HI GUYS. I bet you thought I was dead, but I'm not! The Daguar and I are on good terms, and Marky Mark has grown so annoyed with me to dig a hole through his floor and cover it with leaves in hopes I'd go promenading over it, though he probably is thinking about it since I'm so obnoxious about essays. And I hear he's a hard grader, too. But Marky Marrrk. I thought we were buddies. Obviously not. No, kidding, We is great. Besties?
HERE IT COMES. Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer, in my opinion one of the best books ever written, who my favorite teacher said was 'okay' but guess what? I'm the one doing the writing here and circular reasoning so hard you've got motion sickness. Honestly, I can't think of an easy way to describe it other than "illuminated". Seriously. Meg and I were groping for a phrase or word to describe it, and all we could come up with was "Oh my god, that book." Which is why whenever anyone says "oh my god" to me in the henceforth, I respond with "That book?" Did I use the word henceforth correctly, I bet you're wondering... Dude, who even cares. Award for best word ever.
So, yes, there's a movie version as well. But! If you haven't seen it, may I interest you in a brief summary of the plot? A teenager who shares the name as the author is making a pilgrimage to Trachimbrod to find his family's homeland before WWII. He is accompanied by his translator, Alex, Alex's grandfather, and their dog, Sammy Davis Junior, Jr. Mixed in with this are letters of correspondence between Jonathan and Alex, and a retelling of Trachimbrod's colorful history.
Just as a note, before I reread the book this time, it didn't occur to me Little Igor was being beaten. I really thought he was just clumsy. I feel like an idiot... In other news, Alex and Little Igor's father is scum.
So, it's basically impossible for me to give you everything I loved about this book, like with Catch-22, but I will do my very best.
"And she would say, 'Today you believe in God?' And he would say, 'Today I believe in love.'" So it's out of context, but for some reason, this time it resounded with me. And even out of context I think it's cute. By the by, the women he was talking to he did love, in case you thought he sounded like a jerk, which maybe you'd only think if I had type the full page surrounding it but guess what? I have an essay for Marky Mark to finish and about 9,000 other books to post. THIS BOOK LEVEL IS OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAND! Well, now that we got that out-of-date pop culture reference out of the way...
"We must go backward in order to go forward." I felt I had to mark it for you, Emma. Why? Cough cough! Oh, sorry, I must have had a crab in my throat. A walking crab. Huh? Huh? God, give me the number one comedian award right now. Seriously.
Oh, here's one I love. Yankel D, an eighty some odd year old man is watching his newly-acquired baby sleep. "'Could she be dreaming?' he wondered. 'And if so, what would a baby dream of? She must be dreaming of the before-life, just as I dream of the afterlife.'"
"I will now mention that Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior is often very sociable with hr new friends, but I had never witnessed a thing like this. I reasoned that she was in love with the hero. 'Are you donning cologne?' I asked. 'What?' 'Are you donning any cologne?' He rotated his body so that his face was the seat, away from Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior. 'Maybe a little'... 'Because she loves cologne. It makes her sexually stimulated.' 'Jesus.' 'She is trying to make sex to you. This is a good sign. It signifies that she will not bite.'" HAHA. This is one of the funniest scenes in the whole book. I wish I could remember how this scene went in the movie. But I do remember the "She is deranged, but so so playful" line. (She being Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior.) Which quite frankly could describe Dante too...
"'Is God sad?' 'He would have to exist to be sad, wouldn't He?' 'I know... that's why I was asking, so I might finally know if you believed!' 'Well, let me leave it at this: if God does exist, He would have a great deal to be sad about. And if He doesn't exist, then that too would make him quite sad, I imagine. So to answer your question, God must be sad.'" I call Catch-22 upon this! Actually, a lot of Brod and Yankel D's conversations are Catch-22s. And I like their conversations. They're not infuriatingly Catch-22. They're okay, I recognize this, but I'm okay with is because it's cute it's not I AM RIPPING MY BRAIN OUT RIGHT NOW KAY THANKS BYE. I like this going back and forth the most, however, so that is every reasoning you'll ever need to know for why I chose it. Or is justification the right word? Whatever, I totally botched circular reasoning up there (I think) so it's not like anyone called me on that or this.
Oh, and I love Brod and Yankel D the most. For the record.
Oh, okay! Page 160! This scene is going to be hard to get if you haven't read the book because let's face it, my describing skills are basically just terrible. But Alex takes Jonathan's diary and reads a scene that comes later on, only 'He' and 'Alex' are replaced with 'I', since it happens later on, from Alex's point of view. It makes me curious if it's supposed to be a sort of Breakfast of Champion deal. You know, Kurt Vonnegut's there, playing God. Is God for Kilgore Trout, and the characters in the book, and the whole book, and so on. That Jonathan was predicting the future, actually writing the future, because for Alex, he was God. Does that make sense? Alex is overwhelmed with a rush of emotions, disquiet, anger... With realizing this? the diary:Alex::Vonnegut and the apple:Kilgore Trout? Maybe I missed something, but I'd say it's a fair connection to make. (Dare I invoke some more circular reasoning...?)
Ah. Okay. So, Alex is talking to an old lady who survived the Holocaust who I won't describe because she's important. She is one of the few from her shtetl's destruction that survived. After telling of the gunning, which I would prefer not to go into great detail (it is worse than horrifying) Alex asks her: "'What if it was a challenge of your faith?'... 'I could not believe in a God that could not stop what happened.'"
The scenes with Augustine are too much. They can't be justified here, and I'm probably just cheapening them. If my profile didn't tip you off: READ THIS BOOK.
Aw, I love 'The 120 Marriages of Joseph and Sarah L'.
"We are talking now, Jonathan, together, and not apart. We are with each other, working on the same story, and I am certain that you can also feel it. Do you know that I am the Gypsy girl and you are Safran, and that I am Kolker and you are Brod, and that I am your grandmother and you are Grandfather, and that I am Alex and you are you and that I am you and you are me?"
And Grandfather's story.
"...and his head settled into the pillow damp with Zosha's tears... he understood he was not dead, but in love."
And even for all its sadness it's so beautiful. This book is perfect. It's everything you could want, it's funny to a fault, it's touching enough for you to fall in love, it's absolutely heartbreaking, it's absolutely heartwarming. It sends you to despair and coddles you at the next moment. I love this book. I can say honestly that this book was a book that greatly changed my view of life and gave me something new, at the risk of sounding corny. It was illuminating.
The most upsetting, of course, were the scenes with the Nazis--and beyond that, knowing the colorful and beautiful history that had been destroyed in hardly a blink of an eye. And the desperation of Alex's grandfather, not yet knowing he'd live to be a grandfather. The most beautiful, the most heartwarming--Brod and her husband, when the Dial tells of how she would still be with him every night even knowing she would be beaten and cursed. And I included the scene I thought what funniest. Just thinking about the book makes me want to cry--not entirely of sadness, but of something more. Pain of my heart being full? I'll consult Brod's list.
The movie? I think I'll have to rewatch it soon. Differences, and lacking a lot, but I can't hold it against them, it's good, I like it.
The more I love a book the less coherent these are.
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