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Summary
Summary
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.
Author Notes
Jonathan Safran Foer (born 1977) is an American author best known for his novels Everything Is Illuminated (2002) and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005). He was born in Washington, D.C. and attended Georgetown Day School and Princeton University.
In 2000, Foer was awarded the Zoetrope: All-Story Fiction Prize and in 2007 he was included in Granta's Best of Young American Novelists.
His forthcoming nonfiction book is entitled, Eating Animals. His title Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close made The N.Y. Times Best Seller List for 2012.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
What would it sound like if a foreigner wrote a novel in broken English? Foer answers this question to marvelous effect in his inspired though uneven first novel. Much of the book is narrated by Ukrainian student Alex Perchov, whose hilarious and, in their own way, pitch-perfect malapropisms flourish under the influence of a thesaurus. Alex works for his family's travel agency, which caters to Jews who want to explore their ancestral shtetls. Jonathan Safran Foer, the novel's other hero, is such a Jew an American college student looking for the Ukrainian woman who hid his grandfather from the Nazis. He, Alex, Alex's depressive grandfather and his grandfather's "seeing-eye bitch" set out to find the elusive woman. Alex's descriptions of this "very rigid search" and his accompanying letters to Jonathan are interspersed with Jonathan's own mythical history of his grandfather's shtetl. Jonathan's great-great-great-great-great-grandmother Brod is the central figure in this history, which focuses mostly on the 18th and 19th centuries. Though there are some moments of demented genius here, on the whole the historical sections are less assured. There's a whiff of kitsch in Foer's jolly cast of pompous rabbis, cuckolded usurers and sharp-tongued widows, and the tone wavers between cozy ethnic humor, heady pontification and sentimental magic-realist whimsy. Nonetheless, Foer deftly handles the intricate story-within-a-story plot, and the layers of suspense build as the shtetl hurtles toward the devastation of the 20th century while Alex and Jonathan and Grandfather close in on the object of their search. An impressive, original debut. (Apr. 16) Forecast: Eagerly awaited since an excerpt was featured in the New Yorker's 2001 "Debut Fiction" issue, Everything Is Illuminated comes reasonably close to living up to the hype. Rights have so far been sold in 12 countries, the novel is a selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club and a main selection of Traditions Book Club, and Foer will embark on an author tour expect lively sales. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Booklist Review
It may be a pretentious title for a 24-year-old's first novel, but nearly everything about this remarkable book is illuminated. There are two plots here. The first is the story of Jonathan Safran Foer, who travels to the Ukraine hoping to find Augustine, the woman who helped save his grandmother from the Nazis. Jonathan; his Ukranian translator, Alexi (who narrates much of the novel in a hilarious broken English); Alexi's grandfather; and the family dog, Sammy Davis Junior Junior, all grow to love Augustine on their mad and hopeless search for her. The second story follows the history of one family in Trachimbrod, the shtetl for which Alexi and Jonathan are searching. Beginning in the eighteenth century with the miraculous appearance of a baby girl, Brod, the sad story of Trachimbrod culminates in the Nazi occupation of the Ukraine. Although there's plenty of lyrical acrobatics here, with exquisite magic realism intermingling with Alexi's uproarious narration, it's the emotional depth of the characters that stands out, from the 613 distinct varieties of sadness observed by young Brod to the remarkable transcontinental friendship of Alexi and Jonathan. Foer, the editor of A Convergence of Birds (2001), a collection of stories and poems inspired by Joseph Cornell's bird boxes, may be young, but he's no pretender. --John Green
Guardian Review
By the end of his discussion of Everything Is Illuminated at the Guardian book club, Jonathan Safran Foer was on the analyst's couch. As one reader asked about possible parallels between a fictional character's perplexities and the author's own family experiences, he commented ruefully: "I should be lying on my back right now - this is total analysis." But clearly he was not uncomfortable about this. He had already invited such inquiries by explaining the ending of his novel with reference to the story of his own grandfather, an immigrant from Ukraine who came to the US after the second world war and died in 1954, still in his early 40s. He realised as an adult that he never knew how this resourceful survivor came to die so young - until his brother found out from public records that their grandfather had killed himself. Everything Is Illuminated had been written several years before this discovery, but somehow, the author thought, it carries his own unconscious suspicion about his grandfather's fate. And this might explain why the novel, unexpectedly, is turned over to the translator Alex's grandfather in its last pages. On the book club website, it was the "voice" of Alex, inept user of an English thesaurus, that provoked most dispute. "I suppose a good deal of the reader's enjoyment or otherwise is based on whether they find Alex endearing or annoying," one reader observed. "I