ვფიქრობ, რაც მე წამიკითხავს, მეორე მსოფლიოს ომის დროს ებრაელების მდგომარეობაზე, საუკეთესო წიგნია.
ძალიან მომეწონა თხრობის სტილი და მთლიანად რომანის სტრუქტურა.
ფინალმა ძალიან დამაბნია და რამდენჯერმე რომ წავიკითხე, მერე მივხვდი ვისი დაწერილიც იყო.
გაუგებარი დამრჩა ალექსისა და მამის ურთიერთობა, რატომ გააძევა სახლიდან მამა. რაღაც გამომჩა გონებაში, რაღაც ადგილს სათანადო ყურადღება არ დავუთმე, ალბათ.
საკმაოდ რთული რომანია.
დიდი სიამოვნება მივიღე და ვფიქრობ, აუცილებლად მივუბრუნდები კიდევ.

ვრცლად: http://popularpopcorn.blogspot.com/20...

Il mio 2013 letterario inizia con questo romanzo di Foer, che nonostante l'inizio difficile, mi ha coinvolto pienamente.
Tra presente e passato Foer ci porta alla scoperta di un viaggio nell'Ucraina di oggi attraversato da personaggi, quali Alex, il nonno (che essere straordinario!) e un cane puzzolente. Un viaggio tra presente e passato, un passato storico e privato di ferite, di cambiamenti.
Per tutto il tempo della lettura sono stata pervasa da una sorta di mestizia, malinconia, tristezza, che ha fatto sì che lo apprezzassi di più, lo amassi.
Sebbene abbia amato maggiormente "Molto forte, incredibilmente vicino", ritengo che questo libro sia da leggere, perché è un viaggio sulla verità che si fa libertà, perché solo conoscendo possiamo capire e non dimenticare.

I watched the movie of this first and loved it. It was basically a movie about cultural misunderstanding and how people can be cruel without really knowing it. It is a story about what happens when you put an American and someone born out of the Soviet era in the same room and try to make them explain to one another why the other one thinks the way they do. In a word: hilarious.

After reading the book, I still like the movie, but it seems obvious to me that the filmmakers missed the point entirely. The book, while still a hilarious exploration of an American immersed in post-Soviet culture, is so much deeper and weirder.

The story is (sort of) about the author, Jonathan Safran Foer. He is an aspiring writer in his early 20s who travels to Ukraine to try to find the small Jewish village of Trachimbrod where his grandfather grew up and to find the woman who helped him escape the Nazis during the war. He speaks no Ukrainian or Russian, and his only maps of the area are 60 years old, so he enlists the help of Alexander, an Odessa native of about the same age, his blind grandfather, who acts as their driver (if you have read any modern Russian literature you will understand not to question this kind of thing) and their deranged seeing-eye bitch Sammy Davis Junior, Junior.

Half of the story (the half on which the movie is based) is ostensibly written by Alex. He write in English with an accent, in that (I assume) it was written, then rewritten by looking up every third word in the thesaurus and replacing it with the least appropriate synonym. This section is a humorous, touching, narrative touching on the nature of friendship, grief and regret, among other things. It is accessible and easy to understand.

The other half (which is entirely ignored by the movie) is written by Jonathan, and covers the history of the village from the day it got its name in 1791 until its destruction by the Nazis in 1941, following the exploits of his ancestors. All of these sections have a very surreal quality. They jump around in time, different eras have glimpses into the past and future. Everything that happens is completely bizarre and makes no sense. It explores much more difficult topics, such as the nature of life, love, and art, and is in general much more philosophical and harder to get your head around.

These sections are split by letters from Alexander to Jonathan commenting on Jonathan's sections and introducing his own next section.

The weird thing about this book is that, at least for me, it gets frustrating to read the author's crazy attempts at philosophy. He wanders around so much, it seems like he is trying to write a little mini-story for every emotion he's every experienced in his entire life. Normally, I would discard a book like this and say, "Well, it's a young author's overeager first attempt, and he tried to cover too much." However, there are so many parts in Alex's letters and narrative where these things are addressed (once Jonathan says something like, "I want to be a writer, but I'm not good yet.") and Alex asks a lot of questions like Why do you write like this? and Why did you have the characters do that? The incoherence of it all becomes a part of the greater logic of the novel, which in turn provides an answer to the question, "Why did Jewish people stay in Poland and Ukraine when they knew the Nazis were coming?" This books answer, I imagine, would be, "Because nothing anyone did in the village's 150 year history made sense, why should they have done the sensible thing in 1941?"

