Saturday, March 24, 2012

Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

(Finished, but only 90%)
An impressive attempt to convey a story in a unique manner by using three different styles: 1) Fictionalized account of events over time; 2) correspondence between a character and the author; and 3) the narrative according to the aforementioned character. The first starting in the 1700s and the other two basically in the present.
Parts were funny, and creative, and there were poignant, well-written phrases and thoughts. The problem is that I started not to care what actually happened. In fact, this was a strong enough urge that I only read about 90% of the book, having to skip parts near the end.
There was a line on page 186 from one character to another that I almost saw as a warning to me: "(Jonathan, if you still do not want to know the rest, do not read this. But if you do persevere, do not do so for curiosity. That is not a good enough reason.)"
High expectations didn't help things, either.
Bah.
Disappointing fiction leaves a bad neuronal activation trace in the brain.

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