Voices

Everything is Illuminated

I got this book for xmas and when I read the first few pages I loved the voice although I wasn’t sure if I could stick with it for a whole book. Turns out the story switches between several voices. I’m not sure how to explain this but there are certain well respected literary voices that I have had a hard time following. A perfect example would be Salman Rushdie. Others: Tom Robbins, Maxine Hong Kingston and Jack Kerouac. I don’t know what it is but I have a hard time concentrating on the words long enough to follow the narrative and there is one “voice” in Illuminated where I had this problem. So for 50 or so pages I was bummed that maybe I didn’t like this book as much as I wanted to. Turns out it gets hilarious in the middle — also some very tragic stuff — but the voice is so charming and funny. I loved it in the end.