Finishing the Course at Last

January 28, 2012 5:14 PM

MeTa Book Club: It's our last book from the Open Yale syllabus! And that book? Everything is Illuminated, by Jonathan Safran Foer.

This book was the LA Times Book of the Year, won the Guardian First Book Prize, the National Jewish Book Award, and the New York Public Library Young Lions Prize. Foer was one of Rolling Stone's "People of the Year" and Esquire's "Best and Brightest." And yes, it was a movie too.

posted by bearwife to MetaFilter-Related at 5:14 PM (9 comments total)

Have you read it? Do you want to? Then please join us on MetaChat on March 16 to discuss it. Our fearless discussion leader will be our own macduff, who has taught it before and loves the book. If you'd like reminders between now and then, just memail me your email address.
posted by bearwife at 5:17 PM on January 28

Dear god I hated that book. An abuse of magical realism. Borges turns in his grave.
posted by Afroblanco at 12:11 AM on January 29 [3 favorites]

I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, it was given to me by a dear friend of mine, and I really loved the way it plays with language at first (and found it hella fun to translate). On the other hand, it became really tedious 20 pages in. I might give it another shot, though.
posted by daniel_charms at 12:30 AM on January 29 [1 favorite]

daniel charms, that is EXACTLY the way I feel about it. I love the friend who gave it to me and who just absolutely gushed about it, and I thought the first chapters were quite good...but then not so much.

Maybe I'll join in on the discussion to see if I missed something. I did finish it.
posted by cooker girl at 7:02 AM on January 29

Saw the movie but haven't read the book. I'm in. :)
posted by zarq at 1:52 PM on January 29

The movie is very, very different from the book. There's a whole 2nd narrative in the novel which incorporates magical realism, among many other things.
posted by shakespeherian at 2:41 PM on January 29

Saw the movie and thought it was only one notch down from Borat-level authenticity. There was also a bizarre gaffe that was very distracting (the way to pronounce "Trochimbrod"). I hope the book is less twee.
posted by Nomyte at 5:24 PM on January 29

I hope the book is less twee.

SPOILER ALERT





















(It isn't.)
posted by BitterOldPunk at 9:46 AM on January 30

Wow, haters. I liked this book!
posted by naoko at 1:06 PM on February 1