Print List Price:	$17.99
Kindle Price:	$14.99 Save $3.00 (17%)
Sold by:	HarperCollins Publishers Price set by seller.

Add Audible narration to your purchase for just $12.99

You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.

Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

There was an error. We were unable to process your subscription due to an error. Please refresh and try again.

Everything Is Illuminated by [Jonathan Safran Foer]

Follow the Author

Jonathan Safran Foer

Everything Is Illuminated Kindle Edition

by Jonathan Safran Foer (Author) Format: Kindle Edition

4.0 1,298 ratings

See all formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Kindle

"Please retry"

$14.99

—

Audible Audiobook, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$0.00

Free with your Audible trial

Library Binding

"Please retry"

$26.41

$52.08

Paperback

"Please retry"

$12.49

$8.13

$1.47

MP3 CD, Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged

"Please retry"

$25.99

$24.54

—

Kindle
$14.99 Read with Our Free App
Audiobook
$0.00 Free with your Audible trial
Library Binding
$26.41

1 Used from $52.08 4 New from $26.41
Paperback
$12.49

110 Used from $1.47 34 New from $8.13
MP3 CD
$25.99

6 New from $24.54

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER. Jonathan Safran Foer's debut—"a funny, moving...deeply felt novel about the dangers of confronting the past and the redemption that comes with laughing at it, even when that seems all but impossible." (Time)

With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man—also named Jonathan Safran Foer—sets out to find the woman who might or might 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.

As their adventure unfolds, Jonathan imagines the history of his grandfather’s village, conjuring a magical fable of startling symmetries that unite generations across time. As his search moves back in time, the fantastical history moves forward, until reality collides with fiction in a heart-stopping scene of extraordinary power.

“Imagine a novel as verbally cunning as A Clockwork Orange, as harrowing as The Painted Bird, as exuberant and twee as Candide, and you have Everything Is Illuminated . . . Read it, and you'll feel altered, chastened—seared in the fire of something new.” — Washington Post

“A rambunctious tour de force of inventive and intelligent storytelling . . . Foer can place his reader’s hand on the heart of human experience, the transcendent beauty of human connections. Read, you can feel the life beating.” — Philadelphia Inquirer

Print length

293 pages
Language

English
Sticky notes

On Kindle Scribe
Publisher

Mariner Books Classics
Publication date

September 3, 2013
Reading age

14 years and up
File size

1947 KB
Page Flip

Enabled
Word Wise

Enabled
Enhanced typesetting

Enabled
See all details

Jonathan Safran Foer
6,155
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $12.99
Jonathan Safran Foer
3,589
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $9.99
Jonathan Safran Foer
918
Kindle Edition
Editors' pickBest Nonfiction
1 offer from $9.99
Jonathan Safran Foer
2,643
Kindle Edition
Editors' pickBest Literature & Fiction
1 offer from $9.99
Jerzy Kosinski
1,733
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $9.40
Ben Fountain
504
Kindle Edition
1 offer from $13.99

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Not since Anthony Burgess's novel 'A Clockwork Orange' has the English language been simultaneously mauled and energized with such brilliance and such brio." -- Francine Prose, New York Times Book Review New York Times Book Review Notable Book

"Read it, and you'll feel altered, chastened -- seared in the fire of something new." -- Washington Post The Washington Post

"Comedy and pathos are braided together with extraordinary skill in a haunting debut. . .riveting intensity and originality." (Starred) Kirkus Reviews

"A certified wunderkind at 25 . . .a funny, moving...deeply felt novel about the dangers of confronting the past and the redemption that comes with laughing at it, even when that seems all but impossible." -- Time Time Magazine

"It's wonderful to think that the very young Jonathan Safran Foer...can be writing so well and with such lofty aspriation. It will be wonderful if he writes many more books." -- Adam Begley, The New York Observer Observer

"A book that illuminates so much with such odd and original beauty." -- Daniel Mendelsohn, New York New York Magazine

[A] dazzling literary high-wire act . . . brilliant . . . The payoff is extraordinary: a fearless, acrobatic, ultimately haunting effort" -- Janet Maslin, New York Times The New York Times

