Everything is Illuminated - Jonathan Safran Foer

Synopsis: 'An astonishing feat' - "The Times". A young man arrives in the Ukraine, clutching in his hand a tattered photograph. He is searching for the woman who fifty years ago saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Unfortunately, he is aided in his quest by Alex, a translator with an uncanny ability to mangle English into bizarre new forms; a 'blind' old man haunted by memories of the war; and an undersexed guide dog named Sammy Davis Jr, Jr. What they are looking for seems elusive - a truth hidden behind veils of time, language and the horrors of war. What they find turns all their worlds upside down.

Review: You're either going to love this book or hate it, there's no middle ground. It's a book essentially about the holocaust but approached from an unusual angle.There are lots of main characters but the two that you are mainly focused on are a young American writer called Jonathan Safran Foer (which was odd .. this caught me out straight away, because of course it's the name of the author and I kept trying to get my head around that) and Alex Perchova, a young man from the Ukraine. Jonathan is travelling through the Ukraine on a journey to find out what happened to his Ukranian ancestors during the German occupation. In particular he is looking for a woman called Augustine, who he believes saved his grandfather from the Nazi's.

Alex, is to act as Jonathan's guide and translator, along with his crusty old grandfather who, despite claiming to be blind, drives the vehicle across the Ukraine cursing and swearing at the Jew (Jonathan) and refusing to believe that his dog ... Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior .. is named after a Jew. Alex never entirely passes on his grandfather's outrageous comments to Jonathan, he tries to pass them off as something else. Alex has his own problems with the English language, frankly he murders it (think Borat) .. 'I am not first rate with English. In Russian my ideas are asserted abnormally well, but my second tongue is not so premium'. Alex is fantastic, I loved his character, he's like an eager to please, overly enthusiastic, puppy dog, but one who is suffering ill treatment at home despite all his bravura and crassness. Later on in the book, as Alex learns more about life and his own ancestors, we see a different side to him, the side he's been covering up with brashness and boasting but to begin with he has all the enthusiasm of youth and hopeful expectations. He thinks that the world's greatest documentary is 'The making of Thriller' and claims to have had many lovers. He has also 'given abnormally many thoughts to altering residences to America when I am more aged' in order to train as an accountant. He keeps mentioning how his grandfather is 'retarded', only it turns out he means retired. And he absolutely adores his little brother who he calls 'little Igor'.

The story takes on many different forms and bounces back and forth between eras. Firstly there is the road trip mentioned above, secondly, and quite separate, Jonathan is narrating a fictional history of his ancestors from Trachimbrod stretching right back to the 1700's. This part has a touch of the Gabriel Garcia Marquez's about it, it's very lyrical and surreal (one of the chapters is called 'The Book of Recurrent Dreams 1791'. The congregation of 'The Slouching Synagogue' or 'slouchers' as they were called, are now on volume IV of the book of recurrent dreams and adding to it all the time .. during this meeting they add the following ...

4: 512 The dream of sex without pain
4: 513 The dream of angels dreaming of men
4: 514 The dream of, as silly as it sounds, flight
4: 515 The dream of the waltz of feast, famine and feast
4: 516 The dream of disembodied birds
4: 517 The dream of falling in love, marriage and death
4: 518 The dream of perpetual motion
4: 519 The dream of low windows
4: 520 The dream of safety and peace
4: 521 The dream of disembodied birds (again)
4: 522 The dream of meeting your younger self
4: 523 The dream of animals two by two
4: 524 The dream of I won't be ashamed
4: 525 The dream that we are our fathers

... some of these dreams, in fact most of them, are elaborated upon.) Thirdly are the letters that pass between Alex and Jonathan which are perhaps amongst the funniest parts of the book, though they become more poignant with time. It's not necessarily written chronologically, you sometimes read letter's referring to events that happened on the road trip before you have actually read about that part of the road trip and also Alex's letters refer to Jonathan's novel, Alex reads the pieces as we do and then comments on them. For bears of very small brain it can be confusing and I did find myself re-reading parts on a regular basis.

I enjoyed it immensely and would recommend it to those who like something a little bit different. Not everyone is going to enjoy it, it's hard going in parts and some people may feel that it's a touch pretentious or overly ambitious. Also it contains lots of graphic content, but overall I thought it was well worth the effort.