The book is hilarious, moving and disturbing among other things. I can't help but be annoyed by its weird narrative and pointless philosophical musings, but given that it bathes itself in its own strangeness, it raises itself up and becomes a pretty awesome book.

Essentially we’ve got two narratives here and three narrators. We’ve got two narrators telling the same story and another narrator writing a history. We’ve got magical realism, we’ve got the author himself writing a fictitious novel while also taking a backseat role in his own novel, we’ve got an unreliable narrator who doubles as a literary critic, we’ve got a novel within a novel within a novel, we’ve got a detective story and we’ve got a road novel. So, an ambitious venture.
The plot: a young American called Jonathan Safran Foer travels to the Ukraine with the photograph of the woman believed to have saved his grandfather from the Nazis and who he wants to find. He employs as guides and translators a supposedly blind ancient chauffeur with his guide-dog, and the driver's grandson, Alex, the translator. The village of Trachimbrod is their destination. So what we get is a magic realism history of Trachimbrod in the form of a novel Foer is writing, dating from 1791 to the arrival of the Nazis in 1941; an account of the road trip and letters from Alex to Jonathan about Foer’s novel and his own tribulations.

The Alex sections are brilliant. His second language English is high trapeze crazy and often laugh-out-loud funny thanks to his relentless use of a thesaurus to poeticise his vocabulary. (“"I fatigued the thesaurus you presented me, as you counseled me to, when my words appeared petite, or not befitting.") But it isn’t just a cheap comic trick and Alex soon becomes not only the most compelling character in the novel but also the most admirable. The history of Trachimbrond unfortunately is hit and miss. Foer letting his imaginative vitality and perhaps his vanity get the better of him. Because sometimes Foer just isn’t as funny as he so obviously finds himself. And because sometimes Foer’s relentless wackiness plummets into whimsy. And because sometimes his determination to create adorable characters waters down into the sentimentality he struggles so hard to avoid.

I was in pain from laughing so much during the first part of this book. I've never enjoyed a "non-native" English speaker's writing so much. Although it gets less funny and more serious as it progresses, and it occasionally treads on the unclear / confusing side of things, I think that's just part of it: you aren't supposed to fully understand everything that's happening. All in all, one of the most memorable books I've read in a while.

Cineva a inițiat pe vremuri un concurs pornind de la îndemnul: „Rezumați într-o propoziție cît mai scurtă romanul lu Marcel Proust În căutarea timpului pierdut...”. Cel care a cîștigat întrecerea a propus acest enunț minimal: „Marcel învață să scrie”.

I-aș urma exemplul și aș rezuma romanul lui Foer astfel: „Jonathan își caută rădăcinile”. Aș mai divulga faptul oarecum nesemnificativ, deși evident, că Jonathan „este un evreu ingenios” (p.9). Atît de ingenios încît nu poți să nu te întrebi dacă Totul este iluminat reprezintă și altceva decît un exercițiu narativ foarte ingenios. Părerile sînt împărțite.

De neuitat rămîne povestea iubirii dintre Brod și Kalkianul / Safran (pp.162-187). Engleza lui Aleksandr Perciov (pe numele lui oficial!) e seducătoare. Să spun oare că părțile redactate de Aleksandr mi s-au părut mai amuzante decît cele redactate de Jonathan? Nu spun. Citez numai un pasaj:

„A încercat din nou să pună verigheta pe degetul mic al eroului și a apăsat foarte rigid și am observat că asta i-a dat eroului multe feluri de durere, cu toate că el n-a înfățișat nici măcar una dintre ele” (p.256).

Citiți cartea și veți trăi negreșit multe feluri de plăcere...

A show off. He even named one of his characters Jonathan Safran Foer.

It is like he sees Haruki Murakami juggling five bowling pins and he says he can do that too, so he juggles five bowling pins with ease. Then he sees Ernest Hemingway juggling ten bowling pins and he says he can do that too so he juggles ten bowling pins and he even smiles while doing it. Then he sees Gabriel Garcia Marquez juggling fifteen bowling pins and he says he can do that too, and he does it. Then somebody says no one has juggled twenty bowling pins before, ever, and he says he can do that too and he shows us how.

Jonathan Safran Foer, the author, not the character, was only 25 when this book was published in 2003 to critical acclaim. I haven't seen the movie, but my copy says it is now a motion picture starring Elijah Wood. I wonder as what? Jonathan Safran Foer, the character, or Alex, the young Ukrainian translator whose mangled English can make you both laugh and cry?

Marvelous find, again, from the 1001 Books list.

