everything is illuminated
When I first came across this title I thought it would be schmaltzy faux sentimality as I assume Tuesdays with Morrie to be. It might turn out to be so--I'm under halfway through--but mostly it cracks me up, especially when there are three connotations for "illuminated" in two pages.
"He was a changing god, destroyed and recreated by his believers, destroyed and recreated by their belief....Those who prayed came to believe less and less in the god of their creation and more and more in their belief. The unmarried women kissed the Dial's battered lips, although they were not faithful to their god, but to the kiss: they were kissing themselves" (p. 140).
In The Order of Things, Michel Foucault quotes Jorge Luis Borges either translating or inventing a "certain Chinese encyclopedia" in which it is written that "animals are divided into
- belonging to the Emperor,
- embalmed,
- tame,
- sucking pigs,
- sirens,
- fabulous,
- stray dogs,
- included in the present classification,
- frenzied,
- innumerable,
- drawn with a very fine camelhair brush,
- et cetera,
- having just brokent he water pitcher, and
- that from a long way off look like flies.
I liked
The Book of Reminiscences in
Everything Is Illuminated for the same reason. It defines several things, like art, ifice, ifact, artifact, and artifice, also defines
- "Us, the Jews
- Jews are those things that God loves. Since roses are beautiful, we must assume that God loves them. Therefore, roses are Jwish. By the same rasoning, the stars and planets are Jewish, all children are Jewish, pretty "art" is Jewish (Shakespeare wasn't Jewish, but Hamlet was), and sex, when practiced between husband and whife in a good and suitable position, is Jewish. Is the Sistine Chapel Jewish? You'd better believe it.
- The Animals
- The animals are those things that God likes but doesn't love.
- Objects that exist
- Objects that exist are those things that God doesn't even like.
- Objects that Don't Exist
- Objects that don't exist don't exist. If we were to imagine such a thing as an oject that didn't exist, it would be that thing that God hated. This is the strongest argument against the nonbeliever. If God didn't exist, he would have to hate himself, and that is obviously nonsense."
Some of the language choices were delightful: a second-person pronoun is "casual," and it took me a moment to realize he meant "familiar."
Mostly I enjoyed how differently each character saw and told their story, particularly Alexandr and Jonathan Safran Foer. And I loved the multiple meanings of "illuminate."
