| Everything Is Illuminated: A Novel |  | Author: Jonathan Safran Foer
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Category: Book
List Price: $13.99
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Rating:  436 reviews
Sales Rank: 2,892
Media: Paperback
Pages: 288
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.3 x 0.6
ISBN: 0060529709
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780060529703
ASIN: 0060529709
Publication Date: April 1, 2003
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Amazon.com Review
The simplest thing would be to describe Everything Is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer's accomplished debut, as a novel about the Holocaust. It is, but that really fails to do justice to the sheer ambition of this book. The main story is a grimly familiar one. A young Jewish American--who just happens to be called Jonathan Safran Foer--travels to the Ukraine in the hope of finding the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis. He is aided in his search by Alex Perchov, a naïve Ukrainian translator, Alex's grandfather (also called Alex), and a flatulent mongrel dog named Sammy Davis Jr. Jr. On their journey through Eastern Europe's obliterated landscape they unearth facts about the Nazi atrocities and the extent of Ukrainian complicity that have implications for Perchov as well as Safran Foer. This narrative is not, however, recounted from (the character) Jonathan Safran Foer's perspective. It is relayed through a series of letters that Alex sends to Foer. These are written in the kind of broken Russo-English normally reserved for Bond villains or Latka from Taxi. Interspersed between these letters are fragments of a novel by Safran Foer--a wonderfully imagined, almost magical realist, account of life in the shtetl before the Nazis destroyed it. These are in turn commented on by Alex, creating an additional metafictional angle to the tale. If all this sounds a little daunting, don't be put off; Safran Foer is an extremely funny as well as intelligent writer who combines some of the best Jewish folk yarns since Isaac Bashevis Singer with a quite heartbreaking meditation on love, friendship, and loss. --Travis Elborough, Amazon.co.uk
Product Description
With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man -- also named Jonathan Safran Foer -- sets out to find the woman who may or may 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.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 436
 Two thumbs up! One for Jonathan and one for Amazon! September 9, 2010
Gabriela Salmazo
I had read this book before and I loved it so much that I thought it was worthy having it to re-read or maybe lend it to friends, so the best option I had was to get it through Amazon because I live in Brazil and sometimes is quite dificult to find some books in English. I was very surprised to know about the tracking system because I thought once it got to Brazil I would lose track of the book, but the total opposite occured: I could track every single step and even when it was delivered I could check online the name of the doorman that received the package! Plus I want to congratulate Amazon and the seller for the efficiency considering that I received my books in last than a week - 6 days to be more exact. Thank you!
Did you see the movie? You're still in for a treat! August 16, 2010
Anders Eggum (Oslo, Norway)
This was the first book I read by JSF - I picked it because of its cover and although the first pages seem weird, I carried on and fell completely in love with it. I ordered the movie later, and was puzzled that it only covers about 1/3 of the plot. So, if you liked the movie, read the book. If you didn't like the movie... Read the book! And if you haven't seen the movie, well, forget about it and buy the book anyway :-) It's funny and sad and confusing and romantic and serious fiction and non-fiction all at the same time. Nuff said.
Wonderful book July 25, 2010
calamitycait
This has been my favorite book since I read it in my senior year of high school. It's story is beautifully woven (and "woven" is really the only way to describe the way in which the many different threads come together). Reading it for a second time has been like reading a whole new book, and it is definitely one of those novels that is worth buying rather than just borrowing.
 I'm sorry, but I found this book offensive July 21, 2010
Liz E. (Seattle, WA USA)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I felt like Foer was pimping the Holocaust, frankly. It felt - I don't know, too self-satisfied, or self-indulgent, or something; I felt like this book was all about Foer over-flexing his artistic muscles, and it didn't sit well with me that he was using the Holocaust to do it. I know this might just be me showing my prejudice against rich, privileged East Coasters. That's definitely a part of my distaste, but I don't think that's all it is - there's something just too flowery, or too overextended - I don't know, something is wrong here.
Like... it doesn't feel real! It feels like Foer tried to vamp it all up with extra meaning, extra "deepness" shoved into every conversation and description... and I don't know, he just seemed too proud about it all.
It's mostly the pogrom scene, at the very end at the grandfather's wedding, that really gets to me. I felt like Foer tried to distill the Holocaust itself into art, and that's wrong. I found myself getting angry at Foer, for being ignorant about the reality of suffering, of murder. It seemed like he was abusing this subject, playing with all the deep and ugly feelings we naturally have for the Holocaust, and using them to fuel the his book's very artsy "crescendo"... I don't know if this is making sense. He just makes me uneasy.
I know he's the grandchild of Holocaust survivors. But all his experience is second-hand, it doesn't give him cart blanche... I don't know, my grandpa was in a camp too, and I just try to imagine what he'd make of all of this...
I don't know. I know everybody processes things, expresses things differently, and probably I should just give Foer the benefit of the doubt and enjoy his work without all this anger. Still - I am uneasy with this book.
 Brilliant Provocative Voice July 3, 2010
Jiang Xueqin (Toronto, Canada)
I did not enjoy "Everything is Illuminated," but I will have to say that its young author is brilliant. His control over the English language and the maturity of his voice are truly astonishing and impressive. But like most brilliant provocative authors in their mid-twenties he really has nothing to say, and so substitutes that absence with gimmickery. In "Everything is Illuminated," the gimmick is a literary conversation that transcends time and space. There are three interlacing strands: the journey of an American in Ukraine in search of the person who saved his grandfather's life, the story of this American's ancestors written by the American himself, and the responses in letter form to this book by the American's translator on the journey.
This is on the surface a celebration of family and roots, but really it's a celebration of language and literature -- the power of both to transcend space and time. I just wished there was an interesting, compelling story to make me want to appreciate the fine writing.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 436
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