"Imagine a novel as verbally cunning as A Clockwork Orange , as harrowing as The Painted Bird , as exuberant and twee as Candide , and you have Everything Is Illuminated . . . Read it, and you'll feel altered, chastened -- seared in the fire of something new." -- Washington Post With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man -- also named Jonathan Safran Foer -- sets out to find the woman who might or might not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Accompanied by an old man haunted by memories of the war ...
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"Imagine a novel as verbally cunning as A Clockwork Orange , as harrowing as The Painted Bird , as exuberant and twee as Candide , and you have Everything Is Illuminated . . . Read it, and you'll feel altered, chastened -- seared in the fire of something new." -- Washington Post With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man -- also named Jonathan Safran Foer -- sets out to find the woman who might or might 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. As their adventure unfolds, Jonathan imagines the history of his grandfather's village, conjuring a magical fable of startling symmetries that unite generations across time. As his search moves back in time, the fantastical history moves forward, until reality collides with fiction in a heart-stopping scene of extraordinary power. "A rambunctious tour de force of inventive and intelligent storytelling . . . Foer can place his reader's hand on the heart of human experience, the transcendent beauty of human connections. Read, you can feel the life beating." -- Philadelphia Inquirer
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The blurbs on the book jackets say it all. Amazing novel, even more amazing since its a first effort. Thought it was would be funny, light and quirky and it was, but it was also surprisingly powerful and the writing is first rate. Great story filled with great characters. The movie version does not do the book justice.
Myrtie W
Jan 27, 2011
Buy This for Family and Friends
This is one of the most deeply moving and funniest books I have read in years. The fractured English is a delight and brilliant. Within minutes of finishing it, I purchased it for my daughters.
The title is the giveaway.
Try All is Revealed for the title. Now do you see how very, very clever he is?
dancingchef
Jul 10, 2010
Amazing author, good book
To begin with, Jonathan Safran Foer is, in my opinion, one of the most eloquent, creative, and gifted writers of our time. After reading his more recent novel, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, I knew I had to read anything and everything he had written, which brought me to this novel. I am sad to say I wasn't as thrilled with Everything Is Illuminated and I was with Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. However, this novel was at times quite profound and weaved enchanting stories that required me to suspend my disbelief, which I had no trouble doing. It delt eloquently with the Holocaust, without being overtly lugubrious, which is often a difficult task. Foer's ability to get into the minds of his characters is astounding, especially through his use of dialect in his Ukranian character Alex. The only thing that was a bit unsettling in this novel was Foer's occasional use of crude language and images. But this is, nonetheless, a novel I would recommend to any reader desirous of a complex, sometimes sad, and truly profound novel.
screwdskull
Mar 18, 2008
Yippie!
Jonhathan Safran Foer displays a huge talent to weave humour with what is a very painfully traumatic time in history, but manages to not make it pityful and pithy, which could have easily been done.
Nikki
Mar 21, 2007
Insightful look into our connections to the past
Jonathan Safran Foer's debut novel Everything is Illuminated is a rare first book because of its capability to make readers laugh and cry within the span of a few paragraphs
The story follows a character also named Jonathan Safran Foer on his trip to Eastern Europe in search of the woman he believes saved his grandfather from the Nazis during World War II. His tour-guide, Alex, continually mangles English adding humor to the work. The novel intertwines two narratives--Jonathan's search through Eastern Europe and his creation of his grandfather's village's history--which balance each other and end in twist showing the connection of the past and present. The novel contains heaby postmodern influences evidenced in the experimental literary techinques Foer employs.
Everything is Illuminated is beautifully written and incredibly insightful. For anyone interested in the Holocaust or simply the role ancestors play in our lives, Everything is Illuminated comes highly recommended.