think that having any character constantly talk Johnny-Foreigner English is basically always irritating and often patronising," said another. "The mannered 'voice' of the Alex character ruined it for me," added a third. Readers who came to the book club discussion asked about this. "When you were writing the Alex parts, were you ever concerned that people would think that you were making him stupid?" (This reader was not the only one who drew the analogy with Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat.) Safran Foer was confident that Alex emerges as "the most sympathetic and the wisest character". A commenter on the website had a more forceful rejoinder: "the Ukrainian guy in the book is not 'talking', but rather writing, laboriously translating Ukrainian into Ukrenglish with a dictionary. He also corrects himself (and is corrected), and gets better as the book proceeds (ie, as he 'practises'). It's an aspect of the novel that I thought was done well." Safran Foer himself hoped that, though Alex was "awfully foolish" in the opening pages, readers would notice that he does not stay that way. What about the interleaved stories of the Ukrainian shtetl that take us from the late 18th century to the Nazi occupation? On the website, one exasperated reader contrasted this fictional history unflatteringly with those of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Gunter Grass, who "draw upon their childhood and life in order to write their magical renderings of the past". Another complained of a different "inauthenticity": "What Safran Foer misses from his depiction of shtetl life is the overpowering influence of religion in day-to-day life." "Where was your research for your shtetl stories?" asked one member of the book club audience, who found them "amusing and moving". Did they actually come from Ukraine? "There is exactly one sentence in the whole book that is the product of the kind of research I think you are asking about," the author replied. This was the first sentence of the second chapter, which was originally to have opened the book. "It was March 18, 1791, when Trachim B's double-axle wagon did or did not pin him against the bottom of the Brod River." There was a real place named Trachimbrod, supposedly after this event, and this was the one detail of "historical folklore" out of which he invented the shtetl's population of stories. "All of the stories were pure fabrication." And what of the novel's formal trickery? Commenters on the website - like the novel's first reviewers - disagreed about Safran Foer's narrative devices, but readers who came to the book club discussion clearly relished the novel's liberties. There was particular interest in the crucial passage where Alex's grandfather recalls identifying his friend Herschel as a Jew when the Nazis made their murderous selection. One reader praised its expressive bending of syntax and eroding of punctuation as the grandfather finally told his story. Another eloquently diagnosed the narrative ambiguities of this passage, which implied the possible Jewishness of the ostensibly antisemitic grandfather. In the film, she noted, he was "definitely shown as Jewish". In the novel, his collapsing sentences seemed to make him say that he too was a Jew. Safran Foer said he preferred to leave ambiguities unresolved, but the reader (politely) pushed harder. She pointed out that, in the grandfather's recollections of the events of the 1940s, he is called "Eli" by the friend whom he betrays. What was the significance of this name, only now retrieved from the past, if not to suggest his own Jewishness? Why else would he have changed his name? There was a pause. "I don't remember. That's the truth." "Are Americans confessional?" Safran Foer asked at the end of the discussion. "We wrongly suppose," I answered. "Rightly, tonight," he observed ruefully. John Mullan is professor of English at University College. From next week he will be discussing Lorrie Moore's Collected Stories. Caption: Captions: To order Everything Is Illuminated for pounds 8.99 with free UK p&p call Guardian book service on 0330 333 6846 On the book club website, it was the "voice" of Alex, inept user of an English thesaurus, that provoked most dispute. "I suppose a good deal of the reader's enjoyment or otherwise is based on whether they find Alex endearing or annoying," one reader observed. "I think that having any character constantly talk Johnny-Foreigner English is basically always irritating and often patronising," said another. "The mannered 'voice' of the Alex character ruined it for me," added a third. Readers who came to the book club discussion asked about this. "When you were writing the Alex parts, were you ever concerned that people would think that you were making him stupid?" (This reader was not the only one who drew the analogy with Sacha Baron Cohen's Borat.) "Where was your research for your shtetl stories?" asked one member of the book club audience, who found them "amusing and moving". Did they actually come from Ukraine? "There is exactly one sentence in the whole book that is the product of the kind of research I think you are asking about," the author replied. This was the first sentence of the second chapter, which was originally to have opened the book. "It was March 18, 1791, when Trachim B's double-axle wagon did or did not pin him against the bottom of the Brod River." There was a real place named Trachimbrod, supposedly after this event, and this was the one detail of "historical folklore" out of which he invented the shtetl's population of stories. "All of the stories were pure fabrication." - John Mullan.
