Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer

Here I Am Reviews

• 
  Elyse Walters

  "Here I Am", is one of those type of books that is likely to receive every possible rating......depending on the readers perspective. Readers can easily justify their options, positive or negative.
  
  Rather than get tangled with debates about this novel--controversy chit chat....
  These are 'my' suggestions ---[take them or leave them]---if on the fence about reading this book.
  
  If not clear:
  Good reasons 'not' to read this novel:
  ......unrefined and vulgar dialogue
  ......off-putting characters are off-putting to 'you'.
  ......Graphic sex descriptions might have you shaking your head.
  ......If you already know you can't stand reading authors such as Jonathan Franzen,
  Philip Roth, or Shalom Auslander...then you might not like this book either.
  
  Good reasons 'to' read this novel:
  ......You love Philip Roth, Jonathan Franzen, and Shalom Auslander
  ......You are a fan of painfully hilarious profound observations.
  ......American-Jewish upper middle class contemporary family stories get your juices going. Off-putting characters are part of your DNA so much you love them: ( feels familiar).
  ....... You love witty, intelligent, reflective, articulate, screwed-up characters
  .......You enjoy reading sentences and dialogue that not only make you pause--you
  'must' re-read them -and discussions about them excite you. You know your partner will get a thrill out of the book, too ( half the fun is reading parts together)...even if "shaking your head"...."ITS SO WRONG", Paul says... Then laughs - He loves it!
  ......You simply enjoy devilishly funny 'taboo' fiction
  .......You don't offend easily.
  .......Quick & pretentious dialogue 'some-how' feels satisfying
  ......A part of you likes frustrated aloof pathetic personalities in novels.
  ......You're willing to invest your time with a hefty 600 page book. --- KNOWING NOT ALL OF IT IS GOING TO HOLD UP TO A 5 star rating... ( you can 'feel' the downhill slide coming)
  
  Jacob and Julie are the parents of three boys: Sam, Max, and Benji.
  Sam is in Bar Mitzvah preparations at the beginning of the book. He's accused of
  a 'NO-NO' in Hebrew school. His 'crime' is bad enough that both parents are called in to speak to the Rabbi. Sam says he didn't do 'the naughty crime'. Jacob believes him- Julie doesn't. Much friction continues - at home - around whether or not Sam is guilty or innocent.
  Problems are beginning to surface in Jacob and Julie's marriage also. The kids notice- everyone is observant in this family - even the youngest peanut of a child.
  The grandparents and great-grandpa, ( Holocaust survivor), are all involved....( everyone has an opinion).....
  In the meantime Sam doesn't want to have his damn Bar Mitzvah.
  
  Here's Sam's first Torah commentary: -part of it- ITS ACTUALLY MUCH LONGER: 3 LONG PAGES...( this is only the first paragraph)...
  "It is with a sense of history and extreme annoyance that I stand at this bimah today,
  prepared to fulfill the so-called right of passage into adulthood, whatever that is. I want to thank Cantor Fleischman, for helping transform me, over the past half year, into a Jewish automaton. On the extreme off chance that I remember any of this a year from now, I still won't know what it means, and for that I am grateful. I also wish to thank Rabbi Singer, who is a sulfuric acid enema. My only living great grandparent is Isaac Bloch. My dad said that I had to go through with this for him, something my great grandfather has never, himself, asked of me. There are things he 'has' asked, like not to be forced to move into a Jewish Home. My family cares very much about caring for him, but not enough to actually care, and I didn't understand a word that my chanting today, but I understand that. I want to thank my grandparents Irv and Deborah Boch, for being inspirations in my life and always urging me to try a little harder, dig a little bit deeper, become rich, and say whatever I want whenever I feel like it. Also my grandparents Allen and Leah Selma, who live in Florida, and who's mortal status I am only aware of thanks to the Hanukkah and birthday checks that haven't been adjusted for cost-of-living increases since my birth. I want to thank my brothers Benji and Max, for requiring great portions of my parents attention. I cannot imagine surviving and existence in which I bore the undivided brunt of their love".
  THE SPEECH CONTINUES .....could give a Rabbi a heart attack!
  
