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Title: Everything Is Illuminated : A Novel by Jonathan Safran Foer ISBN: 0-06-052970-9 Publisher: Perennial Pub. Date: 01 April, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.65 (253 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Amazing Debut - Illuminating To Say The Least
Comment: I want to pick at this book, to poke at holes and make fun, but I simply can't. This riveting, hilarious, deeply disturbing and sad book is not like anything I've ever read. I don't know higher praise. Yes, it is precocious and agile like A HEARTBREAKING WORK OF SHATTERING GENIUS; the self-referential style is also reminiscent of David Foster Wallace (although without the footnotes). But it is something all of its own, and although reviews may try to describe it, the only way to capture what is great about it is to read it. You can believe the reviews that say it tells two stories, intertwined, and that that they eventually converge in surprising ways. But that doesn't begin to scratch the surface of the achievement here, and I can't adequately encourage the serious reader to dive into every dense paragraph and find all the delights that are there. This is not an easy read, but it is so rewarding, both in its comic highs and tragic lows, that to miss it is to miss out. I just closed it, and couldn't wait to let anybody who might care know that they should rush to it; it is worth the rush.
Rating: 2
Summary: A Postmodern Mess from an Overeducated Sentimentalist
Comment: From the advance hype of this book, I had gotten the impression that Foer was the budding savior of American literature. Indeed, the excerpt printed in the New Yorker two years ago was very entertaining, sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. Alas, that excerpt was the very best part of the book. No doubt, pseudo-intellectuals will try to convince us that Everything Is Illuminated reveals the impossibility of textualizing a catastrophic event such as the Holocaust and forming cross-cultural and multigenerational blah blah blah. The fact is, great authors have done all of that and more; Jonathan Safran Foer does not. Strangely, Foer's refusal to form a plot does not prevent him from indulging in sentimental pontification or preachy dialogue (sample: "I used to think that humor was the only way to appreciate how wonderful and terrible the world is, to celebrate how big life is"). Apparently, we're all supposed to sit back and think, "Whoa, dude, that's deep." I'm not having it. The early chapters are engaging, but Foer wanders off early and never comes back. One clever narrative trick cannot sustain a novel. Those interested in actual literary depth concerning the Holocaust may wish to read the novels or stories of Arnost Lustig.
Rating: 1
Summary: What's that Smell?
Comment: Oh yes, I recognize it. That's the smell of unmitigated failure. Jonathan Safran Foer should get used to it. After a putrid, self-indulgent debut like this one, that smell will stick with him till the day he dies. The poor little tyke, he actually thinks he has a blossoming career ahead of him. There, there, my young delusional writer, you'll get a healthy dose of reality soon enough.
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Title: Middlesex : A Novel by Jeffrey Eugenides ISBN: 0312422156 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: 16 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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Title: The Russian Debutante's Handbook by Gary Shteyngart ISBN: 1573229881 Publisher: Riverhead Books Pub. Date: 29 April, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: You Shall Know Our Velocity by Dave Eggers ISBN: 1400033543 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 01 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers ISBN: 0375725784 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 13 February, 2001 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: The Corrections: A Novel by Jonathan Franzen ISBN: 0312421273 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: 27 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $15.00 |
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