Kirkus Review
Comedy and pathos are braided together with extraordinary skill in a haunting debut, a tale that depicts, with riveting intensity and originality, a young Jewish American writer's search for his family's European roots. Three stories are told therein: that of 20-year-old college student Jonathan Safran Foer's journey (in 1997) to the Ukraine in search of "Augustine," the woman rumored to have saved his grandfather from the Nazis; Jonathan's novel-in-progress, a fictional history of Trachimbrod, the Polish shtetl where his ancestors settled in the late 18th century; and letters written to Foer by his Ukrainian guide and translator Alex Perchov, an imperturbable Americanophile who boasts that he's "fluid" in English (in fact, he mangles it as memorably as Mrs. Malaprop) and blithely rearranges all his employer's plans. The seriocomic, partly surreal picture of life in Trachimbrod begins in fine magical-realist form with the story of a newborn baby who inexplicably survives when her father's wagon tumbles into the Brod River (for which she'll be named) and he drowns. Thereafter, Foer keeps the reader both hooked and pleasingly disoriented, as the narrative careens between Jonathan's sedulous exploration of "the dream that we are our fathers" and Alex's ingenuous accounts of their travels, undertaken in the company of his bilious Grandfather and an amorous canine bitch called Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior. The aged Augustine is (or perhaps is not) found, horrific tales of Nazi atrocities and of a bitter legacy of apostasy, betrayal, and guilt gradually unfold-and "illumination"-is ironically achieved, as these several stories fuse together. Summary would mislead, as interlocking revelations are the story's core: suffice it to say that at its overpowering climax, the river where it all began "speaks"-before another voice adds an even more passionate, plaintive coda. Beauty from ashes. And a vibrant response to Jonathan's grim aphorism "The novel is the art form that burns most easily." Not this novel. First serial to the New Yorker, where Foer was featured as a 2001 Debut Fiction Writer; author tour
Library Journal Review
Young Jonathan visits the Ukraine, hoping to find the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis, taking along his translator Alex, Alex's grumpy grandfather as a driver, and a dog who's alternately horny and aggressive. Funny and tragic, part metafiction and part folktale, Everything Is Illuminated uses two excellent narrators to tell the overlapping stories of Jonathan's quest and the tall tales that pass for the history of Trachimbrod, his ancestral village. Jeff Woodman reads the parts written by Alex, whose hilarious mangling of English owes a great deal to thesauri (think of Saturday Night Live's "Two Wild and Crazy Guys"). Scott Shina reads the legends from Jonathan's past, which are earthy, playful, and exuberantly inventive. The characters grow and change before our eyes. Both Foer's prose and his imagination are treats; easily one of the best tapes of 2002.-John Hiett, Iowa City P.L. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Excerpts
Excerpts
Everything Is Illuminated A Novel Chapter One An Overture to the Commencement of a Very Rigid Journey My legal name is Alexander Perchov. But all of my many friends dub me Alex, because that is a more flaccid-to-utter version of my legal name. Mother dubs me Alexi-stop-spleening-me!, because I am always spleening her. If you want to know why I am always spleening her, it is because I am always elsewhere with friends, and disseminating so much currency, and performing so many things that can spleen a mother. Father used to dub me Shapka, for the fur hat I would don even in the summer month. He ceased dubbing me that because I ordered him to cease dubbing me that. It sounded boyish to me, and I have always thought of myself as very potent and generative. I have many many girls, believe me, and they all have a different name for me. One dubs me Baby, not because I am a baby, but because she attends to me. Another dubs me All Night. Do you want to know why? I have a girl who dubs me Currency, because I disseminate so much currency around her. She licks my chops for it. I have a miniature brother who dubs me Alli. I do not dig this name very much, but I dig him very much, so OK, I permit him to dub me Alli. As for his name, it is Little Igor, but Father dubs him Clumsy One, because he is always promenading into things. It was only four days previous that he made his eye blue from a mismanagement with a brick wall. If you're wondering what my bitch's name is, it is Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior. She has this name because Sammy Davis, Junior was Grandfather's beloved singer, and the bitch is his, not mine, because I am not the one who thinks he is blind. As for me, I was sired in 1977, the same year as the hero of this story. In truth, my life has been very ordinary. As I mentioned before, I do many good things with myself and others, but they are ordinary things. I dig American movies. I dig Negroes, particularly Michael Jackson. I dig to disseminate very much currency at famous nightclubs in Odessa. Lamborghini Countaches are excellent, and so are cappuccinos. Many girls want