Everything Is Illuminated

Mixed feelings about this novel. Overall, I liked it and would recommend it to any fan of literary fiction, Jewish history, history in general, and genealogy. It's very different from the film, which slices out at least one-half of the novel: the backstory. The film is a well-done "road movie" set in the Ukraine and following the three main characters, Alex, Alex's grandfather Sasha, and Jonathan, as they search for the elusive town of Trachimbrod. The novel, however, is less focused on the interaction among these three characters and their actual voyage. It jumps back and forth between the present day (post-search), told in letters between Alex and Jonathan, and the 1700s, leading up to the early 1940s, when the town's people were show more destroyed by Nazis.

The most captivating character, in my opinion, was Alex. The letters he writes to Jonathan in his just-learning-English style are hilarious, insightful, heartbreaking. I adored him. Unfortunately, he is only present in about one-third of the novel. There were times when I was incredibly annoyed to have to leave the present day and continue with the 1700s backstory, which was just not as interesting. Much of the backstory seemed to rely on characters who were outlandishly quirky, but not in genuine or endearing ways, and Safran's endless sex scenes began to bore me and trivialize the rest of the story. I wanted the novel to focus on the three main characters, their enlightenment/illumination, and their relationship.

But still, it's a great book and it deserves its accolades. show less

File this one in the category "books that will make you laugh out loud while riding the bus." The chapters narrated by Alex start out hilarious and move towards devastating, while the magic-realism of the chapters written by Jonathan range from devastating to strange to magical to lovely. Foer's prose is as beautiful, careful, and demanding as poetry.

Welch schräges, witziges aber auch bitterernstes, tieftrauriges und hintergründiges Buch. Zugegebenermaßen kein allzu leicht lesender Roman da die drei unterschiedlichen Erzählstränge zu Beginn recht zusammenhanglos nebeneinander stehen. Da ist einmal Alex, ein ukrainischer junger Mann, der gemeinsam mit seinem Großvater einen jüdischen Amerikaner bei dessen Suche nach seiner Vergangenheit begleitet. Alex erzählt in einer unnachahmlichen Sprache (er ist noch immer dabei seine Englischkenntnisse zu erweitern), wie diese Reise ablief die auch eine Reise in seine bzw. die Vergangenheit seines Großvaters wird. Der zweite Erzählstrang kommt von dem Amerikaner, der die Geschichte seiner Familie darstellt, beginnend mit der show more Urururururgroßmutter Brod (sollte ich ein Ur vergessen haben, bitte ich dies zu entschuldigen :-)). Immer wieder zwischen Realität und Phantasie hin und her wechselnd, entsteht ein kunterbuntes Bild des Schtetls in dem die Familie des Amerikaners zuhause war. Der dritte und letzte Teil des Buches stammt wieder von Alex. Er und sein früherer Gast tauschen die jeweils geschriebenen Abschnitte aus und Alex kommentiert sie in seinen Briefen die zudem die Geschehnisse in seiner Familie sowie seine Gedanken im Allgemeinen und im Speziellen beinhalten.
Die Familiengeschichte von Foer (der den Amerikaner darstellt), spannt sich von 1791 bis zum II. Weltkrieg, während dem das gesamte Dorf der Vernichtung anheim fiel. Foers Großvater war der Einzige der sich retten konnte dank der Hilfe einer Frau, auf deren Suche sich nun der Enkel befindet.
Es ist eine anrührende Geschichte über die Suche nach der Vergangenheit, nach Liebe, nach sich selbst, nach dem was zählt. Und irgendwie sind alle auf der Suche. show less

A strange book. Intermittently hilarious and tragic. I cried, and I laughed. This has only happened when reading very few other books, some inferior, others on the same level of innovation and ravishing emotion.

If you necessitate a motive to examine this volume: It was comic. Scratch that: It was comic, and completely, utterly draining. Poignant. Honest in the most dishonestly clever way.

Perhaps that is why it is called Illuminated. By the end we will see Alex in all of his glorious multifaceted complexity, and we will understand why the heroes’ ancestors did what they did and yearned for their children to know this, too. Everything does get more illuminated as the story moves on. Perhaps this is a story of illumination—of show more remembrance, really, which is the sixth sense of the Jew. Perhaps this is simply a story of Jewish mysticism and storytelling (but it is not, no it is not,) a story of pervasive knowledge in the face of death and violence and ignorance.

