Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer

First published: 2002

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Magical Realism

Time of plot: 1791-1969 and 1997-1998

Locale: Odessa, Lvov, Lutsk, and Trachimbrod, Ukraine

Principal characters

• Jonathan Safran Foer, an American Jew looking for Augustine
• Alexander Perchiv, Foer’s Ukranian translator
• Grandfather, Alexander’s grandfather
• Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior, Grandfather’s dog
• Augustine, the woman who supposedly saved Jonathan’s father
• Brod, Jonathan’s great-great-great-great-great-grandmother
• Yankel D, foster father of Brod
• Kolker, Brod’s husband and Jonathan’s great-great-great-great-great-grandfather
• Safran, Jonathan’s grandfather

The Story:

Jonathan Safran Foer travels to Ukraine to find the woman who may or may not have saved his father from the Nazis in Trachimbrod—his family shtetl, or village. He hires as his personal translator Alexander Perchiv, a young Ukrainian man, to help him in this quest. Alex is accompanied by his grumpy grandfather, who is officially the driver for the trip, and his dog, Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior, whose temper is rather unpredictable.

Alex’s father asks him to help the American Jew in his search because doing so will enable the wayward young Ukrainian to earn some money. In addition, Alex is the only one in the family who can be of help because he has been studying English at the university. He speaks a peculiar form of broken English, and his narrative sounds as though it has been pieced together with the help of a thesaurus. Parts of his story represent the letters he sends to Jonathan in America.

At the same time, Jonathan’s letters to Alex narrate a quasi-magical history of his family in Trachimbrod. These tales are part of a novel that Jonathan plans to write. They begin with the story of the 1791 drowning of Trachim, Jonathan’s great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. Trachim’s daughter, Brod, is the only one to survive the accident, and the citizens of the shtetl must find a foster family to raise her. The choice is made in a lottery, and Yankel D, who has lost his own wife and children, becomes Brod’s foster father.

Armed with a picture of Augustine (the woman who may have saved his father), Jonathan begins his trip with Alex, Grandfather, and Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior, by going to Lvov, where the group spends the first night. From there, they travel to Lutsk and the area where the shtetl is supposed to be. They ask random people on the way for directions, but nobody has heard of Trachimbrod or Sofiowka, the previous name of the village. In the end, they come across a woman who initially denies knowing anything about Trachimbrod. However, after she sees the picture of Augustine and the suspicious Alex has tortured her with his questioning, the woman eventually breaks into tears, admitting that she knows something about Trachimbrod. The woman invites them for lunch at her house, where they discover a multitude of boxes whose labels indicate that they are full of artifacts and memories from Trachimbrod.

Jonathan and Alex firmly believe that the woman is Augustine, the one they are looking for, although she persistently denies it. As she shows them pictures from the shtetl, it suddenly becomes clear that Alex’s grandfather has a connection with the past of Jonathan’s family. He appears to have been one of the few who fled Trachimbrod, managing to escape by betraying his best friend. Jonathan, Alex, and Grandfather ask the woman to take them to Trachimbrod. She insists that there is nothing left of the shtetl, but they are convinced only after they go there and see for themselves that the place where Trachnimbrod used to be is nothing but a bare field.

The woman, whom they think of as Augustine, tells them the story of how the Nazis liquidated the shtetl of Jonathan’s family. Alex’s grandfather listens to her version, occasionally disagreeing with parts of her narrative. Then, the woman tells Jonathan that his grandfather, Safran, was the first boy she ever kissed. Before the group leaves her house, the woman gives Jonathan one of the boxes containing memorabilia from Trachimbrod, as well as a wedding ring that used to belong to one of the shtetl’s women, Rivka.

In the past, Brod was the most beautiful girl in the shtetl. By her twelfth birthday, she has already received at least one proposal of marriage from every citizen of the village. However, she does not care for anyone besides her foster father, Yankel, who asks her not to marry before his death. On the day of the most important event in the village, the annual Trachimday festival, many things happen that change Brod’s life. She is raped, her father dies, and Kolker makes her agree to marry him. In return, Brod asks Kolker to kill her rapist.

Brod and Kolker live happily for several years until one day Kolker gets into an accident at the mill where he works. A disk-saw blade from the chaff splitter carves vertically right in the middle of his head. The blade does not kill him, but the accident dramatically changes his and Brod’s life. Kolker’s personality splits in two: The loving husband of Brod now shares the same body with a man overcome by malicious eruptions. Initially, Brod continues to live with her transformed husband, patiently trying to overlook his insults, curses, and beatings. Kolker’s state, however, quickly worsens, leaving the couple only one possibility for continuing to live together—separated in different rooms, communicating through a hole in the wall. Their third son is conceived through that hole and is born on the day when Kolker dies. This young boy, who, like his brothers, is named Yankel, will become the great-great-great-great-grandfather of Jonathan Safran Foer.

Jonathan’s grandfather, Safran, becomes sexually active in 1924, at the age of ten. He has an affair with a widow whose house he is cleaning on behalf of the Sloucher congregation. The encounter begins a long series of affairs, and he eventually has 132 mistresses, most of them widows for whom he works. He has long-term relationships with several women, including a Gypsy girl, and in 1941 he marries into the richest family in the village. The wedding reception is Trachimbrod’s event of the year.

After Jonathan, Alex, and Grandfather leave Augustine, the two Ukrainians convince Jonathan to open the box she has given him, which is labeled “IN CASE.” Among other items, they find within a pearl necklace, an old map of the world, a history book of Tranchimbrod, and a photograph of a boy that looks just like Alex. The picture prompts Alex’s grandfather to reveal that he lived in the same shtetl at the same time and even knew Jonathan’s grandmother. The old man tells him all he knows about her, while Jonathan carefully takes notes that he will use in his future novel.

Bibliography

Collado-Rodriguez, Francisco. “Ethics in the Second Degree: Trauma and Dual Narratives in Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated.” Journal of Modern Literature 32, no. 1 (Spring, 2009): 54-68. Examines Foer’s structural strategies in Everything Is Illuminated and the implications they have for an ethical reading of the text.

Feuer, Menachem. “Almost Friends: Post-Holocaust Comedy, Tragedy, and Friendship in Jonathan Safran Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated.” Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 25, no. 2 (Winter, 2007): 24-48. Studies the relationship between two grandchildren of Holocaust survivors and perpetrators and how they gain post-Holocaust reconciliation.

Gessen, Keith. “Horror Tour.” New York Review of Books 52, no. 14 (September 22, 2005): 68-72. Reviews two books by Jonathan Safran Foer–Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

Kohn, Robert E. “Foer’s Everything Is Illuminated.” Explicator 65, no. 4 (Summer, 2007): 245-247. Provides an overview of the elements of the novel that classify it as postmodern fiction.

Spies, Marion. “Recent Directions in Holocaust Writing.” Religion and the Arts 8, no. 2 (June, 2004): 244-259. Reviews several books about Holocaust studies.