This novel was Foer's first and at its release was incredibly successful. It tells the story of Jonathan Safran Foer travelling to the Ukraine searching for a woman who saved his father from the Nazis in World War II. He is accompanied on this adventure by his translator Alex Perchov, Alex's grandfather and Sammy Davis Jr. Jr. (the dog). Jonathan goes in search of Trachimbrod, where he believes his family's village was attacked by the Jews. We learn of the history of Foer's family, through a novel written by him (the character Foer) about his ancestors.
In Alex's letters to Jonathan we are given an often-amusing version of the English language. Alex, from Ukraine writes to Jonathan about his experiences, his dreams of moving to America and his troubled life at home with his father. The novel within this novel is filled with experimentation and reads like a manuscript with pages from a dream journal, fragmented words and diagrams. Throughout, Alex offers his own critique of Foer's manuscript in his broken English.
This book was critically acclaimed and while I believe parts of it are fully deserving of the huge amount of praise it received, it also led to a certain amount of disappointment of high expectations. That said, this is the second time I read this book and there were parts of it I didn't remember or understood more the second time around. The broken English of Alex Perchov is the sort of stuff that couldn't be written by anyone except someone with a perfect command of English and it is well done.
I recommend this book; a decent read and an interesting aside from the 'ordinary' novel.
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