Plastic Surgery and Perception

p. 50, "Another Lottery, 1791"

Whenever there's a film adaptation of a book I've read, I always want to see the movie, but the experience sort of feels like waiting for a friend to come out of plastic surgery. I know that some parts are going to be cut and other things will be represented differently than I’ve imagined them. But there's always this tension, as I wonder whether it will be some unnecessary flap of skin that gets cut and re-shaped, or whether chunks of my friend's ear or nose will be missing. In other words, will my dear friend be recognizable even if she looks different, or will the cutting leave her looking horrible.

Reading a book after watching the film adaptation is sort of like the above-mentioned experience, but in reverse. The folds of skin are added back on and plumped up, as well as any toes or fingers that got chopped off in the movie. And I always find it interesting to see what made it into the movie and what didn't, asking myself if I'd do it the same, or if the director and screenwriter missed the essence of the book. As I read Alex's first few sections in Everything Is Illuminated, I recognized some bits that made it into the movie and enjoyed discovering everything else that didn't.

At the same time, I've felt a little overwhelmed by this book. Although I feel like I can catch Alex's gist, he comes across as rather harsh and so does some of the descriptions of the people of Trachimbrod. Occasionally I feel like I'm being yelled at, and at other times, I feel like my senses are being assaulted. I'm not sure I could recommend this book to anyone, but that isn't to say that it's not well written. And I’m still deciding whether I like it or not.

And although I like reading the sections about the people of Trachimbrod, I agree completely with Alex's statement: "There were parts that I did not understand, but I conjecture that this is because they were very Jewish, and only a Jewish person could understand something so Jewish" (25). This statement seems so self-conscious about cultural differences. After all, at times Alex is hard to understand because of the words he chooses. So I wonder if Foer wants Alex and the people of Trachimbrod to seem somewhat foreign and different. Knowing how the movie ends, I can't help but think that perhaps Foer is also trying to say something about the Holocaust and how it is generally viewed. And that leads me to a few questions: What happens when, in trying to honor the victims of the Holocaust, we idealize them? Isn't that just another form of ownership and domination? I guess I'll have to keep reading to see if these questions are answered in this book.