Everything is Illuminated

[madamedysart]

So, I just read the book "Everything is Illuminated" by Jonathan Safran Foer. Knowing that he wrote the book at 25 kind of makes me want to curl up into a useless ball and die. But enough about that. The book is really, really good - and I can't quite decipher how much of it is particularly touching to me because of the book's cultural perspective (it involves Russian and Ukranian Jews and ends up covering an immense span of time, from the shtetl to modern day, in a really unique narrative structure) and how much of it would be just as meaningful to someone who doesn't share that heritage. I mean, there are certain instances in which speaking Russian would help, only because the narrator, Alex (aka Sasha), speaks a really hilarious version of English, and the malapropisms kind of make more sense when you're thinking about direct translations from the Russian. So I guess there's a little Clockwork Orange-y feel, only in the sense that the narrator has a really unique and consistent bizarre-o English and it helps to know Russian to know why he chooses certain words. But that's where the similarities end, I assure you.

So anyway, the book is excellent, and I *think* I want to see the movie (with Elijah Wood, who has said that he did this movie because he wanted to do something totally not high-budget and special effects-heavy after LOTR). But the book is so well written, and so much of it has to do with the written word...I am nervous that seeing the movie will spoil the book. What should I do? Has anyone read the book and seen the movie? Or only seen the movie? Or, alternatively, I'd be happy to discuss the book. :)