  As we can see-- Sam is not just a rebellious, aloof, young teenage kid---his speech expresses anger, frustration, and sadness. --even some 'truth'.
  He's not the only one breaking down. Jacob and Julie's are splitting at the seams - plus, there is a major earthquake disaster in the Middle East... which becomes the fuel for "The Destruction of Israel". [This is that downhill slide in the book I was talking about]
  
  The first half of the book which focuses on the Bloch family is stronger than when the story shifts to theology- Israel - and politics -"The war of God against the enemies of God will end in triumph!" Oh vey! I wasn't sure what the hell to make of this section.
  
  I clearly chose to read this 'hefty book'. The parts I loved...I LOVED A LOT!!!
  The parts I didn't care for-- I didn't feel emotionally connected.... or particularly understand.
  
  I enjoyed the FAMILY STORY... and brilliant witty dialogue! Great humor. Overall - at least 50% of this novel was OUTLANDISH!!!
  ---The other 50% wasn't 'as' exciting... but I let it sly....( and made Paul read it)... BAD WIFE AS I am... ( made him explain it to me). The later part was still mumble jumble...
  HOWEVER....
  I LOVE WHAT I LOVED!!! ... and THAT my friends was good enough for me!!!
  
  So, definitely not for everyone....yet - for me - I'm glad I read it. I don't think I'll forget Jacob, Julie, Sam, Max, Benji, and even the dog Argus! :) I liked this family - pimples and all!
  
  As for our author, Jonathan Safran Foer: I'm aware of the street talk about him. I'm not completely naïve--( well sometimes) I've yet to read one review or utube or interview --- I've stayed away. Now that I 'have' read it... I'll explore a little - read what others have to say.
  Me: I have NO PROBLEM with Foer as an author or a human being. As an author....I'm more than 'ok' with him.
  
  I used to say, (shhhh), that he and Nicole Krauss, where the hottest, most attractive brilliant couple - of authors around. I wanted to know them both - hang with them both.... ( just a groupie- book reading crush fantasy)....
  I only 'heard' through the grapevine, that he and Nicole split. This makes me a little sad! I wish them both the best!
• 
  Paul Bryant

  If you piled up all the novels which make excruciating forensic microscopic sorrowful comedy out of failing marriages you could make a new Watts Tower out of them, there are so many, and somebody should really do that as an ART STATEMENT, it’s like the default subject of the non-genre novel, and all the sharp witty short story writers do it too, and a lot of them are really good at it, I could give you a list of all these stories and novels about horrible relationships between men and women, it’s now become like THE NEWS, you know that when you watch THE NEWS all you see is BAD news, humans being disastrous to each other, so that nastiness and hatred seem like the norm of human behaviour, which is, actually, quite untrue. The nastiness in the news is there because it's rare and therefore news, but this of course makes nastiness the normal mode of news which gives the human race a terrible undeserved reputation. There's a whole lot of human marriages which are really NICE and nobody is mean and nobody cheats. But maybe that part of human life is considered not worth writing about and is relegated to the AND FINALLY section to leave you with a surprised expression right at the end of the tsunami of misery you have just been watching.
  
  So maybe modern novelists should write about SOMETHING ELSE ALREADY, but I guess you wouldn’t tell an electric guitarist not to fire off another five minute solo just because there’s already been ten million five minute electric guitar solos already recorded and a further 5 billion played live, and many quite brilliant too, I’m sure you have your favourites, but the guy in your local rock band, he wants to do his 5 minute solo in the full knowledge that he is not Zoot Horn Rollo or Richard Thompson or Eddie Hazell. And here’s Jonathan Safran Foer with his five minute guitar solo on the subject of a failing marriage.
  
