Everything Is Illuminated

A few weeks ago, I read Jonathan Safran Foer's novel, Everything Is Illuminated. The book is made up of three sections: letters from Alex Perchov to the character Jonathan Safran Foer, Alex Perchov's recounting of his days as Jonathan's translator, and the novel that Jonathan Safran Foer is writing about the town of Trachimbrod in Ukraine. The three sections are very different from one another. The Trachimbrod story has hints of the supernatural that blends with the surrealism of this vibrant community. The letters from Alex (the hilarious translator who is "not so premium" with English) are revealing and heartbreaking, giving insight to all of the characters, including Alex himself, Jonathan, Alex's grandfather, and the people in Jonathan's novel. The events of Alex and Jonathan's journey through Ukraine are at once incredibly entertaining and terribly, terribly upsetting. This weekend, I watched Everything Is Illuminated, the film version, which stars Elijah Wood and Eugune Hutz. It was directed by Leiv Schreiber, who attempted to capture some of the mystery of Foer's book. He directed Wood and Hutz quite well, and I felt that they did an amazing job of portraying Jonathan and Alex. The movie follows Jonathan ("Jonfen," Alex calls him) as he travels to Ukraine in hopes of finding Augustine, the woman who may or may not have saved his grandfather, Safran, from the Nazis. Alex is his translator, Alex's grandfather is the driver, and Sammy Davis, Jr, Jr is the tourism company's "Officious Seeing Eye Bitch." They three men and the dog travel throughout the countryside of Ukraine, searching for the town of Trachimbrod. They are almost entirely unsuccesful, until they find an old woman who seems to have the answers. I don't often compare books and movies, because I think it's a silly thing to do. Books are not movies. Movies are not books. That said, I will draw some parallels between the book and movie versions of this story. The ending of the movie is quite different from that of the book, and while I don't think it is quite as succesful, I am happy that the filmmakers were flexible. I do wish that we could have gotten a hint of the storylines of Jonathan's grandfather's life or the lives of the past inhabitants of Trachimbrod, but the focus of this film was on Jonathan's search. I do recommend the movie, as it is really funny and quite moving, but I would recommend the book even more. The book will bewilder you and overwhelm you in the best ways possible. I would say that Everything Is Illuminated is one of the best books I have read in years, especially in fiction. Go read it and find out why.