Everything Is Illuminated - Hardcover

Foer, Jonathan Safran

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0618173870 ISBN 13: 9780618173877

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2002

Synopsis

Hilarious, energetic, and profoundly touching, a debut novel follows a young writer as he travels to the farmlands of eastern Europe, where he embarks on a quest to find Augustine, the woman who saved his grandfather from the Nazis, and, guided by his young Ukrainian translator, he discovers an unexpected past that will resonate far into the future. Excerpt in The New Yorker.

About this title

Review:

"Not since Anthony Burgess's novel 'A Clockwork Orange' has the English language been simultaneously mauled and energized with such brilliance and such brio." -- Francine Prose, New York Times Book Review New York Times Book Review Notable Book
"Read it, and you'll feel altered, chastened -- seared in the fire of something new." -- Washington Post The Washington Post
"Comedy and pathos are braided together with extraordinary skill in a haunting debut. . .riveting intensity and originality." (Starred) Kirkus Reviews
"A certified wunderkind at 25 . . .a funny, moving...deeply felt novel about the dangers of confronting the past and the redemption that comes with laughing at it, even when that seems all but impossible." -- Time Time Magazine
"It's wonderful to think that the very young Jonathan Safran Foer...can be writing so well and with such lofty aspriation. It will be wonderful if he writes many more books." -- Adam Begley, The New York Observer Observer
"A book that illuminates so much with such odd and original beauty." -- Daniel Mendelsohn, New York New York Magazine
[A] dazzling literary high-wire act . . . brilliant . . . The payoff is extraordinary: a fearless, acrobatic, ultimately haunting effort" -- Janet Maslin, New York Times The New York Times
"[An] enormously impressive first novel . . . Everything is illuminated, indeed, by this talented artist's furious, glorious starburst of prose." -- Dan Cryer, Newsday (New York) Newsday
"Maybe two or three times in a lifetime, a book transcends its genre to become experience. Everything Is Illuminated is an event of this order." -- Dorothea Strauss, Baltimore Sun About.com
"A zestfully imagined novel of wonders both magical and mundane. . .He will win your admiration, and he will break your heart."--Joyce Carol Oates
"Extraordinarily gifted. . .this young man also happens to possess something approaching wisdom. Don't just check him out. Readi

"Not since Anthony Burgess's novel "A Clockwork Orange" has the English language been simultaneously mauled and energized with such brilliance and such brio." -- Francine Prose, "New York Times Book Review, " Notable Books of 2002
"Read it, and you'll feel altered, chastened--seared in the fire of something new." -- "Washington Post "
"Comedy and pathos are braided together with extraordinary skill in a haunting debut . . . riveting intensity and originality." -- "Kirkus Reviews, "starred review
"A certified wunderkind at twenty-five . . . a funny, moving . . . deeply felt novel about the dangers of confronting the past and the redemption that comes with laughing at it, even when that seems all but impossible." -- "Time"
"It's wonderful to think that the very young Jonathan Safran Foer . . . can be writing so well and with such lofty aspriation. It will be wonderful if he writes many more books." -- Adam Begley, "New York Observer"
"A book that illuminates so much with such odd and original beauty." -- Daniel Mendelsohn, "New York Magazine"
"[A] dazzling literary high-wire act . . . brilliant . . . The payoff is extraordinary: a fearless, acrobatic, ultimately haunting effort." -- Janet Maslin, "New York Times"
"[An] enormously impressive first novel . . . Everything is illuminated, indeed, by this talented artist's furious, glorious starburst of prose." -- Dan Cryer, "Newsday"
"Maybe two or three times in a lifetime, a book transcends its genre to become experience. "Everything Is Illuminated "is an event of this order." -- Dorothea Strauss, "Baltimore Sun"
"A zestfully imagined novel of wonders both magical and mundane . . . He will win your admiration, and he will break your heart." -- Joyce Carol Oates
"Extraordinarily gifted . . . this young man also happens to possess something approaching wisdom. Don't just check him out. Read him." -- Russell Banks
"It is one of the best novels I've ever been fortunate enough to hold in my hands." -- Dale Peck
"One of the most impressive first novels in a long time . . . this book is, as its name implies, brilliant." -- Adrienne Miller, "Esquire"
"Madcap virtuosity . . . takes big risks but reaps big rewards, affirming the human spirit in such profoundly triumphant fashion . . ." -- Don McCleese, MSNBC.com
"J. S. Foer's "Everything Is Illuminated "is a novel intricate in structure, fantastical in its story, and irreverent in a hundred different ways." -- Nathan Englander
"A writer of magnificent energy and obvious talent." -- "Newark Star-Ledger"
""Everything Is Illuminated" is often brilliant." -- "San Francisco Chronicle"
"[A] stunning debut . . . So put off your plans to write the next Great American Novel--Foer's beaten you to it." -- "Maxim"
"Without a doubt, Jonathan Safran Foer's first novel, "Everything Is Illuminated, "establishes him as one of the best young novelists around . . . A generosity of vision that is one of the true marks of a great writer." -- "Time Out New York"
"Have you ever found, after finishing a completely awesome book, that you have so many competing impulses about what to do next that you become frozen by excitement? That is how I feel right now. One thing I want to do . . . is tell every single one of my friends that I have just finished reading "Everything Is Illuminated, " an amazingly funny, adventuruous and powerful novel . . . I was dumbstruck with amazement and joy." -- "Vancouver Sun"
"He has given us a deeply resonant work that could only be the first great American Jewish novel of the twenty-first century." -- "Jewish Daily Forward"
"Foer has written a glittering first novel . . . with great humor, sympathy, charm and daring. Every page is illuminated." -- Jeffrey Eugenides
""Everything is Illuminated" is not only an extraordinary addition to novels about the Holocaust, but also the most impressive first novel I've read in years." -- Sanford Pinsker, "Hadassah Magazine"
"A rambunctious tour de force of inventive and intelligent storytelling . . . Foer can place his reader's hand on the heart of human experience, the transcendent beauty of human connections. Read, you can feel the life beating." -- "Philadelphia Inquirer"
"Inventive, boisterous." -- "Memphis Commercial Appeal"

From the Back Cover:

Imagine a novel as verbally cunning as A Clockwork Orange, as harrowing as The Painted Bird, as exuberant and twee as Candide, and you have Everything Is Illuminated . . . Read it, and you'll feel altered, chastened seared in the fire of something new. Washington Post

With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man also named Jonathan Safran Foer sets out to find the woman who might or might not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Accompanied by an old man haunted by memories of the war, an amorous dog named Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior, and the unforgettable Alex, a young Ukrainian translator who speaks in a sublimely butchered English, Jonathan is led on a quixotic journey over a devastated landscape and into an unexpected past.

As their adventure unfolds, Jonathan imagines the history of his grandfather s village, conjuring a magical fable of startling symmetries that unite generations across time. As his search moves back in time, the fantastical history moves forward, until reality collides with fiction in a heart-stopping scene of extraordinary power.

A rambunctious tour de force of inventive and intelligent storytelling . . . Foer can place his reader s hand on the heart of human experience, the transcendent beauty of human connections. Read, you can feel the life beating. Philadelphia Inquirer

[insert author photo] JONATHAN SAFRAN FOER is the author of the New York Times bestseller Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and a work of nonfiction, Eating Animals. His books have won numerous awards and have been translated into thirty-six languages. He lives in Brooklyn."

About this edition

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0618173870
• ISBN 13: 9780618173877
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 276