  I knew that this novel takes some weird left-turns into geopolitics (the destruction by earthquake of the state of Israel) and I was keen to get to that bit but finally I COULDN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE, the whip-smart ultra-unrealistic sitcomlike relentless dialogue, most of this novel is dialogue, was like the death from a thousand cutting remarks, the floor was awash with my unlaughed laughter. I could see exactly what was supposed to be funny and moving, and the problem was that I smiled not nor twitched one empathetic eyebrow. Even when they are in TURMOIL about whether to off the family dog because it’s old and knackered and incontinent, I couldn’t give a monkey’s. I was chanting KILL THE DOG, KILL THE DOG, LET’S MOVE ON. But for pages the dog remained unkilled. In fact the dog may be the only survivor of this novel, I don't know because I COULD NOT FINISH THIS.
  
  There are three kids in this family, all ultra smart boys, and all nauseating. They’re like 12, 10 and 4 or something but have all read every pop psychology book and absorbed the full horror of the human condition.
  
  Sam (aged 12) saw what they either couldn’t see or couldn’t allow themselves to see, and that only made him more pissed, because being less stupid than one’s parents is repulsive, like taking a gulp from a glass of milk that you thought was orange juice. Because he was less stupid than his parents, he knew it would one day be suggested to him that he wouldn’t have to choose [between the two parents], even though he would. He knew he would begin to lose the desire or ability to fake it in school, and his grades would roll down an inclined plane according to some formula he was supposed to be proficient with, and the expressions of his parents’ love would inflate in response to their sadness about his sadness
  
  If you like that kind of stuff, you’re really in luck cause there are bucketfuls of it in this novel.
  
  The only thing she hated more than feeling like she was feeling was sounding like she was sounding.
  
  And
  
  Marriage is the opposite of suicide, but is its only peer as a definitive act of will.
  
  That’s the author being eyerollingly cute, but this is the wife in the middle of a furious row :
  
  You want to want some kind of sexually supercharged life, but you actually want the gate-checked stroller, and the Aquaphor, and even your dessicated blowjobless existence, because it spares you worrying about erections.
  
  I dunno, maybe some people come up with sentences like that stuffed with perfectly chosen biting adjectives in the heat of the moment, but if so I never met any of them (WHICH I AM PRETTY GLAD ABOUT), except in the pages of smart new novels about our CURRENT MALAISE. (Was there ever a malaiseless time? No? How about a rose without thorns? No also? Huh, what a planet.)
  
  A conversation between Sam and the girl he likes :
  
  Billie took out the generic, lamer-than-an-adult-on-a-scooter tablet her parents got her for Christmas… she loaded a new video and said “Check out the syphilis on this guinea pig.”
  “I think that’s a hamster.”
  “You’re missing the genital sores for the trees.”
  “I hate to sound like my dad, but isn’t it insane that we have access to this shit?”
  “It’s not insane, it’s the world.”
  “Well then. Isn’t the world insane?”
  “Definitionally, it can’t be. Insane is what other people are.”
  “I really, really like how you think.”
  “I really, really like that you would say that.”
  
  Okay, sick bag, sick bag, NO MORE OF THAT! I don’t have to take it any more! I realized nobody is paying me for this, in some unexplained fit of wanting to read a big much praised modern novel which wasn’t by Jonathan Franzen, I appear to have volunteered for this one so I only have myself to blame. As every single character in this novel would put it, definitionally, I’m sad about the sadness I’m not happy about.
• 
  Violet wells