to be carnal with me in many good arrangements, notwithstanding the Inebriated Kangaroo, the Gorky Tickle, and the Unyielding Zookeeper. If you want to know why so many girls want to be with me, it is because I am a very premium person to be with. I am homely, and also severely funny, and these are winning things. But nonetheless, I know many people who dig rapid cars and famous discotheques. There are so many who perform the Sputnik Bosom Dalliance - which is always terminated with a slimy underface - that I cannot tally them on all of my hands. There are even many people named Alex. (Three in my house alone!) That is why I was so effervescent to go to Lutsk and translate for Jonathan Safran Foer. It would be unordinary. I had performed recklessly well in my second year of English at university. This was a very majestic thing I did because my instructor was having shit between his brains. Mother was so proud of me, she said, "Alexi-stop-spleening-me! You have made me so proud of you." I inquired her to purchase me leather pants, but she said no. "Shorts?" "No." Father was also so proud. He said, "Shapka," and I said, "Do not dub me that," and he said, "Alex, you have made Mother so proud." Mother is a humble woman. Very, very humble. She toils at a small café one hour distance from our home. She presents food and drink to customers there, and says to me, "I mount the autobus for an hour to work all day doing things I hate. You want to know why? It is for you, Alexi-stop-spleening-me! One day you will do things for me that you hate. That is what it means to be a family." What she does not clutch is that I already do things for her that I hate. I listen to her when she talks to me. I resist complaining about my pygmy allowance. And did I mention that I do not spleen her nearly so much as I desire to? But I do not do these things because we are a family. I do them because they are common decencies. That is an idiom that the hero taught me. I do them because I am not a big fucking asshole. That is another idiom that the hero taught me. Father toils for a travel agency, denominated Heritage Touring. It is for Jewish people, like the hero, who have cravings to leave that ennobled country America and visit humble towns in Poland and Ukraine. Father's agency scores a translator, guide, and driver for the Jews, who try to unearth places where their families once existed. OK, I had never met a Jewish person until the voyage. But this was their fault, not mine, as I had always been willing, and one might even write lukewarm, to meet one. I will be truthful again and mention that before the voyage I had the opinion that Jewish people were having shit between their brains. This is because all I knew of Jewish people was that they paid Father very much currency in order to make vacations from America to Ukraine. But then I met Jonathan Safran Foer, and I will tell you, he is not having shit between his brains. He is an ingenious Jew. So as for the Clumsy One, who I never ever dub the Clumsy One but always Little Igor, he is a first-rate boy. It is now evident to me that he will become a very potent and generative man, and that his brain will have many muscles. We do not speak in volumes, because he is such a silent person, but I am certain that we are friends, and I do not think I would be lying if I wrote that we are paramount friends. I have tutored Little Igor to be a man of this world. For an example, I exhibited him a smutty magazine three days yore, so that he should be appraised of the many positions in which I am carnal. "This is the sixty-nine," I told him, presenting the magazine in front of him. I put my fingers - two of them - on the action, so that he would not overlook it. "Why is it dubbed sixty-nine?" he asked, because he is a person hot on fire with curiosity. "It was invented in 1969. My friend Gregory knows a friend of the nephew of the inventor." "What did people do before 1969?" "Merely blowjobs and masticating box, but never in chorus." He will be made a VIP if I have a thing to do with it. This is where the story begins. But first I am burdened to recite my good appearance. I am unequivocally tall. I do not know any women who are taller than me. The women I know who are taller than me are lesbians, for whom 1969 was a very momentous year. I have handsome hairs, which are split in the middle. This is because Mother used to split them on the side when I was a boy, and to spleen her I split them in the middle. "Alexi-stop-spleening-me!," she said, "you appear mentally unbalanced with your hairs split like that." She did not intend it, I know. Very often Mother utters things that I know she does not intend. I have an aristocratic smile and like to punch people. My stomach is very strong, although it presently lacks muscles. Father is a fat man, and Mother is also. This does not disquiet me, because my stomach is very strong, even if it appears very fat. I will describe my eyes and then begin the story. My eyes are blue and resplendent. Now I will begin the story. Everything Is Illuminated A Novel . Copyright © by Jonathan Foer. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold. Excerpted from Everything Is Illuminated: A Novel by Jonathan Safran Foer All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.