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A review by sunrays118
Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer
3.0
Yea... so this was good.
It wasn't great.
The strange thing was, this WAS a great book. But it was buried by its own weight. The book is nearly 600 pages and in truth, only about 200 of them matter to the book. The book would have been far stronger if it didn't cling to so much unnecessary weight. It detracted from the book itself. It was an odd gamble the author took and I think he lost.
One thing the author does well is bring back small ideas from earlier in the chapter, section or even the novel itself. This is gorgeous and pulls at our heart strings as we understand how rich and complicated life is. The problem, naturally, is when he fails to come full circle with all of the recurring plot points. It feels a bit like a steep valley. We spend so much time climbing up these impressive mountains and then are suddenly freewheeling into a serious plot that carries us along swiftly, impulsively, only then to be thrown out at the top of the mountains again with a long, arduous conclusion. If the book at stopped 160 pages earlier with a last reference to the worlds that are created that are bigger on the inside than the outside, I would have cried and cried and hugged the book to my chest and said it was beautiful. Instead, it ended on a forced note. It was too intentional and in the end lacked any emotion. More questions were left open and yet I no longer cared as much.
The narration changes throughout the book, some feels worthwhile and some feels like a ploy. The same could be said for how Jewish the book feels. At times it feels essential and at times it feels like it is only there to provide some type of Eruv.
The characters were uniquely dislikable. Moments of fleeting connectedness fell and then washed away. Time was dealt with in a heavy handed way. The book would have been equally strong told in a linear fashion but it was as if the author did not have the confidence in the story to do that. It felt that time was deliberately made complicated to add a missing layer to the story. It failed to do that.
I kept waiting, waiting for something beautifully tragic that never came. Instead it just, was.
It wasn't great.
The strange thing was, this WAS a great book. But it was buried by its own weight. The book is nearly 600 pages and in truth, only about 200 of them matter to the book. The book would have been far stronger if it didn't cling to so much unnecessary weight. It detracted from the book itself. It was an odd gamble the author took and I think he lost.
One thing the author does well is bring back small ideas from earlier in the chapter, section or even the novel itself. This is gorgeous and pulls at our heart strings as we understand how rich and complicated life is. The problem, naturally, is when he fails to come full circle with all of the recurring plot points. It feels a bit like a steep valley. We spend so much time climbing up these impressive mountains and then are suddenly freewheeling into a serious plot that carries us along swiftly, impulsively, only then to be thrown out at the top of the mountains again with a long, arduous conclusion. If the book at stopped 160 pages earlier with a last reference to the worlds that are created that are bigger on the inside than the outside, I would have cried and cried and hugged the book to my chest and said it was beautiful. Instead, it ended on a forced note. It was too intentional and in the end lacked any emotion. More questions were left open and yet I no longer cared as much.
The narration changes throughout the book, some feels worthwhile and some feels like a ploy. The same could be said for how Jewish the book feels. At times it feels essential and at times it feels like it is only there to provide some type of Eruv.
The characters were uniquely dislikable. Moments of fleeting connectedness fell and then washed away. Time was dealt with in a heavy handed way. The book would have been equally strong told in a linear fashion but it was as if the author did not have the confidence in the story to do that. It felt that time was deliberately made complicated to add a missing layer to the story. It failed to do that.
I kept waiting, waiting for something beautifully tragic that never came. Instead it just, was.