But it is not only that.

I wanted to finish this book knowing what Everything was. Perhaps that is why Jonathan left us on a cliff. He set a trap for us. He knew we’d want to know, and that we’d buy his book wanting to know and read it wanting to know and love it wanting to know, until he would make sure that we’d be coming back for more. Wanting to know.

This is a conversation between two heroes that we want to know, from head to toe. Read it for two scratch that, three reasons: It’s hilarious, it’s heartrending, and it will leave you wanting illumination.

Wanting in a good way, that is. show less

Look, somebody has to say it. This book needed an editor to go at it with a pair of gardening shears and then tell Safran Foer to come back to it when he's grown up. It is so, so immature.

I staggered through this, waiting for the promised brilliance, getting increasingly bitter as it failed to appear. The "hilarity" of the Russian's thesaurus-English falls flat by the third page, but gets belabored for two hundred more; the magical realism half could have been written by any college student arrogant enough to read Garcia Marquez and think, "I can do that." And that sort of arrogance - that cockiness - is by its nature immature, and permeates the novel.

Safran Foer has potential as a writer, but with the publication of this and its show more acclaim I worry that he has no incentive to grow as an author, as he's been told his adolescent efforts are perfect. Perhaps I will check out what he's writing in a couple decades. Then again, perhaps not. show less

Another long-term TBR, and what a brilliant book!

Writer Jonathan goes to the Ukraine in search of his own family's history. His family was saved in WW2 by a Ukranian woman, and it is Jonathan's goal to find her. His guide and translator on the trip is Alex, a gregarious young Ukrainian, very much a fan of the U.S., and who is planning his escape from Lvov. Jonathan's search takes them to the countryside, being driven by Alex' grandfather, whose dog takes quite a liking to the author.

The book is split into two distinctive narrative styles, the letters from Alex to the author, I should say the author in the book, and the author's own book. This is an extremely effective technique, as the character Foer's offerings contrast greatly with show more Alex' style, indeed it's his comments that make you read the author's writings with a finer tooth comb. Alex questions, comments on and interrupts Foer's text, bringing a lot of humour to the book, often unintentionally through his misuse of English. The writer in the book offers us a history of his family, not in a dry linear way, but rather more like an oral version handed down, embellished by the tellers until it is hard to separate the truth from fiction. It is a history that is all to human, with love, loss and other interaction laid bare for the reader.

I really enjoyed the style, the mix of narratives kept me turning the pages. It is a book that is often raw, but it is the jagged edges that will make you read on. I would recommend this for those who like their literature with a good dose of humour, as well as those who like a well-explored yarn. show less

This is at once one of the funniest and also one of the most tragic novels I’ve experienced in a long time. Safran Foer’s tale of the history of his own Jewish family’s experience in Ukraine is told from two very different points of view. Neither are equally accessible, but together they form a splendid whole and one that is even more impressive for a first novel.

The modern-day episodes of the author visiting Ukraine are very readable. This comes both from the farcical humour and, as this gives way to plot, an increasing desire to uncover the secrets that are obviously waiting to be discovered. So far so good.

Then there are episodes woven between detailing what at first appear to be unconnected events in the distant past. These show more events are told in a style bordering on magic-realism with a fair amount of wordplay. However much difficulty you might encounter, I’d highly recommend that you persevere. The rewards are truly great.

In some ways, this novel reminded me a lot of The Reluctant Fundamentalist in the way that you are in the grip of a storyteller who is determined not to reveal his full hand for some time. As the end nears, the frivolity of the earlier sections is long forgotten and a chill sets in just as it does in Reluctant. In some ways, it’s inevitable given the subject matter.

I have to say that listening to the audiobook narrated by Jeff Woodman and Scott Shina was a wonderful experience. I don’t know which of them played the young Ukrainian guide, Alexander, but he’s a natural comic. The accent and drama he brings to the voice had me laughing out loud on many an occasion.

Of course the real genius is Safran Foer who provides Alex with a comically farcical and yet entirely plausible English learner’s vocabulary. Trust me: after teaching English all over the world for 20 years, Alex’s language is spot on. There’s even more of it via the website Who is Augustine which is worth exploring even if you haven’t read the novel as it will whet your appetite. If you have read it, the website’s compulsory! show less