Everything+Illuminated


 * Discussion Time:**
 * Thursday****, January 19,** **11:10-12:40 (4W)**

Max Murray Andrea Konecki Claire Fouchereaux Conner Lajoie Devon Bray Sara Costello Becky Sentementes
 * Group Members:**

**Pre-Discussion Information: **

Talk about the characters and the relationships between them. It was a very complicated story in more ways than one, but the character names and time periods made it significantly more difficult. The characters are like spaghetti, our task is to try and un-spaghetti them.
 * Characters: **
 * Alex: Translator, Brother of Little Igor, wants to go to America. **
 * Grandfather: Driver on Journey, Holocaust survivor, “Killed” his best friend. **
 * Little Igor: Gets beaten by dad, Alex’s little brother, who is 14, Innocent. **
 * Jonathan: Also known as “The Hero” and “The Jew”, from America in search of Augustine **
 * Brod: Raped by Kolker/”Yankel”, saved from the river or something, ancestor of Jonathan **
 * Yankel Then Safran: Brod’s adopted father, Got cheated on by his wife, went from respectable to crazy. **
 * Kolker/Yankel: Brod’s husband, got hit in the head with a saw blade, had huge anger issues, died young. **
 * Safran (Johnathan’s Grandfather): Is saved from Nazis, supposedly, by Augustine. **
 * Sammy Davis Jr. Jr.: Alex’s Grandfather’s seeing-eye dog, who Jonathan is afraid of. **
 * Augustine: Could refer to either the woman they were looking (from the photograph) for or the woman they actually found, who told them of Trachimbrod and ultimately helped Alex’s Grandfather open up. **


 * Setting: **
 * The book takes place in the Ukraine. The book has two stories happening at once. One spread out, about Trachimbrod, and one in the late 1990’s. Also, Alex’s letters to Jonathan, which may or may not be considered a separate story. **


 * Important Plot Events: **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">• When Grandfather and Alex pick up the “Hero”/ Jonathan from the train station: They realized their image of Jonathan was wrong- he did not look like the Jew/American they had imagined. **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">• When Alex, Jonathan, and Grandfather find the woman who they think is Augustine. **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">• When Brod taken from the river. **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">• The story of Grandfather during the war/what happens to him **


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Conflicts: **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">• Ukraine is a very dangerous place in the world. Alex talks about how it is more dangerous than New York City- (Talk about how this issue effects the characters throughout the novel) **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Is that really a conflict? **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">• Accepting the reality of the Holocaust/anti-Semitism and the actions of normal people during WWII. It’s important because essentially half the book is based around finding Augustine and other parts are focused on the village leading up the war, as well as some moments about Alex’s grandfather and his actions during the war. **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">• Dealing with loss, such as the loss of Jonathan’s grandfather, Alex’s grandfather, and the inhabitants of Trachimbrod. **


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Narration (point of view): **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Switches between perspectives. **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">• Alex **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">• Jonathan’s book **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">• Alex (in his letter) **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">• Grandfather (last chapter) **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">- It is a self- indulgent book: Too much about his own emotions of the narrator **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Author takes subject of Holocaust (which is a huge/overwhelming subject) connecting the generation that experienced it with the generation that talks about it. The author gets criticized by making too light of the subject. **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Qualities of the Journey: **


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Agenda: **


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">1. Personal Response Questions **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-How did you like the book? **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-What were your favorite/least favorite parts? **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-What did you think of the writing style, both Alex’s way of speaking and the way the story switched between time periods? **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-What character did you best respond to? **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-Describe your level of understanding **


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">2. Open-Ended Analytical Questions **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-Why did the author include the story of the village? **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-Explain: What is the meaning of the name “hero” for Jonathan that is repeated throughout the book? **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">- Many of the reviewers of the book have noted the unusual and successful use of humor in the novel, especially in light of its concern with the tragic history of the Holocaust. On page 53, Alex writes to Jonathan: "Humor is the only truthful way to tell a sad story." How would you describe the humor in the novel? How does it relate to tragedy? What are your feelings about using humor in a novel that deals with the Holocaust? **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">-Do you consider the ending of the book hopeful or tragic? Why? **
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(I got the two questions above from Everything is Illuminated readers guide online: <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000099; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; vertical-align: baseline;">[|__http://www.hmhbooks.com/readers_guides/foer/)__] **


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">3. Significant Passage Questions **


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">“It was pending this five-hour car drive from the Lvov train station to Lutsk that the hero explained to me why he came to Ukraine HE excavated several items from his side bag. First he exhibited me a photograph. It was yellow and folded and had many pieces of fixative affixing it together. ‘See this?’ he said. ‘This here is my grandfather Safran.’... ‘This was taken during the war.’...’These people he is with are the family that saved him from the Nazis’” (59). **

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Ten Words or Less

 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">On your own or with one partner, summarize your opinion of the book in ten words or less. Give everyone three minutes.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Share the summaries: the writer reads the summary and another participant asks a question/ makes a comment. The writer responds and talk can open from there. Move to the next summary.

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 19px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Another Point of View

 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Choose a scene or longer passage that is ripe for discussion
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Together, examine how the story is narrated: narrator’s position, level of power, and tone.
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Next re-examine the scene from another character’s or narrator’s point of view
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Discuss the scene/passage openly from both points of view


 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">(Just as a side note, I brought the DVD of Everything Is Illuminated so maybe we could do something with that.) **