Rating: 
Summary: Ukraine in the dark
Review: ...This popular book deals with a tragic chapter in Jewish history. But it also hides historical ignorance and distortion behind the veil of fiction and perpetrates stereotypes about Ukrainians. Few examples are below: "It surprising me that no one saved her family," I said. It shouldn't be surprising. The Ukrainians back then, were terrible to the Jews. They were almost as bad as the Nazis." (p. 62). On November 4,th 1942, the Nazis killed 137 residents of Klubochin, a Ukrainian village located a couple of miles from Trochimbrod, as a reprisal for actions of Ukrainian pro-Soviet partisans. These partisans supplied weapons to a group of Jewish resistance in Trochimbrod and helped the Jewish survivors who escaped from Trochimbrod. The Nazis executed not only whole families but also whole villages for any help, like food or shelter, given to partisans, Jews, or POWs. The Nazis wanted to exterminate or enslave the absolute majority of Ukrainians, whom they considered racially inferior. More than three million Ukrainians were executed in villages and cities, killed in concentration camps, died from forced labor, starvation, infectious diseases, and cold, as result of the deliberate Nazi policy. The number of Ukrainians who fought the Nazis during World War II was several dozen times higher than the number of collaborators. "I had never met a Jewish person until the voyage." (p. 3). "I have never seen a Jew before. Can I see his horns?" (p. 107). At the time described in the book, the popularly elected mayor of Odessa, where the Ukrainian translator lives, was Jewish. ... Poor knowledge of English by the Ukrainian translator (pp. 1-276). It is quite typical situation, because Russian was the first foreign language every Ukrainian had to learn in the Soviet times. Even English language teachers, with few exceptions, never met native English speakers or read American newspapers because this was not permitted. ... Trochim Brod, Brod, and Sofiowka (pp. 8-9, 15) are Slavic words. For example, "brod" means "ford." The Ukrainian region, where this story takes place, was part of Poland, the Russian Empire, again Poland, the Soviet Union, and now Ukraine. Sofiowka was named after a German-born mother of a Russian tzar who permitted establishment of Jewish agricultural colonies in the beginning of the 19th century. The "N." word (p.24) is not offensive in Ukrainian language. The term is widely used in official publications in Ukraine and other parts of the former Soviet Union. "Lvov is a city like New York... Everything was concrete..." (pp. 30-31). In fact, Lviv (in Ukrainian or Lemberg in German) resembles Vienna, Prague or Krakow in its architecture, because it was a part of the same Austro-Hungarian Monarchy for a long period. "Look it up in the history books" (p. 62). There is not a single comprehensive book in English about Ukraine or Ukrainians in World War II. The list can go on and on. This book paints Ukrainians in the darkest colors. I would recommend instead Isaac Babel's Diary, which describes another war in the same part of Ukraine without reliance on stereotypes.
Rating: 
Summary: A perfect short story, and a very good novel
Review: After I'd read Jonathan Safran Foer's "A Very Rigid Search" in the New Yorker, I began a very aching anticipation of his novel, please, soon. The short story made me laugh until I thought fluids would come coursing from my every orifice in embarrassing surrender, and then of course at the end of it he broke my unprepared heart while I was looking the other way. Naturally I had hoped the novel would be as good, but unfortunately, while it is peppered with passages of tremendous beauty and exhibits tenderness, intelligence, genius, and all of the other things we want from novels, it doesn't add up. Events and ideas seem loosely connected, knotted casually together with the string that at one point in the story links all of the objects of a shtetl with one another. Is it worth reading? Yes, but the short story is worth reading more. I eagerly anticipate his next novel. After his sudden fame subsides, I hope his next story is substantial enough to support the weight of so much eloquence.
Rating:
Summary: Not worth it
Review: Parts of this book are wonderful, funny, touching, magical, and I found myself reading passages aloud to my friends. As the story progresses though it descends into madness and darkness and in the end the pain and confusion the reader is left with are too much (at least for this reader.) If one of the goals of this book was to deeply affect and disturb the reader then job well done.
Rating: 
Summary: loved it
Review: I don't have anything much to say but that I loved this book and think everyone should read it. (Whatever you're expecting, it's not what you're expecting.)
Rating:
Summary: A Promise of Things To Come
Review: This is in many ways a brilliant book, brimming with energy and invention. Foer is blessed with enormous talent and I have no trouble at all imagining him becoming, in time, one of the major writers of the dawning century. This book, however, is not an unqualified success. In a way Foer was betrayed by the very reviewers who were somersaulting backwards in order to help him. I was expecting the book to be utterly hilarious but the effect fizzled because the reviewers had already related the best jokes. He was betrayed by them also in the sense that they built such unreasonable expectations into the minds of readers that it would be difficult not to disappoint. Foer only adds to the trouble through his hyper-ambitious title. No, everything is NOT illuminated by reading this book. The themes are a recycling of things I've heard before, very often in places like Hollywood movies. To praise the virtues of love and compassion is not illuminating: it may be true, but it is not new. Foer has his heart in the right place, but that may be part of the problem. I get the sense that he is trying too hard to please. There is nothing wrong with giving your reader pleasure (God knows so few writers even know how) but in order truly to illuminate, in order to allow the reader to walk away with his world in some way changed, one must be ready to challenge, and perhaps even, to insult. Perhaps the success of this novel will embolden Foer to take off the kid gloves and hit us hard the way that, say, Philip Roth does. I don't agree with the reviewers who complained that Alex's English is either unrealistic ("no Ukranian would speak English that way") or offensive. Yes, it is true that after a while the shtick begins to seem like one long Yakov Smirnoff routine, but the REAL butt of the joke here is not Ukranians or foreigners in general, but the English language itself. Every writer is perfectly entitled to play these games with his tools, with language, and this was one game which could only be played through the mouth of a hypothetical learner of the language. Here there is authentic light. Anybody who argues that it is unrealistic or offensive is missing the point completely. The Trachimbrod sections, on the other hand, read a bit too much like Garcia Marquez Lite. This is not surprising because I read in an interview that Foer adores Marquez, but he may well be advised that, as a writer, it is dangerous to love what you love too much, or too openly. He may learn more by reading more of the authors he DISLIKES. For all of that, though, he still has the potential to do great things.
