/interpreter is a young man of the same age named Sasha, and since he doesn't have much training in English, he has a tendency to butcher the language when translating phrases. Sasha's grandfather is the driver, and they soon learn that he has more to do with the search than they initially thought. The book really has three stories: the first is "written" by Sasha and is pretty much just an account of their search; the second is written by the "hero," Foer, and is a retelling of his family history and how it ties in with the search; the third story is composed of letters from Alex to Foer, and it talks about their joint effort in writing the story, and about their lives after the search. Even though the format seems confusing and a little disorganized, it flows together very well and helps to keep the reader from getting distracted and bored.
While the story starts off slow for the first few pages, and requires a little bit of work to understand Alex's mistranslations, the story soon picks up and the reader gets used to Alex's mistakes. What makes the book easy to read is Foer's style and subtle humor. He is creative in using a foreign character with imperfect English to narrate two thirds of the book, and sometimes it's more fun to read the mistakes Alex makes in his expressions than it is to actually follow the story. Foer also keeps it interesting by running three stories at once, so that the reader can switch from one to another without confusing them or getting bored. He is descriptive in his writing, but not too much. He makes observations about characters that are uncommonly made by writers but at the same time are real and easy to relate to.
Another tool Foer uses that kept the book interesting was his ability to change the tone throughout the book without making it obvious. For the first half of the book, the tone is light and humorous, and jokes or witty remarks are found in practically every line. But gradually, as the stories progress, the humor starts to fade and the jokes become more sparse, until almost none are made. It helps the reader to feel like part of the story, to feel like the characters do as the story turns from a fun account of a little adventure to a very scary yet very real account of World War II and the people who lived through it.