Chiaramente il primo terzo del libro colpisce il lettore sia per il linguaggio, sia per la grafica e per una storia forse non troppo originale (penso, in quest’ultimo caso, a Mario Rigoni Stern).

Poi tutto si acquieta... e si può tornare a vedere i film di Kusturica.



“- Ci sono tanti scrittori russi pregiati, giusto?

- Oh certo. In quantità.

Tolstoj, giusto? Lui ha scritto Guerra e anche Pace che sono libri pregiati e ha anche vinto il Premio Nobel della Pace per la Letteratura, se non mi sbaglio.”

(pagina 97)



“Gli Ebrei hanno sei sensi.

Tatto, gusto, vista, odorato, udito... memoria. Mentre I gentili fanno esperienza del mondo mediante I sensi tradizionali e usano la memoria solo come strumento di second’ordine per interpretare I fatti, per gli ebrei la memoria non è meno primaria della puntura di uno spillo...”



(pagina 265) ( )

I'm astonished they were able to turn than into a movie as good as it was ( )

It's right there in the title, hiding in plain sight, Everything is Illuminated. You know what it means, Everything is Revealed, but no one would ever say Illuminated, it's not the normal way to say it. It's almost as if the author wants to say something, goes to a thesaurus, finds a synonym, and uses that word instead. An example would be wanting to say "it's hard to do something" and saying "it's rigid" to do something". It's exactly what you might expect to hear from someone who is learning English as a second language but hasn't much experience with native English speakers. In the author's defense he's put these words into a character who has been hired to translate Ukrainian into English. That's appropriate. The problem is it's a major part of this book, not just a side light. The result is when reading many sentences in the book you have to stop and think what is he really saying. There are hundreds if not thousands of these. Here are just some randomly chosen examples -

"...and so does not need currency" – rather than - "...and so does not need money"
"I want to inform you" – rather than - "I want to tell you"
"He made his arm broken the day yore" – rather than - "He broke his arm yesterday"
"I will expect your letter with anticipation" – rather than - "I hope to hear from you"
"I occasionally KGB him" – rather than - "I occasionally spy on him"
"It was the most difficult division" – rather than - "It was the most difficult chapter"
"It will not harmonize" - rather than - "It will not fit"
"Do not present non-truths to me" - rather than - "Don't lie to me"

You see the pattern. Some of these are more awkward than others, all are disconcerting. Several repeat many times, too many times. This issue interfered. It became tiresome. You want to learn what is happening but this is always interrupting the flow.

The basic storyline is a young man, Jonathan Safran Foer, what's to locate the woman who hide his grandfather from the Nazis in the 1940s. He journeys to modern Ukraine, hired Alexander with his grandfather and brother and searches for a town that has been wiped off the map, all maps. It appears that Alexander and Jonathan are attempting to write up the family history and we go over the same events several times. We also go back through two hundred years of events that no one know really happened. Eventually we learn that the Nazis murdered most of the villagers and bombed the town. One woman seems to be left and supplied some of the missing pieces. She's not the woman they were looking for.

I wondered who is going to like this book? If you appreciate an amazing imagination, this is a book for you. If you don't mind lot and lots of sexual innuendo, this is a book for you. If you're looking for lyric prose, this is not a book for you. If you don't mind stories that jump all over the place, this is a book for you. Caveat emptor.

Last but not least. The title set us up to expect that something would be explained. I suggest a less misleading title might have been "Nothing is Clarified". It probably would not have sold as well but some readers would have at least have been forewarned. ( )

Man finds old yellow picture and sets out to find the woman who may or may not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis.

This book was illuminating. ( )