  Whatever happened to editors? I once read a biography of Max Perkins, editor to Fitzgerald, Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, among others. The deal back then seemed to be that a manuscript arriving at the offices was 70% done. Perkins then gave his 10% and the final 20% was a collaboration of author and editor. Nowadays it often seems editors do little more than hunt out typos. If Foer had had a Max Perkins – essentially to curb his excesses, something Perkins did very well with Tom Wolfe – this could have been a truly fabulous book. Instead I found it a novel of dazzling vignettes but flawed sustained artistry. Essentially there are two storylines going on here – the breakup of a marriage and the call of the motherland in crisis. So we get a personal identity crisis and a religious/national identity crisis. I was never convinced these two narratives organically coalesced. The fictitious war in the Middle East and subsequent investigations into religious/national identity always felt like a separate block of marble. It’s called upon to give more breadth to all the deft litigation of the microcosmic family world of the first part of the book but for me felt stuck on with adhesive tape. The fictitious war can easily be seen as a somewhat forced attempt to give largesse to what’s essentially a family melodrama.
  
  It was difficult not to read this novel in part as a dramatization of the end of his marriage with Nicole Krauss. And as such I’d say Foer has grown up quite a lot. Jacob is a television screenwriter, a sort of Hamlet without the poetry, mired in mediocrity and ennui; Julia, his wife, is an architect who has never built any of her designs. “Dad can be such a pussy,” says Sam, the oldest son. “But Mum can be such a dick.” The children are virtually always wiser (and funnier) than the adults in this novel. Foer has always been good at doing children and the children here are the stars of the show. The problem I had with him before was that the worlds he created for his children were themselves a bit childish, sentimentalised, favouring charm over depth. Jacob, the lead male character, shares many characteristics of Foer the novelist, not least of all a tendency to shirk or ironicise deep feeling. At one point in the novel Jacob accuses himself of “turning half his marriage into stupid puns and ironic observations”. That, for me, is a pretty good critique of Foer’s first two novels – brilliant in part but always marred by a juvenile stand-up comedian within who can’t shut up. This novel though provides the children with a very grown up world without much sentimentality.
  
  The first half of this novel is given over to the breakup of the marriage, the aftermath of the moment you realise that you love your children more than you love your spouse, and provides a wealth of brilliant insights into the mounting resentment of an estranged couple, the fall into self-righteous pettiness which often heralds a period in which the children become wiser than the adults. The children are wiser and far more worthy of respect than the adults throughout this novel. The first two hundred pages are fabulous – Foer’s best achievement to date. Then the war arrives. It arrives awkwardly. At first appearing more like something happening in Other Life, the virtual world where the oldest son spends much of his time. The question it throws up isn’t very interesting to me. E.M Forster answered it in one sentence. Granted there are added nuances asking an American Jew to sacrifice his home life to help prevent the annihilation of the state of Israel. But it’s still one of those worst case scenario what if questions, like Sophie’s choice. Extreme case scenarios rarely lead to interesting debates.
  
  The war and the ultimatum it provokes seems like the wish fulfilment of Jacob’s father’s fantasy world. He’s a right wing blogger who belligerently identifies himself first and foremost as Jewish. He would disagree with Forster. He’s also the weakest character in the novel, the closest to caricature, and so when he takes over the novel’s central discourse you fear the worst.
  
  The last fifty pages are devoted to Jacob, the second weakest character in the novel, and felt very sketchy. When the children left the novel, the novel slowly fizzled out. 3.5 stars.
• 
  emma

  DNFing this as part of my "men do not understand women or their bodies or their functioning" policy
  
  mature content warning: a woman f*cks a doorknob!!!!!
  
  ----------------
  currently-reading updates
  
  my hobbies include: calling authors my favorite and then not actually reading their books
  
  clear ur shit book 35
  quest 16: read an intimidating book
• 
  Helene Jeppesen

  This was my first read by Jonathan Safran Foer and it was BEAUTIFUL! It wasn't the writing - which a lot of people seem to praise him for - that affected me the most. Actually, it's hard to put a finger on what exactly it was. But several times during my reading of this novel I almost teared up because it affected me emotionally in a way that no other book has for a long time.
  "Here I Am" combines a frustrating and hard every-day family life with religion. It deals with Jacob in America and Jews and Israel. It's a funny combination that works so well.
  One of the things that won my heart over in this novel - besides from the adorable children and pet - was Jacob's digressions. He could be describing a scene and then suddenly turn to a childhood memory and thoughts provoked by that memory before going back to the original scene, and it all related and made perfect sense in the end.
  I am very impressed by this unique novel, and I'm convinved I have to read more by this author who, according to this book, has a lot of impressive thoughts, things and stories to offer.
• 
  Rebecca