"[An] enormously impressive first novel . . . Everything is illuminated, indeed, by this talented artist's furious, glorious starburst of prose." -- Dan Cryer, Newsday (New York) Newsday

"Maybe two or three times in a lifetime, a book transcends its genre to become experience. Everything Is Illuminated is an event of this order." -- Dorothea Strauss, Baltimore Sun About.com

"A zestfully imagined novel of wonders both magical and mundane. . .He will win your admiration, and he will break your heart."--Joyce Carol Oates

"Extraordinarily gifted. . .this young man also happens to possess something approaching wisdom. Don't just check him...

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

--This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Review

“Not since Anthony Burgess’s novel A Clockwork Orange has the English language been simultaneously mauled and energized with such brilliance and such brio.” — Francine Prose, New York Times Book Review, Notable Books of 2002

“Read it, and you’ll feel altered, chastened—seared in the fire of something new.” — Washington Post

“Comedy and pathos are braided together with extraordinary skill in a haunting debut . . . riveting intensity and originality.” — Kirkus Reviews, starred review

“A certified wunderkind at twenty-five . . . a funny, moving . . . deeply felt novel about the dangers of confronting the past and the redemption that comes with laughing at it, even when that seems all but impossible.” — Time

“It's wonderful to think that the very young Jonathan Safran Foer . . . can be writing so well and with such lofty aspriation. It will be wonderful if he writes many more books.” — Adam Begley, New York Observer

“A book that illuminates so much with such odd and original beauty.” — Daniel Mendelsohn, New York Magazine

“[A] dazzling literary high-wire act . . . brilliant . . . The payoff is extraordinary: a fearless, acrobatic, ultimately haunting effort.” — Janet Maslin, New York Times

“[An] enormously impressive first novel . . . Everything is illuminated, indeed, by this talented artist’s furious, glorious starburst of prose.” — Dan Cryer, Newsday

“Maybe two or three times in a lifetime, a book transcends its genre to become experience. Everything Is Illuminated is an event of this order.” — Dorothea Strauss, Baltimore Sun

“A zestfully imagined novel of wonders both magical and mundane . . . He will win your admiration, and he will break your heart.” — Joyce Carol Oates

“Extraordinarily gifted . . . this young man also happens to possess something approaching wisdom. Don’t just check him out. Read him.” — Russell Banks

“It is one of the best novels I’ve ever been fortunate enough to hold in my hands.” — Dale Peck

“One of the most impressive first novels in a long time . . . this book is, as its name implies, brilliant.” — Adrienne Miller, Esquire

“Madcap virtuosity . . . takes big risks but reaps big rewards, affirming the human spirit in such profoundly triumphant fashion . . .” — Don McCleese, MSNBC.com

“J. S. Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated is a novel intricate in structure, fantastical in its story, and irreverent in a hundred different ways.” — Nathan Englander

“A writer of magnificent energy and obvious talent.” — Newark Star-Ledger

“Everything Is Illuminated is often brilliant.” — San Francisco Chronicle

“[A] stunning debut . . . So put off your plans to write the next Great American Novel—Foer’s beaten you to it.” — Maxim

“Without a doubt, Jonathan Safran Foer’s first novel, Everything Is Illuminated, establishes him as one of the best young novelists around . . . A generosity of vision that is one of the true marks of a great writer.” — Time Out New York

“Have you ever found, after finishing a completely awesome book, that you have so many competing impulses about what to do next that you become frozen by excitement? That is how I feel right now. One thing I want to do . . . is tell every single one of my friends that I have just finished reading Everything Is Illuminated, an amazingly funny, adventuruous and powerful novel . . . I was dumbstruck with amazement and joy.” — Vancouver Sun

“He has given us a deeply resonant work that could only be the first great American Jewish novel of the twenty-first century.” — Jewish Daily Forward

“Foer has written a glittering first novel . . . with great humor, sympathy, charm and daring. Every page is illuminated.” — Jeffrey Eugenides