You are burned out. So you suggested to your wife that the whole family spend the weekend in a beach resort. You left the house in the morning, drove the whole day and arrived at the resort few hours before the sunset. You dropped your things, donned your beach wear, went barefoot and hurriedly went straight to the shore. The sand is not sugar-like but the pain is bearable. The wind is a bit cold and it gives you slight chills. You dip your feet into the water. It is still lukewarm since the sun is just about to set. You start to swim. Then you notice how beautiful the sun is. The kaleidoscope of colors: yellow, orange, bright orange, red, reddish orange. It’s like God’s canvas spluttered with beautiful colors.

You feel mesmerized. Sunset is always breathtaking and you find yourself staring at it, perplexed and speechless. You are there standing, you feel the small stones piercing your soles. With wet hair, your wet clothes on, the water drips to your skin. With the afternoon sea breeze softly blowing, you feel cold. You feel the discomfort, but you don’t care. You go on standing. You go on staring. You want to see the finality of the sunset.

Slowly, slowly. Down. Down. Until it’s gone.

Darkness.

But you remain standing. You want to see what comes next. The shore is part of the bay and you can see lights starting to flicker from the nearby island. The fishermen light up the gas lamps on the boats. You look up at the sky. The crescent-shaped moon starts to appear over at the horizon. And the countless stars twinkle as if they are smiling at you. The small insects start to swarm and bite, you swat them with your hands. You feel the stones poking your skin. You start to shiver from cold. But you feel happy as you have just witness an unspeakable beauty. Something that we tend to ignore as we rush through our daily lives. A celebration of life. A miracle.

You feel utterly happy. Blissful. Joyous.

This is exactly how I felt reading Jonathan Safran Foer’s debut novel Everything is Illuminated.

Amazing.

Първа среща с Джонатан Сафран Фоер и 2.5 звезди.

Странно е как дадена книга може хем много да ви хареса, хем не. Това, което харесах във "Всичко е осветено" е историята. Но това е поредната (вече не знам коя поред) книга, която има страхотна идея, но доста постно изпълнение. А ми звучеше доста обещаващо.

Историята е изградена по особен начин, редувайки глави за миналото на рода на главния герой (самият Фоер), с писма от Алекс - украинското момче, което е придружител и преводач на Фоер, и разказ на Алекс как е протекло пътуването към корените на героя в Украйна.
Самата структура е интересен подход, който допринася за възприятието на порядките в Украйна, НО ми трябваше много време, за да свикна с разваления английски на Алекс. Книгата ми тръгна доста бавно заради това, но след като читателят вече плува в едни води с героите, книгата всъщност започва да върви доста бързо.

Родословното дърво на Фоер е любопитно измислено и оплетено, НО до момента, в който, по необясними за мен причини, започват да се включват абсурдно хумористични (не бяха смешни) и ненужни детайли, които премиваха границата на комичното. Толкова беше гротескно, че си зададох въпроса "ама аз защо го чета това?".
Не си представяйте кой знае какво. Сигурна съм, че най-вероятно в други книги нямаше и да ми направят впечатление, стига да са в контекста и да са някак си ключови детайли. Или поне в стила на останалата част от книгата.

И най-големият ми проблем - не повярвах на героите. При все, че говорим за Втората световна война, трагедии, избити хора, мъка. Не усетих емоцията, която (смятам) Фоер е искал читателите му да почувстват. Може и проблемът да е в мен.

Reduce dalla mia seconda rilettura di ogni cosa è illuminata che ho terminato ieri notte alle 3 circa reduce da una bella serata , ma faceva decisamente troppo caldo e dormire era praticamente impossibile indi ho deciso di restare ancora un po in compagnia di Safran , Sammy Davis Junior junior , del nonno, ma sopratutto di Alex. Questo è un libro capitale per quante volte tu possa rileggerlo troverai sempre qualcosa di nuovo , puoi rileggerlo seguendo ogni volta un fil rouge diverso , e avrà sempre qualcosa di nuovo e di bello da dirti, potrei dire lo stesso di "Molto forte, incredibilmente vicino" Ma questo ha qualcosa di speciale che quello non ha per me , pur essendo superlativo. Foer sa usare le parole in maniera strabiliante, è in grado di farti "sentire" qualsiasi cosa solo usando un pezzo di carta imbrattato di inchiostro , ma ogni cosa è illuminata va oltre... La storia non è poi tutto questo granché un ricco ebreo decide di partire alla volta dell' Ucraina per cercare di trovare la donna che salvò suo nonno dai nazisti e viene accompagnato in questo viaggio da Alex (il suo traduttore ) da suo nonno e dalla sua cagnetta Sammy Davis junior junior , e i quattro vanno allegramente gironzolando per l' Ucraina (beh mica tanto allegramente poi ) niente di così particolare quindi , ma attenti avete sottovalutato il potere della penna di Foer... Mano a mano che la ricerca va avanti le acque da torbide che sono ( come quelle del Brod all' inizio ) si fanno sempre più chiare , e scopri che tali sono sempre state , e tutto era esattamente davanti ai tuoi occhi , ogni cosa è illuminata appunto, e sono state confuse proprio perché alla fine tu te ne rendessi conto quando leggi questo libro , il viaggio non è solo di Safran , ma è anche il tuo , perché alla fine c' è sempre infinitamente tanto da scoprire su se stessi ...
Inutile che io continui a sproloquiare, indi inforcate il libro e dimenticatevi di avere braccia e mani che lo reggono , fatevi sommergere. GO READ!!!