  (2.5) Is it a simple account of the implosion of two Washington, D.C. fortysomethings’ marriage? Or is it a sweeping epic of Judaism from the biblical patriarchs to imagined all-out Middle Eastern warfare? Can it succeed in being both? I didn’t really think so. If this was simply a family novel of the Jonathan Franzen–Jami Attenberg–Jonathan Tropper variety about Jacob and Julia Bloch – their three precocious sons, their adulterous urges, their amusing ancestors – I might have liked it better. The dialogue between this couple as they face the fallout is all too real and cuts to the quick. I enjoyed the preparations for Sam’s bar mitzvah and I could admire Julia’s clear-eyed capability and Sam, Max and Benjy’s almost alarming intelligence and heart at the same time as I wondered to what extent she was Nicole Krauss and they were the authors’ kids.
  
  But about halfway through I thought the book got away from Foer, requiring him to throw in a death, a natural disaster, and a conflict with global implications. This draws attention away from Jacob, who is meant to be the terribly flawed but sympathetic Everyman hero whose search for mindfulness – really being present in his own life, as the title suggests – we go along with. Of course Foer writes well. The prose is not the issue, though I did get annoyed by sentences set up like lists, repetition, anatomical mixed metaphors (e.g. “triggered a reflex in Jacob’s brain’s knee”) and downright weird phrases (e.g. “Freudian amounts of sushi”). My problem was this feels more like an early novel by Philip Roth or maybe one by Howard Jacobson, what with frequent masturbation and sex talk on the one hand and constant quarrelling about what Jewishness means on the other.
  
  The novel is based around speeches: Sam’s Torah commentary for his bar mitzvah, whence comes the title phrase uttered by Abraham; Deborah’s speech at Jacob and Julia’s wedding (probably the best part of the entire book); oration from the U.S. president, the Israeli prime minister, the Ayatollah; and so on. In between, it is also based around speech: dialogue is a real strength. However, I felt that the central message about being present for others’ suffering, and your own, got a little lost under the flood of major projected-current events. Ultimately I’m glad I read it, but it’s a long book to wade through considering it’s Foer’s least satisfying.
  
  Some great lines:
  
  “the desire to wring out a few more drips of happiness almost always destroyed the happiness you were so lucky to have, and so foolish never to acknowledge.”
  
  “All communication had become subterranean: shifting tectonics, felt on the surface, but not known.”
  
  “[Julia] hated the person he forced her to sound like: pissy and resentful, unfun, the nagging wife she would have killed herself to avoid becoming.”
  
  “Judaism gets death right, Jacob thought. It instructs us what to do when we know least well what to do, and feel an overwhelming need to do something.”
  
  “But [the moments when life felt big, precious] made up such an utterly small portion of his time on earth: five minutes a year? What did it sum to? A day? At most? A day of feeling alive in four decades of life?”
• 
  Andrew Smith

  Let me be clear, I only award one star to books I fail to finish. I failed to finish this book. In fact, I’d barely started it – I was probably no more than an hour into this chunky seventeen-hour audio version. And I don’t think I’ve ever given up any book that early.
  
  The problems for me were:
  
  1. I didn’t understand much of it
  2. I didn’t like the bits I did understand
  
  I’ve subsequently tried to read a couple reviews of the book, published in newspapers I respect, to see what I am missing out on. But it seems that the learned journalists whose observations I fell upon were keen to engage in erudite discussion that left me as cold as the book itself.
  
