Everything is illuminated
"Beauty from ashes. And a vibrant response to Jonathan’s grim aphorism : “The novel is the art form that burns most easily.”"
"A book that illuminates so much with such odd and original beauty." (New York Magazine).
Édition originale premier tirage du premier roman de Jonathan Safran Foer « un ovni littéraire génial ».
Très bel exemplaire conservé dans son cartonnage de l’éditeur avec sa jaquette d’origine, signé par l’auteur et enrichi d’un dessin de sa main.
In-8 de 276 pp., cartonnage noir de l’éditeur, jaquette d’origine.
Safran Foer, Jonathan. Everything is illuminated.
Boston, New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 2002.
Édition originale premier tirage du premier roman de Jonathan Safran Foer « un ovni littéraire génial ».
Foer's acclaimed debut novel, uncommon signed in this edition. It won the The Guardian First Book Prize and the National Jewish Book Award among others
With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man -- also named Jonathan Safran Foer -- sets out to find the woman who may or may not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Accompanied by an old man haunted by memories of the war ; an amorous dog named Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior ; and the unforgettable Alex, a young Ukrainian translator who speaks in a sublimely butchered English, Jonathan is led on a quixotic journey over a devastated landscape and into an unexpected past.
Everything is Illuminated is about many things. It is about memory and the pain of recall ; about identity ; about the past being a place as well as a time. Some of these ideas are very evocatively imaged, as for instance in the search for Augustine culminating in the woman outside the hut who is presumably Augustine, even if her name is Lista. Before they reach her they drive in circles, passing by the same places without encountering either Augustine or Trachimbrod, for what seems like an eternity. Alex’s language rises to unexpected poetic heights here : “So we painted more circles into the dirt roads”. On a more profound note, “It was seeming as if we were in the wrong country, or the wrong century, or as if Trachimbrod had disappeared, and so had the memory of it”
Jonathan Safran Foer signe un premier roman proprement incroyable. Dans ce qui pourrait paraître un dédale romanesque, le récit se déroule dans une inventivité et une profondeur qui semblent ne pas connaître de limite. L’imbroglio de départ dévoile une œuvre captivante, outrageusement polymorphe.
Très bel exemplaire conservé dans son cartonnage de l’éditeur avec sa jaquette d’origine, signé par l’auteur et enrichi d’un dessin de sa main.
Signed by author on title page ; he also drew a unique image opposite the title page : a hand in blue with green arrows from words identify each finger (thumb, pointer, the other, ring finger, pinky).