“Everything is Illuminated is not only an extraordinary addition to novels about the Holocaust, but also the most impressive first novel I've read in years.” — Sanford Pinsker, Hadassah Magazine

“A rambunctious tour de force of inventive and intelligent storytelling . . . Foer can place his reader’s hand on the heart of human experience, the transcendent beauty of human connections. Read, you can feel the life beating.” — Philadelphia Inquirer

“Inventive, boisterous.” — Memphis Commercial Appeal --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From Library Journal

This highly imaginative debut novel features a protagonist with the same name as the author. The fictional Jonathan Safran Foer, also a writer, travels to Eastern Europe after his junior year in college. His mission, as he ventures through the farmlands, is to find Augustine, who may have saved the grandfather he never knew from the Nazis. Accompanying Jonathan on his quixotic quest is Alex, a young Ukrainian translator who speaks hilariously fractured English. The fabled history of his grandfather's shtetl, or village, is juxtaposed with events in the present using comedy interspersed with tragedy. Generations become united across time in this fanciful tale, as Foer, the author, gives the reader a contemporary version of 19th-century Jewish drama one that blends laughter and tears. Recommended for all libraries. Molly Abramowitz, Silver Spring, MD
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From the Back Cover

“Imagine a novel as verbally cunning as A Clockwork Orange, as harrowing as The Painted Bird, as exuberant and twee as Candide, and you have Everything Is Illuminated . . . Read it, and you'll feel altered, chastened — seared in the fire of something new.” — Washington Post

With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man — also named Jonathan Safran Foer — sets out to find the woman who might or might 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.

As their adventure unfolds, Jonathan imagines the history of his grandfather’s village, conjuring a magical fable of startling symmetries that unite generations across time. As his search moves back in time, the fantastical history moves forward, until reality collides with fiction in a heart-stopping scene of extraordinary power.

“A rambunctious tour de force of inventive and intelligent storytelling . . . Foer can place his reader’s hand on the heart of human experience, the transcendent beauty of human connections. Read, you can feel the life beating.” — Philadelphia Inquirer

[insert author photo] JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER is the author of the New York Times bestseller Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and a work of nonfiction, Eating Animals. His books have won numerous awards and have been translated into thirty-six languages. He lives in Brooklyn. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Book Description

Harper Perennial paperback, 2003Previous ISBN 978-0060529703 --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From Booklist

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
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From the Artist

Jonathan Safran Foer --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

About the Author

JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER is the author of the novels Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and a work of nonfiction, Eating Animals. His books have won numerous awards and have been translated into 36 languages. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

From Publishers Weekly

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.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

