Everything is Illuminated

Everything Is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer

Worlds collide when Jonathan Safran Foer hires guides from a local tourism company to help him locate the shtetl where his grandfather lived during WWII. The older of his two guides is the driver, but he insists he is blind, so he also brings along his seeing eye dog, Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior, who happens to be a girl. The younger of the two is the translator. In a quick journey through the remote Ukrainian countryside, the four of them search for the woman in Foer’s picture, Augustine, who saved his grandfather during WWII. Between hilarious recounting of misadventures and mistranslation, we also read letters from the younger of the guides to the author. The letters have been written after the trip, so they recount the journey and critique Foer’s story as it is being written. Additionally, we have the story Foer is/was writing – the history of Trachimbrod, the shtetl where his grandfather lived. These three separate narratives create a heartbreakingly beautiful story about what you need to take or leave from your past in order to move into a better future.

Foer is a musician and his instrument is the word. His word play is genius and all the more hilarious because it is so simply presented. Whether it is the “pygmy allowance” that Alex is “spleening” his mother about, or whether he feels “premium,” “second-rate,” or “melancholoy” about what just happened, the English translations in the story create a sort of alternative English that serves two functions. It makes a semi-accurate language that is more accurate than standard English because of the mistakes, and it also emphasizes the inadequacy of language to explain everything. He also makes art out of his words, altering his writing style to incorporate different stories, characters, and written works throughout his novel. My one problem with Foer’s writing is that it is not always entirely clear what is going on. His other novel that I love,”Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” also incorporates multiple storylines and perspectives, but it usually takes me half the novel to figure out each of the different stories. He always brings them together beautifully at the end of his novels, but it takes a lot of perseverance to get to the point where you can find and appreciate the beauty amongst the discord.

Did I mention yet how hilarious Foer’s writing is? I couldn’t read this book on the bus because I laughed at every other sentence, and I already do enough strange things on the bus. It is hard to get through the first time because it doesn’t make sense, but give it a chance. Give it four or five chances, actually, because I guarantee you will want to read this book at least that many times. He writes with light-hearted poignancy that “illuminates” the human experience in a way that is different from any other author I’ve read. He earns a spot on my top five all-time-favorite books (sometimes “Extremely Loud” is my favorite of the two, sometimes “Everything is Illuminated” is my favorite of the two, but Foer makes the list for sure). Read this book, then read it again, and again, and again…