Everything is Illuminated - post I

If there is one thing that immediately strikes you about the writing of Jonathan Safran Foer it is the language.

He is challenging the reader from the first sentence with sentences that are constructed in a way that not only imparts a foreign origin but also some wicked humour. That is at work here as an introduction is voiced by A Ukrainian student who was tasked with helping Foer track down the story of his family’s past.

It is all a fiction of course but it is done well enough to allow you to suspend your judgment and willingly get sucked into the story. That story goes straight from that introduction into the distant past with a Jewish settlement in Poland and tales of dead tradesmen and adopted children. Clearly the mysteries that the modern day American is coming to solve have deep roots…