Everything Is Illuminated is the first novel by the American writer Jonathan Safran Foer, published in 2002. It was adapted into a film by the same name starring Elijah Wood in 2005.

Plot summary

A young American Jew, named Jonathan Safran Foer, journeys to Ukraine in search of Augustine, the woman who saved his grandfather's life during the Nazi liquidation of Trachimbrod, his family shtetl. Armed with many copies of an old photograph of Augustine and his grandfather, maps, and cigarettes, Jonathan begins his adventure with Ukrainian native and soon-to-be good friend, Alexander "Alex" Perchov, who is Foer's age and very fond of American pop culture, albeit culture that is already out of date in the United States. Alex has studied English at his university and is "premium" in his knowledge of the language, therefore he becomes the translator. Alex's "blind" grandfather and his "deranged seeing-eye bitch," Sammy Davis, Jr., Jr., accompany them on their journey. These three parts tie together in the end of the story. Throughout the book, the meaning of love is deeply examined.

The writing and structure received critical acclaim for the manner in which it switches between two story arcs: (1) fragments of Foer-the-character's novel-in-progress, where he tells in highly literary English a quasi-magical story about the citizens of Trachimbrod; and (2) a straightforward narrative of searching for Trachimbrod (an invented name for the real village Trochenbrod), as told by Alex in broken English. They are tied together by letters sent from Alex to Foer and attached to Alex's version. Alex's narrative is notable for its broken English, which sounds as if he learned English from a thesaurus without ever hearing it spoken. Throughout his narrative, he makes frequent use of improper synonyms, such as using the word rigid to mean "difficult" or "hard".

Place names

Names of cities are given in their Russian version (e.g., Lvov), although the Polish or Ukrainian naming would have been correct for the scenes in Trachimbrod and Ukraine.

Literary significance and criticism

Upon its initial release the book received positive reviews. The Times review stated that the book was "a work of genius," that Foer had "staked his claim for literary greatness," and that "after it, things will never be the same."^[1] More recent reviews of the novel, particularly those who examined it alongside Foer's next book, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, have been less generous. Harry Siegel, writing in the New York Press, described Everything is Illuminated as:

an admixture of shtick and sentiment, the most self-involved work about the Holocaust since Maus, with all the gravitas of Robin Williams' Jakob the Liar. I understand how a young man could write such a book, but not why he would have it published, and certainly not how it could be acclaimed as marking the arrival of a major new talent. ^[2].

In a Huffington Post article entitled "The 15 Most Overrated Contemporary American Writers", Anis Shivani sees the work as "harmless multiculturalism for the perennially bored" and claims that "a more pretentious 'magical realist' novel was never written."^[3].

References

External links

• Exploratory site for Everything Is Illuminated
• Trochenbrod & Lozisht community website
• The Journey to Trochenbrod and Lozisht aug 2006
• Everything Is Illuminated at the Internet Movie Database