<div>1 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 voyagge 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 veryyyyy 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. Father obtained a telephone call from the American office of Heritage Touring. They required a driver, guide, and translator for a young man who would be in Lutsk at the dawn of the month of July. This was a troublesome supplication, because at the dawn of July, Ukraine was to celebrate the first birthday of its ultramodern constitution, which makes us feel very nationalistic, and so many people would be on vacation in foreign places. It was an impossible situation, like the 1984 Olympics. But Father is an overawing man who always obtains what he desires. “Shapka,” he said on the phone to me, who was at home enjoying the greatest of all documentary movies, The Making of “Thriller,” “what was the language you studied this year at school?” “Do not dub me Shapka,” I said. “Alex,” he said, “what was the language you studied this year at school?” “The language of English,” I told him. “Are you good and fine at it?” he asked me. “I am fluid,” I told him, hoping I might make him proud enough to buy me the zebra-skin seat coverings of my dreams. “Excellent, Shapka,” he said. “Do not dub me that,” I said. “Excellent, Alex. Excellent. You must nullify any plans you possess for the first week of the month of July.” “I do not possess any plans,” I said to him. “Yes you do,” he said. Now is a befitting time to mention Grandfather, who is also fat, but yet more fat than my parents. OK, I will mention him. He has gold teeth and cultivates ample hairs on his face to comb by the dusk of every day. He toiled for fifty years at many employments, primarily farming, and later machine manipulating. His final employment was at Heritage Touring, where he commenced to toil in the 1950s and persevered until of late. But now he is retarded and lives on our street. My grandmother died two years yore of a cancer in her brain, and Grandfather became very melancholy, and also, he says, blind. Father does not believe him, but purchased Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior for him nonetheless, because a Seeing Eye bitch is not only for blind people but for people who pine for the negative of loneliness. (I should not have used “purchased,” because in truth Father did not purchase Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior, but only received her from the home for forgetful dogs. Because of this, she is not a real Seeing Eye bitch, and is also mentally deranged.) Grandfather disperses most of the day at our house, viewing television. He yells at me often. “Sasha!” he yells. “Sasha, do not be so lazy! Do not be so worthless! Do something! Do something worthy!” I never rejoinder him, and never spleen him with intentions, and never understand what worthy means. He did not have the unappetizing habit of yelling at Little Igor and me before Grandmother died. That is how we are certain that he does not intend it, and that is why we can forgive him. I discovered him crying once, in front of the television. (Jonathan, this part about Grandfather must remain amid you and me, yes?) The weather report was exhibiting, so I was certain that it was not something melancholy on the television that made him cry. I never mentioned it, because it was a common decency to not mention it. Grandfather’s name is also Alexander. Supplementally is Father’s. We are all the primogenitory children in our families, which brings us tremendous honor, on the scale of the sport of baseball, which was invented in Ukraine. I will dub my first child Alexander. If you want to know what will occur if my first child is a girl, I will tell you. He will not be a girl. Grandfather was sired in Odessa in 1918. He has never departed Ukraine. The remotest he ever traveled was Kiev, and that was for when my uncle wedded The Cow. When I was a boy, Grandfather would tutor that Odessa is the most beautiful city in the world, because the vodka is cheap, and so are the women. He would manufacture funnies with Grandmother before she died about how he was in love with other women who were not her. She knew it was only funnies because she would laugh in volumes. “Anna,” he would say, “I am going to marry that one with the pink hat.” And she would say, “To whom are you going to marry her?” And he would say, “To me.” I would laugh very much in the back seat, and she would say to him, “But you are no priest.” And he would say, “I am today.” And she would say, “Today you believe in God?” And he would say, “Today I believe in love.” Father commanded me never to mention Grandmother to Grandfather. “It will make him melancholy, Shapka,” Father said. “Do not dub me that,” I said. “It will make him melancholy, Alex, and it will make him think he is more blind. Let him forget.” So I never mention her, because unless I do not want to, I do what Father tells me to do. Also, he is a first-rate puncher. After telephoning me, Father telephoned Grandfather to inform him that he would be the driver of our journey. If you want to know who would be the guide, the answer is there would be no guide. Father said that a guide was not an indispensable thing, because Grandfather knew a beefy amount from all of his years at Heritage Touring. Father dubbed him an expert. (At the time when he said this, it seemed like a very reasonable thing to say. But how does this make you feel, Jonathan, in the luminescence of everything that occurred?) When the three of us, the three men named Alex, gathered in Father’s house that night to converse the journey, Grandfather said, “I do not want to do it. I am retarded, and I did not become a retarded person in order to have to perform shit such as this. I am done with it.” “I do not care what you want,” Father told him. Grandfather punched the table with much violence and shouted, “Do not forget who is who!” I thought that that would be the end of the conversation. But Father said something queer. “Please.” And then he said something even queerer. He said, “Father.” I must confess that there is so much I do not understand. Grandfather returned to his chair and said, “This is the final one. I will never do it again.” So we made schemes to procure the hero at the Lvov train station on 2 July, at 1500 of the afternoon. Then we would be for two days in the area of Lutsk. “Lutsk?” Grandfather said. “You did not say it was Lutsk.” “It is Lutsk,” Father said. Grandfather became in thought. “He is looking for the town his grandfather came from,” Father said, “and someone, Augustine he calls her, who salvaged his grandfather from the war. He desires to write a book about his grandfather’s village.” “Oh,” I said, “so he is intelligent?” “No,” Father corrected. “He has low-grade brains. The American office informs me that he telephones them every day and manufactures numerous half-witted queries about finding suitable food.” “There will certainly be sausage,” I said. “Of course,” Father said. “He is only half-witted.” Here I will repeat that the hero is a very ingenious Jew. “Where is the town?” I asked. “The name of the town is Trachimbrod.” “Trachimbrod?” Grandfather asked. “It is near 50 kilometers from Lutsk,” Father said. “He possesses a map and is sanguine of the coordinates. It should be simple.” Grandfather and I viewed television for several hours after Father reposed. We are both people who remain conscious very tardy. (I was near-at-hand to writing that we both relish to remain conscious tardy, but that is not faithful.) We viewed an American television program that had the words in Russian at the bottom of the screen. It was about a Chinaman who was resourceful with a bazooka. We also viewed the weather report. The weatherman said that the weather would be very abnormal the next day, but that the next day after that would be normal. Amid Grandfather and I was a silence you could cut with a scimitar. The only time that either of us spoke was when he rotated to me during an advertisement for McDonald’s McPorkburgers and said, “I do not want to drive ten hours to an ugly city to attend to a very spoiled Jew.” Copyright © 2002 by Jonathan Safran Foer. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. </div> --This text refers to an alternate kindle_edition edition.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ B003UV91B0
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Mariner Books Classics; Reissue edition (September 3, 2013)
Publication date ‏ : ‎ September 3, 2013
Language ‏ : ‎ English
File size ‏ : ‎ 1947 KB
Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
Print length ‏ : ‎ 293 pages

