Everything Is Illuminated: A Novel
by Jonathan Safran Foer

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Book Summary Information

• ISBN13: 9780060529703
• Condition: New
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Book Reviews of Everything Is Illuminated: A Novel

Book Review: "Illuminated" has its shining moments
Summary: 3 Stars

The story alternates between Jonathan's account of the trip, Alex's account of the trip (and his comments on Jonathan's account), and Jonathan's narration of a fairy-tale-like history of his ancestral village, Trachimbrod. I agree with some of the other reviewers that parts of this book are worth a second reading, but I can't imagine slogging through the Trachimbrod story again. Its "magical realism" ranges from the amusing to the inexplicable (a young boy's crippled arm as a fetish object for a whole village of women? YUCK!) and ultimately serves only to provide ironic distance from the emotional core of the book. I read with a mixture of excitement and dread as the narratives converged toward the terrible events of the war, and as the interconnection between the characters' families grew more apparent. The ending was more "huh?" than "aha!" but the book was worth reading despite its flaws.

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