Everything is Illuminated Highlights I

I just finished Jonathan Safron Foer's book "Everything is Illuminated." As I normally do, I research everything I get my nose into. Apparently the author and his first novel have polarized the writing world. Some hail him as a genius, while others revile him. The most fierce criticism out there came from a critic named Harry Siegel, saying, ""Why the Author of Everything Is Illuminated is a Fraud and a Hack." Pretty blunt if you ask me.

Me? I thought the book had its merits and its weaknesses. It's worth the read, but I'm not sure if I would hold the dude up on a pedastal (which is probably true of most people).

I did mark a few pages I thought they had some beautiful writing and/or ideas. I thought I'd post them on the blog as a means of doing something with them. I'll post them slowly.

Savor the taste.

Highlight I:

From the Book of Recurrent Dreams, Volume IV

4:517 - The dream of falling in love, marriage, death, love. This dream seems as if it lasts for hours, although it always takes place in the five minutes between my returning from teh field and being woken for dinner. I dream of when I met my wife, fifty years ago, and it's exactly as it happened. I dream of our marriage, and I can even see my father's tears of pride. It's all there, just as it was. But then I dream of my own death, which I have heard is impossible to do, but you must believe me. I dream of my wife telling me on my deathbed that she loves me, and even though she thinks I can't hear her, I can, and she says she wouldn't have changed anything. It feels like a moment I've lived a thousand times before, as if everything is familiar, right up to the moment of my death, that it will happen again an infinite number of times, that we will meet, marry, have our children, succeed in the ways we have, fail in the ways we have, all exactly the same, always unable to change a thing. I am again at the bottom of an unstoppable wheel, and when I feel my eyes clsoe for death, as they have an will a thousand times, I awake.

My personal comments:
I am in love. And for those of you who know me, you must realize that this isn't the love I thought I knew for years. It brings joy, completeness, and all that other sappy stuff we hear and see for years. Whoever has been writing that stuff has had some experience. Love is also one thing that raises your consciousness. I wasn't expecting that. However, being in love can be a sad thing because I'm always aware that this incredible ride we're on will one day come to an end. It an inevitability. It forces me to appreciate each day, each moment I have with her. This passage echoes my Buddhist sentiments as well as the feelings I have about love. There is a perfect imperfection in this love that endures throughout time. It struck me as a beautiful thought.