Hate My Way

Everything is Illuminated has been sitting in my house for a while now. I read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close earlier this year and wanted to read Foer’s debut novel. The movie for this was just released in DVD so I decided to read the book before I viewed the movie.

Well, I liked Up Close much more. I even enjoyed Foer’s stylistic typography more in the previous book. In this book I see the beginnings of an author that is playing with words, both in a writing/language since and in the typesetting sense. Compared to Up Close, Everything is Illuminated is smaller.

The main characters are Alexander and Jonathan. Alexander is Jonathan’s Ukrainian translator when Jonathan travels to find the woman who saved his grandfather’s life in World War II. The story is unique in that it is told in 3 parts. The first is the novel that Jonathan is writing. The second is the novel that Alexander is writing recounting Johnathan’s visit. And the third is the correspondence from Alexander to Jonathan while each reads the other’s drafts. This methodology provides a nice interplay between the stories and the characters. We see their relationship grow from strangers meeting at a train station through the search for the mysterious woman and then as they each tell their story. By the end the two have a shared knowledge that brings them together and keeps them apart.

The novel is funny. The idea of a dog named Sammy Davis Jr. Jr. is very entertaining. And the language that Alexandre uses in his letters is amazing. His rigid and literal English vocabulary allow for some wonderful phrases.

I would recommend to anyone considering reading Safran Foer to start with this book and then proceed to Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. And as Foer grows as a writer, I’m sure that his talents will progress even more and make him one of the best American novelists.

Here is an interview with Jonathan Safran Foer from a couple of week’s ago by the Bat Segundo Show. In the interview he talks about numerous topics including time shifting and experimentation and how type plays a role in his work.

His personal site

This is book 24 for the year. I am so behind in my reading. Between the wife out of school the band and other things I have really fallen behind. I need to read about 1.5 books a week to catch up. I need to find some short reads. My rule is that if it is over 100 pages it counts. So if you can thinks of any let me know.

Tags:   52_Books · Everything-is-Illuminated · jonathan-safran-foer · ReviewsNo Comments