Best Sellers Rank: #129,502 in Kindle Store (See Top 100 in Kindle Store)
- #144 in Humorous Literary Fiction
- #730 in Cultural Heritage Fiction
- #867 in Women's Literary Fiction

Customer Reviews:
4.0 1,298 ratings

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Videos

Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!

Upload your video

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.

Jonathan Safran Foer

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Jonathan Safran Foer is the author of the bestseller Everything Is Illuminated, named Book of the Year by the Los Angeles Times and the winner of numerous awards, including the Guardian First Book Prize, the National Jewish Book Award, and the New York Public Library Young Lions Prize. Foer was one of Rolling Stone's "People of the Year" and Esquire's "Best and Brightest." Foreign rights to his new novel have already been sold in ten countries. The film of Everything Is Illuminated, directed by Liev Schreiber and starring Elijah Wood, will be released in August 2005. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close has been optioned for film by Scott Rudin Productions in conjunction with Warner Brothers and Paramount Pictures. Foer lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Customer reviews

4 out of 5

1,298 global ratings

5 star		51%
4 star		23%
3 star		13%
2 star		7%
1 star		6%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Gary Colwill

Better Than I Could Have Done, But...

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 22, 2021

Verified Purchase

I actually dislike writing a negative review because most times books I read that I dislike are still better than I could do. That applies here, of course.

I got this book because I very much enjoyed the movie (mostly because of the music and the Alex character as portrayed by Eugene Hutz, but also because of the story). Usually books upon which movies are based are better and deeper than the movies, so if I like a movie, I get the book. I never expect the book to be exactly like the movie - that's the pleasure of comparison. But this book is very much different from the movie. That's not a criticism in itself.

By way of criticism, I did enjoy the voice of Alex, which is very much like the voice of his counterpart in the movie - in fact, many of the gags in the movie are directly from the book. However, I am grateful for what the movie left out: the whole narrative of early Trachimbrod. I can handle that this supposed "fokloric" origin story is completely fictionalized, but it goes way beyond a stylized folklore into the the realm of derisive parody on many fronts. I will grant that this derisiveness may be an expression of the 25 year old author's undeveloped feelings about the village his relatives came from, or his "jewishness", or Jewish culture in general, or Judaism in particular, , or human sexuality generally, or his own take on that particularly, so maybe his fictional representation means something to him. However, if this is true, then it is so particularistic as to be totally unrelatable for the likes of me. I simply don't get it. Maybe it's just my shortcoming. Others may find it totally relatable.

