after reading two small chapters i put jonathan safran foer's "everything is illuminated" aside and busied myself with other things, but this week i came back to it and so far i'm having a great time. actually laughed like a nut case on the MRT today. am sure a few eyebrows were raised and stares given.

but foer is such a wonderful amazing storyteller whose words effuse so much wit and, more importantly, heart. perhaps it is his young age (he's only a couple years older), occasional reference to pop culture and penchant for literary experimentations that make him so easy to relate to. there's never a dull moment, yet sentiments are so personal and human, as the last page is turned you take a little something away with you.

this made me laugh:

(context: the jewish-american hero-abroad is having a conversation with his ukrainian guide/translator)

"And I want to see what it's like now. I don't think there are any Jews left, but maybe there are. And the shtetls weren't only Jews, so there should be others to talk to." "The whats?" "Shtetls. A shtetl is like a village." "Why don't you merely dub it a village?" "It's a Jewish word." "A Jewish word?" "Yiddish, like schmuck." "What does it mean schmuck?" "Someone who does something that you don't agree with is a schmuck." "Teach me another." "Putz." "What does that mean?" "It's like schmuck." "Teach me another." ""Schmendrik." "What does that mean?" "It's also like schmuck." "Do you know any words that are not like schmuck?" He pondered for a moment. "Shalom," he said, "which is actually three words, but that's Hebrew, not Yiddish. Everything I can think of is basically schmuck. The Eskimos have 400 words for snow, and the Jews have 400 words for Schmuck." I wondered, what is an Eskimo? (p. 60 of Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer.)