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“Once I start reading a book, I rarely give up on it. However, I have made an exception for Foer's books because they are gimmicky, difficult to read because of the gimmicks, and crude. I tried to read Extremely Close and Incredibly Loud, but couldn't get through it because of the lack of punctuation and capitalization. Without a great deal of effort, I couldn't figure out which character was speaking. A friend, whose book club was reading that book, had the same problem. She gave up and rented the audio tape and suggested that I do the same. I listened to the audio tape and was able to distinguish the various characters by their voices, but wasn't overly impressed. I believe the success of that novel, which has now been made into a movie, is not because it is well written, but because 911 still haunts us--he chose a timely topic.
In Everything Is Illuminated, the Ukrainian narrator speaks a crazy version of English. It's definitely not "pidgin"--a butchering of the language characterized by simplification-- but rather butchering of the language by using stilted, multi-syllabic terms instead of words in common usage--and often use of a synonym for a common word, but a synonym for an alternate meaning of the word. This device is clever for about two pages and then it becomes very tiresome. I originally tried to read this book in 2008, and gave it another go because it's a book club selection.
Foer's attempts at humor are often crude--a farting dog, numerous out-of-context references to cunnilingus, etc.
I think Foer can thank his talented wife for his success thus far. Otherwise, he couldn't have found a publisher or even an editor willing to slog through his sophmoric writing.”