Jonathan Safran Foer has magical powers.
No, really he does.
Look I'll prove it.
He can make anyone who reads his books spontaneously vomit adjectives in great abundance.
Proof?
The cover of Everything is Illuminated.

Let's examine the evidence:

Gripping, entertaining, dazzling - The Evening Standard
Outrageous, extraordinary - Financial Times
Hilarious, exhilarating, moving - Jewish Chronicle
Serious, funny - Herald
Powerful, shocking, harsh, sincere - List
Spectacular, funny, brilliant, moving - Observer
Showy, smart - Susan Sontag
Startling, original, comic, tragic - Nicci Gerard
Extraordinary, brilliant, shattering - San Francisco Chronicle
Glittering - Mark Lawson
Bold, exuberant - Daily Mail
Subtle, profound, fantastic, bold, imaginative - Boston Globe
Funny, brilliant - Esquire
Effervescent, reckless, vibrant, playful - TLS
Astonishing, shattering - Independent

See, the covers are spattered, inside and out, with a veritable adjective pebble-dash. Proof, Mr Safran Foer that you are not the only person in possession of a Thesaurus and that even the people at Esquire and the Daily Mail have one too.

Jon-fen is searching for a woman who saved his Grandfather during World War II. To find her, he has travelled from America to the Ukraine. He has only a photograph and a name. He had a map but that was eaten by the bitch. He is helped, and hindered in equal measure by Alex and his Grandfather who is responsible for the bitch. The bitch is a seeing-eye dog called Sammy Davis Jr, Jr. The inclusion of the dog is for humorous purposes. Jonathan is in the Ukraine to uncover a part of his family history, however his presence forces Alex's grandfather to examine his own past too. Alex acts as interpreter and guide and puts his own inimitable spin on the English language. Told in three parts with three separate voices, sadly none of which belong to the bitch, the tone of the book alternates between melancholy, mirth and malapropisms.

This book is difficult to categorise and many people have tried to cram it into the box marked holocaust. Others have said, no it belongs in the box called love. Or family. Or remembering. Or war. Or semi-autobiographical. Or biographical. Or atonement. Or lost. Or old country.

Does it really need to go in a box? Lets just put it on top of the box and see what happens.

This gets an extra star for a truly funny gag that carries the book for the first fifty or sixty pages. That's surprising and impressive mileage for a simple bit (the narrator, a non-native English speaker, relies heavily on a thesaurus, so that "a hard journey" is "a rigid journey"), but after it wears off -- grinding agony.

Foer wants to be Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but his magic is insipid and his realism is lazily dishonest. He consistently goes for an easy lie over a more complex truth. For example, near the end the hero's grandfather is talking to a statue, and the statue tells a story about a couple living near a waterfall. At first the wife hates the constant noise. Over time she gets used to the sound, until finally she can't hear it at all. She dances and splashes in the falls, completely deaf to the roar. The metaphor is that parents eventually get over the death of a child, and that's essentially true, but it's made dishonest by Foer's lazy cuteness. When you're inside washing dishes maybe you don't hear the waterfall anymore, but if you go up and splash in it, it's deafening.

The cuteness crops up constantly ("first they had meetings every day, then every other day, then every other every other day"). At best I could imagine Peter Faulk reading it to me a la Princess Bride, but even that was an effort to keep up and eventually some piece of repulsiveness would shatter the illusion. All this cuteness, and all this dishonesty, could possibly be overcome, if only the story was good. But it's not. Foer builds up some suspense by withholding information and other cheap trickery, but there's nothing up his sleeve. By the time the big illumination finally comes, we've already pretty much guessed it. This book is all style, no substance, and other than the one great gag, the style isn't very good.