AP Literature: Everything is Illuminated discussion

I think that memory is a key component of the book so far . We can see this with the old woman , with Yankel , with Alex , with jhonathan and with Brod . With the old woman we can see that memory can be a really curious thing . The fact that sometimes our minds can control how important events get overtime or just how often we can bury deep down some memories . The old woman for instance had survived the Holocaust as a jew , she had lived a horrible time and she had diminished this memory as time went on . We can see how hard it was for her to recall it and the importance of it when Alex had to insist and insist on the photo and on the town they where looking for. Memories are also a big factor when we talk about Yankel . He does not want to forget certain things so he writes them down but he also wants to forget some others like his wife leaving that just can't forget. I think is ironic that most of human's bad memories are keeps inside us and they keep hurting even if a lot of years have passed , and the memories that are happy and good memories get forgotten really easy. Alex has a really different sense of memories than Yankel and Jhonathan , he does not know a lot about his past so his memories are more bound to what he wants in the future . His life is centered in his future memories rather than in his past memories. Jhonathan is a character that basically for me he lives in a memory that is not even his . That has been past on from generation to generation and that he feels responsible for it . This is why he is always trying to find Augustine so that he can leave this memory finally behind his family. Finally Brod is such an imaginative character because she can see past her present to the future and also the past of everyone . I think this gives her a kind of godlike characteristic because she can hold the memories of everyone and also the memories that have not passed yet.
ATT Daniela Arango APB1

memory is an important theme in the novel. I find memories to be very dark and mysterious. However, I cannot deny that I enjoy the way that Jonathan talks and eludes time in the novel. I think that the most predominant way that memory affects the story is by creating a conflict. The story is full of conflicts that all revolve around memories. Grandfather is afraid of his own past and once the memories are shut off, they cant come back. Yankel suffers from the same evil. The fact that Alex knows little about his past is a conflict that he is trying to resolve while he discoveres who he himself is and begins to grow up as a real mature person. Yet, the most amazing part of memory is that the story itself spins around a memory. Alex is hired to be a translator because Jonathan wanted to free himself from the memory of Agustine.

Laura Agudelo

Daniela wrote: "I think that memory is a key component of the book so far . We can see this with the old woman , with Yankel , with Alex , with jhonathan and with Brod . With the old woman we can see that memory c..."

It's a pretty curious idea you've proposed: memories being linked to the future. Memories, for storytellers, are a complex things. How do our own memories affect how we tell our own stories, and what does this say about the authenticity and accuracy of a story? What happens when memories collide? How does JSF make sense of memory(or attempt to)?

Daniela wrote: "I think that memory is a key component of the book so far . We can see this with the old woman , with Yankel , with Alex , with jhonathan and with Brod . With the old woman we can see that memory c..
In the book Jonathan is shown as a very peculiar character with an afinity to collect stuff. To me this behavior was extreamly strange because of the way he collected and the stuff he collected. Later on it became aperent to me that Jonathan does this in order to remember important things (even if they seem trivial to us they are important to him) and that is something I can relate to. The contrast of this opinion though is infinite when its compared to Listas because she sees memory as a burden and wants to forget. Im this case we could say ignorance is actually bliss. While some characters are trying to uncover the past, others want to bury it.
Maria Luisa Angel

I think the concept of memory in the novel is very closely related to the title of the book "Everything is Illuminated". For most of the first chapters I had been wondering why in the world JSF had called his book this way. Memories can be both darkening or illuminating, in the case of the 'hero', he is in search of information about his past and therefore memories are the only source for enlightening the mysteries that his family's past beholds. On the other hand, memories can also get confusing and contradictory. In my opinion, this is due to the concept that whatever is perceived, will be perceived differently by different people with different backgrounds, who will in turn create different memories that will get even more distant from the truth as time goes by. I think that the reason why the chapters on Brod as it was in the 1790's are so full of fantasy and superstition. It is very possible indeed that in 1791 there was an accident at the bridge, but 200 years of the story being passed on from generation to generation will have created a 'memory' that sounds more like a legend than a historical fact. The human mind isn't very efficient when it comes to remembering and this is why it is important for us to use tools such as writing to help us remember, but as Alex's writing proves to us, his memories can be biased as often as he spleens his mother.
-Manuela Navarro APB1

As it is evident when you see Grandfather or the odd woman as examples, memories can be dreadful things. In the novel, these two characters that have had to live through hell on earth because of unfair prejudices against their religious beliefs have come to supress memories from their minds as to get over the horrors of their past. As much as Jonathan and Alex wanted them to recall the woman's memories, it was still hard for her because of this. As my classmates mentioned earlier, memories can be illuminating as well. By indagating about the past through older people's memories, the two main chaaracters attempt to illuminate the truth about their pasts. Memories are what forms the world around us, our history our cultures and our personalities, they are a source for truth, but they can be extremely subjective and probable to change. the novel, very much like life, is composed of memories, the memories of Alex from how he sees his family, how he first met Jonathan, and the journey they started together, if it was written from another's perspective, the story would be completely different. There are also memories that Alex alludes to in his letters and the memories of generations that together have formed what we are now presented as the story of Brod. The different ways that people remembered what happened in 1791 fused to form a new truth, which has in turn been modified as the years go by. Memories, the world and the idea we have of knowledge are all relative and so is what we grasp from the book.
-Malena APB1

Memory is a really important element in the book because JSF wants to search for the past of his grandfather also memories of the letters written by Alex are also memories of the trip or events that happened while they are in Ukraine. The title of the book "everything is illuminated " is relative to the memories theme because his past is the memory he talks and he searches in the whole book. knowing our past is very important as it is for Alex because he only wants to know his antecedent by his grandfathers life lived in the WWII. Memories are the key in the whole book as well as an important theme.

Everything is illuminated is entirely about memory. Not only because Alex is writing a story about everything that happened when he met Jonathan and their search for Augistine, but also because in the "book inside the book" that JSF the character is writing, he's connecting pieces of information gathered from his past to write a book about his great-great-great-great-grandmother. Even though memory is a key fact in this book, to respond to Mr. Jay's question, memory is always truncated. We either put together pieces of other memories to the one we're trying to recall, or we think we actually lived the moment we call a memory, but in the past it was actually a dream. Our mind is so powerful that it makes dreams interwine with reality, and this is what makes memories so inexact. This story might not be as accurate since opposing memories of different things like how Yankel D's great great grandmother was born or when his wife left him, or when Alex meets JSF for the first time and then the part when we read about the potatoe falling off his plate; all of this might be a mixture between memories, their family's history, and dreams. I think we will not be sure of what is happening between these stories until the end of the book, but perhaps Alex's grandfather has something to do with Augustine or maybe the baby in the story JSF is writing will end up being Augustine.
--Mariana Velásquez Toro