"From its brilliancy everything is illuminated." β Guru Nanak
So a friend lent me Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer, which he's read 10 times or so. I'd previously read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and thought it was okay, so I thought "why not, it gets great reviews all the time."
I am currently on my fourth attempt at this book and I can't get past the first 30 pages. I honestly want to slam my head against he wall from what is on these pages, similarly to how I felt while reading The Buried Giant. The book didn't get better. Foer's other bookI read didn't really suddenly change either. I really want to see why people like this book, but I currently have zero interest in it.
To all of you on here how love this book (I know you're there - I searched on this subreddit to see if I could find hope in the past), did you struggle at the beginning? When did you get hooked? What made you continue? Why shouldn't I throw this at the wall in frustration every five minutes?
I want to hear othersβ opinions specifically about the sex in this book. I thought I was an open minded person, but after I realized the uncomfortable sex stories were going to continue in EVERY chapter, the book started to gross me out. Iβm still really loving the story and Iβm excited to read it when I pick it up, but i wanted to talk it out.
What is the significance of the sex stories in this book? A lot of it is unattached, violent, or otherwise just described (to me) in a way that makes the sex non sexual. As in the sex scenes donβt turn me on at all. Can someone help me with this? Iβm bothered by it. Is that the point???
Again.... NOT FINISHED....please donβt provide insight that spoils the ending.
Not an avid reader but these are two of my favorites. I love the intertwined / alternating timelines and fantasy rooted in reality aspect. Got anything similar worth checking out? Would love to get back into reading.
Just ordered my first Sabertrio this Friday. I decided to get an illuminated switch.
Wanting to know if there's an option for me to turn-off the illuminated AV switch on the CFX board for Sabertrio if I don't like it.
Hey Folks, My girlfriend and I jfr this wonderful book. I don't read much contemporary lit, so I was excited to read something written by a current author. I enjoyed Safran-Foer's style and less conventional methods of story telling.
The beginning of the book was a bit confusing. I have seen the movie before, but the flashbacks to the shtetl that aren't really present in the movie made the book confusing to start. If you have trouble in the beginning stick with it. It is a good read, especially if you enjoy Jewish culture.
80443
As someone who deals with anxiety/depression, this passage has always stuck out to me:
> He awoke each morning with the desire to do right, to be a good and meaningful person, to be, as simple as it sounded and as impossible as it actually was, happy. And during the course of each day his heart would descend from his chest into his stomach. By early afternoon he was overcome by the feeling that nothing was right, or nothing was right for him, and by the desire to be alone. By evening he was fulfilled: alone in the magnitude of his grief, alone in his aimless guilt, alone even in his loneliness. I am not sad, he would repeat to himself over and over, I am not sad. As if he might one day convince himself. Or fool himself. Or convince others - the only thing worse than being sad is for others to know that you are sad. I am not sad. I am not sad. Because his life had unlimited potential for happiness, insofar as it was an empty white room. He would fall asleep with his heart at the foot of his bed, like some domesticated animal that was no part of him at all. And each morning he would wake with it again in the cupboard of his rib cage, having become a little heavier, a little weaker, but still pumping. And by midafternoon he was again overcome with the desire to be somewhere else, someone else, someone else somewhere else. I am not sad.
The prompt is:
Both Everything is Illuminated and The Plot Against America (by Jonathan Safran Foer and Philip Roth) reimagine some element of historical truth. Write a compare/contrast essay in which you analyze these reimagining.
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8tAq30OKi4JX25ZcG9OQ1cxUU0/edit?usp=sharing
βSADNESS OF THE INTELLECT: Sadness of being misunderstood [sic]; Humor sadness; Sadness of love wit[hou]t release; Sadne[ss of be]ing smart; Sadness of not knowing enough words to [express what you mean]; Sadness of having options; Sadness of wanting sadness; Sadness of confusion; Sadness of domes[tic]ated birds, Sadness of fini[shi]ng a book; Sadness of remembering; Sadness of forgetting; Anxiety sadness...β
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