I suspect the author's feelings and thoughts about the aforementioned subjects have developed since the writing of this book. I do understand what attracted Liev Schreiber to this book as the basis for his movie. I think I also understand why he left out so much of it (and it's not just about the run time).

Anyway, this narrative makes up a third of the book. I enjoyed the other two narratives (Alex discussing writing with Jonathan, and the story of the search for Augustine, but the Trachimbrod component was thoroughly unpleasant in several different unrelated ways.

I also felt like much of the writing was filler. When I was in grade school I used to add spacing, and write bigger letters than usual and add nonsense to a paper to fluff it up and make it large enough to meet the word count requirement set out by the teacher. I this is what much of the book felt like: filler. I wonder if there was a word count target set by the publisher.

You know what they say about opinions. This is mine.

10 people found this helpful

Helpful

Kindle Customer

Hard to classify my response

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 13, 2022

Verified Purchase

This was a HARD book to start. A few pages in, I didn't think I could read it. Once I realized that it was only about every third chapter where the character spoke like someone with a huge English vocabulary but didn't speak English as their native language, I got past that and was hooked by the story. Complex, human, insightful of horrors of WWII, a thought-providing story.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Mark M

Mystifying, in a Good Way

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 19, 2022

Verified Purchase

This was a great book, so different that a lot of it got past me, and confused me. I’ll say the first 2/3rds was 5-stars and when the use of humor lessened the narratives suffered, so 4-stars. Powerful story and some of the writing and exposed ideas so spot on that a reader cant forget. The types of sadness, the book of dreams.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 24, 2022

Good book

Everything is Illuminated?

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 31, 2004

Verified Purchase

Those who want to know about the destruction of the Jews in what at that moment in history was Soviet territory would get a more truthful story from Anatolii Rybakov's excellent novel "Heavy Sand" (available from Amazon) than from this book. Rybakov was born near the time and place he describes and knows what he is talking about--he's a great writer. An account of the destruction of the Lithuanian Jews can be found in "Kaddish for Kovno: Life and Death in a Lithuanian Ghetto 1941-1945" by William W. Mishell. (Mishell is a survivor of the Kovno ghetto). Mishell's book is also available from Amazon. "A Scrap of Time" and "Journey" by Ida Fink are great works of art as well as eyewitness accounts of the Holocaust. "Riga: City of Death, City of Life" by Max Michelson is another very important book. There is also "The Lone Survivor" by Michael Diment, a diary of the author's survival in a small-town Ukrainian ghetto. And don't miss "Babii Yar" by Anatolii Kuznetzov: the author lived right near the place and his "document in the form of a novel" is testimony to what he saw and heard. These authors recount their own harrowing experience; as Foer lacks this experience, he fills in the blank spots with his narrators' sexual exploits and quirky diction, which people who have lived through that hell may find offensive. Holocaust does not need to be made entertaining or clever; it is shocking enough when told plainly. Remember Primo Levy's words on writing about the Holocaust.
Even though I admit that parts of "Everything is Illuminated" are somewhat well written, to me the characters do not ring true--they read like an American's fantasy of Eastern European Jews. Since I myself am a Russian Jew, it is very clear to me that this author doesn't know how my compatriots think or feel--or, thought and felt. Nor does he know Russian or Ukrainian grammar which could have helped him to create plausible mistakes in his narrator's English. As creative writing teachers never tire of telling their students, write about what you know.

25 people found this helpful

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

WeAreWhatWeRead

The blurbs were right

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on October 24, 2015

Verified Purchase

One thing is clear: for both readers and critics, this is a Marmite-type book. People either love it or hate it. I happened to love it; I found it wonderfully well written and funny in some places, tragic in most. I don't mind admitting it made me cry, and I thought about it for a long time after I finished reading it. The fact that the writer was a mere boy (JSF was 21 when he published this, his first novel) made it, for me, an even more interesting read. For once, I thought the praise on the books's blurbs were absolutely right.

