Everything is Illuminated/ Jonathan Safran Foer/ Fiction / 288 pages/ Reviewed by Matthew
What happens when you throw together a twenty something writer from New York City, An aging half blind Ukrainian driver, his “Officious Seeing Eye Bitch,” Sammy Davis Junior Junior (that’s two Juniors) and Alex, a young man from Odessa who loves all things American, on a road trip to the heart of Eastern Europe? Jonathan Safran Foer crafted an interesting, hilarious, and tragic story that uses an offbeat non-linear style to show how even the most remote events can be connected. In Everything is Illuminated, action is constantly jumping from the point of view of Jonathan or “Jon-fen” as his new Ukrainian friends dub him, Alex the translator and a detached voice describing the past life in the village they are searching for . Chapters are interspersed one from Alex in elementary English, and responses from Jonathan. Mr. Foer does an amazing job writing not only his own parts as Jonathan but also as Alex, who’s letters are a hilarious exercise in broken language that will have you rolling around or scratching your head.
What happens when you throw together a twenty something writer from New York City, An aging half blind Ukrainian driver, his “Officious Seeing Eye Bitch,” Sammy Davis Junior Junior (that’s two Juniors) and Alex, a young man from Odessa who loves all things American, on a road trip to the heart of Eastern Europe? Jonathan Safran Foer crafted an interesting, hilarious, and tragic story that uses an offbeat non-linear style to show how even the most remote events can be connected. In Everything is Illuminated, action is constantly jumping from the point of view of Jonathan or “Jon-fen” as his new Ukrainian friends dub him, Alex the translator and a detached voice describing the past life in the village they are searching for . Chapters are interspersed one from Alex in elementary English, and responses from Jonathan. Mr. Foer does an amazing job writing not only his own parts as Jonathan but also as Alex, who’s letters are a hilarious exercise in broken language that will have you rolling around or scratching your head.
Foer’s book could have failed; such a high concept piece could drown in its own high mindedness or get lost trying to explain the complex rules and customs of his ancestors back in the shtetl that our adventurers are trying to track down. I think that it works so well because the cultural friction and miscommunication really is that funny. The changes in point of view the book uses to weave the narrative may be a little tiring, but the confusion created by jumping from Alex’s letters, then to Jonathan’s responses, then going back two hundred years to Jonathans family history in the village of Trachembrod, shows how everything is connected even when it is hidden and unexpected.
The thing that I liked most about Everything Is Illuminated (even more than Alex’s thesaurus aided letters) was the author’s ability to use the overlapping memories to link events that happened generations before the main characters lived. When Alex and Jonathan finish their search they are changed, each coming away knowing a little bit more about who they are. While its easy to get caught up in the stylistic methods Foer uses for the voices of the different characters, the real beauty of this book is the message at the center of it, that memory and the past will always reveal itself in surprising ways. I recommend this book to anyone with an interest in new and challenging writing. This book isn’t for everyone, but to me it was one of the most satisfying novels I’ve read in years.
Before I finish I would also like recommending the recent movie adaptation as well. While much of Foer’s original ideas were left out, the dynamic of Alex and Jonathan rings as clear as in the book. Unlike most screen adaptations of popular books, this one seems to hold its own even if the background is simplified.
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