Everything is Illuminated

[madamedysart]

So, I just read the book "Everything is Illuminated" by Jonathan Safran Foer. Knowing that he wrote the book at 25 kind of makes me want to curl up into a useless ball and die. But enough about that. The book is really, really good - and I can't quite decipher how much of it is particularly touching to me because of the book's cultural perspective

Comments

I ought to read that

[faithful_summer]

I've seen the movie and I liked it a lot, but I feel like I'd have a little more insight into some of the flashbacks if I'd read the book. The grandfather has a lot of flashbacks, but there's no dialogue, so you have to figure out what happened on your own. It becomes clear by the end, but at first it's confusing. It kind of works out nicely, since it's a little of a mystery that progresses as you figure out where he stood during the war, but I especially wish they'd explained more towards the end. I felt like it was missing something, but I can't say for sure since I haven't read the book. For all I know, it follows it well.

[moselle]

A friend of mine here in Japan highly recommended this book to me. I haven't read it yet, but I did read Jonathan Safran Foer's second book, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. It's funny and entertaining, but there were parts that annoyed me. For example, the narrator's father is obsessed with grammar. The way it plays out in the book is a little bit too gimmicky for me. Now that I'm hearing more good things about Everything I definitely want to read it, though.

[aquaholder]

So I saw the movie and I really liked it (and now want to read the book). The first half is ridiculously funny, and the second half will really get you.

[citizenbret]

I'm reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close right now and really enjoy it. Its narration is similar to The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, as the lion's share of the book is through a child's perspective. As if to make up for the limiations on complexity that result, parts of the book are told through the memoirs of adults. I think that you'll love some of these sections of the book. They were vaguely reminiscent of some of better passages of Doctor Zhivago and employ similar imagery (especially the physical representation or appearance of words as images - hard to explain but you'll see what I mean).

I do have one recommendation about the book though - do not read anything about it before you start reading it (well, besides these responses to your post obviously). I started reading it on the recommendation of a friend without knowing anything about it and I think that might have added to my enjoyment.