However, I can also understand why people could hate this mixer-upper of a novel. It is experimental in places, some parts can feel pretentious and utterly pointless and they contribute nothing to the story (which is already so meandering, it can drive you bonkers). The book actually annoyed me at the very start, and in fact has two or three starts, all of them just as annoying, so kudos to JSF for keeping me reading! Plus, 'Everything...' has semi-magical realism strands, or is often simply plagued by juvenile exaggeration. Much of it is thoroughly unconvincing. You have to forever suspend your disbelief, both for the parts that happen in the present, and for the parts that happen in the distant past.

The only sections where, sadly, no suspension of disbelief is required, are the events involving the Nazi extermination of Jewish people, and the clear indication that the Russians and the Ukrainians treated the poor Jewish folk no better. These parts are realistic and convincing and the story is told as tragically and as full-on emotional, I thought, as it ought to be.

All in all, I reckon it's a miracle this novel got published, but I for one am very happy it did. It is good to see that intelligent, unusual, challenging books still get a chance in our commercial, saccharine, short-attention-span culture. 'Everything ...' is an uneasy but very worthwhile read.

2 people found this helpful

Z Smith

Hardwork as a read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on July 21, 2021

Verified Purchase

We chose this book for our book club read this month. The book has good reviews and has won prizes. Unfortunately none of use were able to finish it. I found it really hard work to get into the flow. Having to re read all the sentences to work out what it meant did not make it a good read. Good luck to anyone else who tries.

Norsicciacrabbe

Think it will be good.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 27, 2017

Verified Purchase

I'm having a bit of difficulty getting into this book, but that's probably because I'm busy just now. So far, after just a few pages, there has been a most memorable piece of imagery, so I will certainly be trying again to read it, when things are more settled.

Katie

& i love the

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on January 18, 2015

Verified Purchase

really interesting & touching story, & i love the cover

Tom P

Bought for a friend

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 7, 2019

Verified Purchase

My favourite all time book

See all reviews

Report an issue

Does this item contain inappropriate content?

Report

Do you believe that this item violates a copyright?

Report

Does this item contain quality or formatting issues?

Report

Amazon Music Stream millions of songs	Amazon Advertising Find, attract, and engage customers	6pm Score deals on fashion brands	AbeBooks Books, art & collectibles	ACX Audiobook Publishing Made Easy	Sell on Amazon Start a Selling Account

Amazon Business Everything For Your Business	Amazon Fresh Groceries & More Right To Your Door	AmazonGlobal Ship Orders Internationally	Home Services Experienced Pros Happiness Guarantee	Amazon Ignite Sell your original Digital Educational Resources	Amazon Web Services Scalable Cloud Computing Services

Audible Listen to Books & Original Audio Performances	Book Depository Books With Free Delivery Worldwide	Box Office Mojo Find Movie Box Office Data	ComiXology Thousands of Digital Comics	DPReview Digital Photography	Fabric Sewing, Quilting & Knitting

Goodreads Book reviews & recommendations	IMDb Movies, TV & Celebrities	IMDbPro Get Info Entertainment Professionals Need	Kindle Direct Publishing Indie Digital & Print Publishing Made Easy	Amazon Photos Unlimited Photo Storage Free With Prime	Prime Video Direct Video Distribution Made Easy

Shopbop Designer Fashion Brands	Amazon Warehouse Great Deals on Quality Used Products	Whole Foods Market America’s Healthiest Grocery Store	Woot! Deals and Shenanigans	Zappos Shoes & Clothing	Ring Smart Home Security Systems

eero WiFi Stream 4K Video in Every Room	Blink Smart Security for Every Home	Neighbors App Real-Time Crime & Safety Alerts	Amazon Subscription Boxes Top subscription boxes – right to your door	PillPack Pharmacy Simplified	Amazon Renewed Like-new products you can trust

Buy for others

Buying and sending eBooks to others

Follow the Author

Everything Is Illuminated Kindle Edition

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Editorial Reviews

Review

Amazon.com Review

Review

From Library Journal

From the Back Cover

Book Description

From Booklist

From the Artist

About the Author

From Publishers Weekly

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Product details

Videos

About the author

Jonathan Safran Foer

Customer reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Top reviews from other countries