Everything is Illuminated
EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED (Jonathan Safran Foer) - Three Stars
Some people have called Everything is Illuminated a "home-run of a novel." I prefer to think of it as a home-run DERBY of a novel: entertaining but shallow, flashy and pretentious without a lot of depth. Which are strong words for a book that (kind of) deals with the Holocaust.
The narrative is broken into three separate, interspersed parts. The first narrative is Ukrainian tour guide Alex's story. He tells the story of how his family's tour business is hired by an American Jew named Jonathan Safran Foer to search for a woman that saved Jonathan's grandfather from the Nazis. Alex intersperses this with stories about his family, specifically the other males in his life: his younger brother "Little Igor," his abusive, alcoholic father, and his grandfather (who bears his own scars from WWII and seems, at times, on the verge of Alzheimer's or dementia). Alex speaks in a semi-fluent form of "Engrish," and his translations usually just miss the mark. You get the feeling he translates with a thesaurus, as many of his words are adjacent to what he's looking for (e.g., his frequent use of the word "rigid" to mean "difficult"). This narrative is told in the immediate past tense (as if it just happened) and gives the feeling of the present, even though in the timeline of the novel it occurred many months ago.
The second narrative is a novel-within-a-novel, character Jonathan's story about his ancestors' shtetl. This is a fantastical story, and despite being a supposed historical account, author Jonathan sprinkles lots of features like magical realism into this narrative. The third narrative is tied to the previous two, and is Alex's letters to character Jonathan commenting both on his novel and on their journey. The third narrative is told in the "current" past tense, months after the activity of the first narrative. As all three narratives are told simultaneously, in more or less alternating chapters, you learn about character Jonathan's ancestors at the same time the characters are engaged in their search, and at the same time Alex is reviewing/replaying the search from the storyline future. Thus, Foer tells the past, present and future of the story arc at the same time.
I have a couple of big problems with the novel. The first is that Foer attempts to do so much within Everything is Illuminated that he fails to do justice to most of it. The best example I can give is that of the translator, Alex. Alex's closeted homosexuality and relationship with his abusive father are really only hinted at or glossed over, amongst other things. Alex is the main character of the novel (not character Jonathan), but I really don't feel he was in depth as he needed to be.
The second is that too much of the novel does not seem fresh or original. Too much of the novel doesn't read like a fresh, new literary voice, but like an intelligent writer aping a pantheon of great 20th-Century novelists. The novel-in-a-novel gimmick reminded me of Margaret Atwood. Alex's stilted English in Everything is Illuminated has been compared to Anthony Burgess' nadsat language in A Clockwork Orange (a ludicrous overreach: Burgess cobbled together a whole new language of slang, Foer just uses a few mistranslations (and do I need to point out the "coincidence" that the protagonists of both novels is named "Alex"?)). Foer uses magical realism in a fashion very similar to Salman Rushdie (not Gabriel Garcia Marquez; though Foer's usage of one family to tell the history of a town, combined with the themes of history and memory, plus the repetitious use of the same name for family members across multiple generations, and the story of the town ending in a cataclysm smacks heavily of Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude). The usage of an eponymous character caught in a strange adventure is immediately reminiscent of Kurt Vonnegut and Philip Roth. I could go on.
The book has its moments: some of Alex's engrish is genuinely hilarious, and Lista's story about the destruction of Trachimbrod during WWII is easily the most gripping part of the entire novel. But for the most part, Everything is Illuminated seems to fall short of the lofty goals Foer sets for it. Basically, instead of just coming out and writing a novel Jonathan Safran Foer tries to reinvent the wheel, and it doesn't completely work.
Some people have called Everything is Illuminated a "home-run of a novel." I prefer to think of it as a home-run DERBY of a novel: entertaining but shallow, flashy and pretentious without a lot of depth. Which are strong words for a book that (kind of) deals with the Holocaust.
The narrative is broken into three separate, interspersed parts. The first narrative is Ukrainian tour guide Alex's story. He tells the story of how his family's tour business is hired by an American Jew named Jonathan Safran Foer to search for a woman that saved Jonathan's grandfather from the Nazis. Alex intersperses this with stories about his family, specifically the other males in his life: his younger brother "Little Igor," his abusive, alcoholic father, and his grandfather (who bears his own scars from WWII and seems, at times, on the verge of Alzheimer's or dementia). Alex speaks in a semi-fluent form of "Engrish," and his translations usually just miss the mark. You get the feeling he translates with a thesaurus, as many of his words are adjacent to what he's looking for (e.g., his frequent use of the word "rigid" to mean "difficult"). This narrative is told in the immediate past tense (as if it just happened) and gives the feeling of the present, even though in the timeline of the novel it occurred many months ago.
The second narrative is a novel-within-a-novel, character Jonathan's story about his ancestors' shtetl. This is a fantastical story, and despite being a supposed historical account, author Jonathan sprinkles lots of features like magical realism into this narrative. The third narrative is tied to the previous two, and is Alex's letters to character Jonathan commenting both on his novel and on their journey. The third narrative is told in the "current" past tense, months after the activity of the first narrative. As all three narratives are told simultaneously, in more or less alternating chapters, you learn about character Jonathan's ancestors at the same time the characters are engaged in their search, and at the same time Alex is reviewing/replaying the search from the storyline future. Thus, Foer tells the past, present and future of the story arc at the same time.
I have a couple of big problems with the novel. The first is that Foer attempts to do so much within Everything is Illuminated that he fails to do justice to most of it. The best example I can give is that of the translator, Alex. Alex's closeted homosexuality and relationship with his abusive father are really only hinted at or glossed over, amongst other things. Alex is the main character of the novel (not character Jonathan), but I really don't feel he was in depth as he needed to be.
The second is that too much of the novel does not seem fresh or original. Too much of the novel doesn't read like a fresh, new literary voice, but like an intelligent writer aping a pantheon of great 20th-Century novelists. The novel-in-a-novel gimmick reminded me of Margaret Atwood. Alex's stilted English in Everything is Illuminated has been compared to Anthony Burgess' nadsat language in A Clockwork Orange (a ludicrous overreach: Burgess cobbled together a whole new language of slang, Foer just uses a few mistranslations (and do I need to point out the "coincidence" that the protagonists of both novels is named "Alex"?)). Foer uses magical realism in a fashion very similar to Salman Rushdie (not Gabriel Garcia Marquez; though Foer's usage of one family to tell the history of a town, combined with the themes of history and memory, plus the repetitious use of the same name for family members across multiple generations, and the story of the town ending in a cataclysm smacks heavily of Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude). The usage of an eponymous character caught in a strange adventure is immediately reminiscent of Kurt Vonnegut and Philip Roth. I could go on.
The book has its moments: some of Alex's engrish is genuinely hilarious, and Lista's story about the destruction of Trachimbrod during WWII is easily the most gripping part of the entire novel. But for the most part, Everything is Illuminated seems to fall short of the lofty goals Foer sets for it. Basically, instead of just coming out and writing a novel Jonathan Safran Foer tries to reinvent the wheel, and it doesn't completely work.
posted by Kevin at 10:16 AM
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