Rating: 
Summary: A Solid Debut
Review: Jonathan Safran Foer's "Everything is Illuminated" exemplifies the strenghts of a hotshot, literary debut with very little of the complementary weaknesses showing. In 276 pages, Foer packs a maximum amount of verbal dazzle and story-telling razzmatazz. The novel has three narrative threads: an imagined history of a shtetl in Ukraine called Trachimbrod, a modern day journey narrated by a hilariously malapropic Ukrainian named Alex, and a series of letters written by Alex addressed to Jonathan commenting on the novel's other two threads. This makes the novel seem more complex than it really is. The reader adjusts immediately. The real strengths of this book is in the language. There are plenty of gorgeous passages in this book, which can be funny and heartbreaking. The indelible images include the horrifying deaths of the people of Trachmbrod and a wonderful comic piece set in a Ukrainian cafe that involves a dropped potato. Foer's novel is exhilarating, but it is also exasperating. The Trachimbrod sections become tiresome and surprising sophomoric with its excessively prurient preoccupation with sex. The latter sections also sag as Foer tries to illuminate everything for us. There really is no need. Each reader can illuminate for themselves the signicance of what happens and provide some meaning. "Everything is Illuminated" is a terrific, solid debut that breaks your heart and eventually mends it with humanity.
Rating:
Summary: Smart, funny and a little bit brilliant
Review: There is an awful lot of hype surrounding this novel and I hope that nothing bad happens to it. It is a sweet book and I'd hate for all the big, bad cynics out there to get a chance to stomp all over it. Alex's English is funny because it is comprehensible without being accurate. Is that a funny joke for the whole time? Maybe not, but the conceit is clever and works for the novel. Foer's work requires a sort of patience from the reader. After all, he's telling you with the title that he will eventually come to what he considers the payoff, so just wait for it. It is a backwards bildungsroman about a young man traveling to the East and metaphorically to the previous century to find out who saved his grandfather (and thereby how he himself was allowed to live). He is guided by Alex (who speaks a twisted English that befits his propensity for some fraction less than half-truths) and his "blind" grandfather, the driver. Now, come on, just reading that, you have to admit is funny. This book could have been run through the meticulous edits that would have polished it to a fine lustre but so many strange bits would have been buffed away that it could not have been worth it.
So, you're still curious about the novel after everything alse you've read? Click away and have it sent so that you too will giggle while explaining the dog's name to your friends.
Rating:
Summary: Ur Kidding
Review: I think this is one of the WORST books I've recently read--but I imagine my response wouldn't have been quite as strong if so many writers I respect hadn't jumped on this band wagon and insisted that all of America read it. Is the publishing world THAT obsessed with churning out another Dave Eggers? God, help us all!
Rating:
Summary: Definitely Over-Rated
Review: I heard so many great things about this book that I couldn't wait to read it. What a disappointment. The jokes aren't funny and the language of Alex is just plain annoying. Although it seems he intended well, the chapters are choppy and all over the place. It seems to me that Mr. Foer is one who was in the right place at the right time and surrounded by the right people. One is left to wonder if the book would be so highly rated if it came from someone who didn't go to the right schools, didn't know the right people, and wasn't born into the right family. I'm all for reading new authors, but this is one author I won't read again. Ever.
Rating:
Summary: Everything is Irreverent
Review: From the broadest slapstick to one of the most poignant (yet delicate) depictions of the Holocaust, this novel reaches across generations and cultures, mixing equal bits of humor and pathos. True, the writing (and the plotting) is uneven as the author tries out different voices--Vonnegut here, Sholom Aleichem there, Douglas Adams in the corners. Foer seems compelled to cram it all into this pastiche of a novel. But the same energy and ambition that propels the author through a lifetime's worth of material grabs the reader, and I found myself only too eager to get swept away in the adventures of Alex, Jonathan, and company. The book's ending is about a million miles from its beginning--and I sense that the journey reflects Foer's evolution as a writer as much as it represents his characters' development. The book is also steeped in Jewish tradition--which wouldn't prevent a non-Jew from enjoying it. Most impressively, Foer addresses potentially treacherous topics with sophistication, managing to convey horror without offending the squeamish. I won't deny that at times I lost track of who was doing what to whom, and that I'm still trying to figure out the meaning of the last chapter. No matter. Despite its flaws, this is one you won't want to miss--if only to whet your appetite for Foer's next novel.
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