  I do believe that many readers will find much to admire within the pages of this novel, but I’m done with it. I’ve filed it away on a shelf marked ‘life is too short’.
• 
  Lena

  This is a second book by this author I've read. I liked it more than Everything is Illuminated, but I still dislike his narrating style. In this story he rises interesting and important topics of family and legacy, history and identity, marriage and divorce. But the way these deep thoughts interwind with descriptions of dog's shit and masturbation (for a couple of pages!) is just annoying and confusing.
• 
  Chelsea Humphrey

  DNF. Just wasn't for me.
• 
  Jaline

  “Sometimes Jacob convinced himself it was better with the swearing and brief flashes of nudity removed, that they were there only because the freedom to do such things had to be justified by exercising it.” This referenced a TV show that Jacob was a writer for, and my wish is that Jacob could have told the author not to exercise that freedom so that people could get past the first few chapters of this book without giving up.
  
  My experience of reading this book got off to a rocky start, but to be fair, in the long run, it has its redeeming qualities as well.
  
  Remember the old Clint Eastwood film, the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly? Well, that was going to be my format for this review, but because I do not like to over-react (see #1 below), I will put it differently, but without repression (see #1 below).
  
  Things on my Not To Like list:
  
  1. Halfway through the book the author writes, “The Blochs did what they did best: balanced overreaction with repression.” Although there was no sign of it, I hope the author was using irony with that sentence. The ‘balance’ at times felt more like being on a see-saw with the fulcrum in free-wheeling mode and the film on fast-forward.
  
  2. During the first few chapters, it was impossible for me to figure out when the characters were in the here and now, when they were ‘pretending’ to be in the future, when they were imagining an alternate present moment at the same time they were experiencing another reality in that moment, when they were imagining an alternate future moment as if it were in the present moment – in other words, it was unnecessarily all over the place and since I was reading it, so was I. I have always loved dancing but this was not music, and not my idea of a good time or a good read.
  
  3. As Jacob, one of the main characters in the book says several times, “There is no such thing as bad language, only bad usage of language.” Well, there was more bad usage of language in this book than I wanted or felt was necessary. Not so much in the characters’ dialogue with each other as in their self-talk – the things going on inside their heads. Which leads me to . . .
  
  4. My biggest peeve: particularly in the beginning of the book, I think what pushed my buttons was (avoiding bad language usage here) the feeling that I was subjected to someone’s upset brain and they were purging it all over the pages of my book. This purging happens a few times sporadically through the book, like a bad case of flu that is taking someone a long time to get over. I won’t go into specifics but there were a few instances of TMI – just Too Much Information rattling on for pages on topics that were irrelevant to the story.
  
  5. Along with bad usage of language, the presence of an editor would have helped this book – particularly during the first few chapters, but even later in the book as well. For example: “The five intelligent people thought. They applied their intelligence to what was ultimately not a question of intelligence, like applying a Phillipshead screwdriver to a crossword puzzle.” The metaphor is good for a chuckle, but in the context used, “. . . like consulting a crossword puzzle for directions on how to use a Phillipshead screwdriver” (or one of many other choices) might have been more congruent had an editor been invited to give feedback.
  
  Things on my To Like list:
  
  1. The dialogue between family members was, at times, lots of fun – and very funny. This is an obviously intelligent family and even Benjy, the youngest, comes out with some endearingly funny and spot-on comments. They all had their moments, and I loved those moments. Even the arguments between Jacob and his father had a real, if at times futile, ring to them. My urge to bring out my referee whistle diminished over time. Maybe I was inured to it by then, or maybe more accepting that their arguments were what kept their relationship alive and vital – for both of them.
  
  2. Even though it is imaginary (albeit predicted), the earthquake sequence taking place in the Middle East juxtaposed with the family crisis was well done. The 15 Days reports that were issued on the state of affairs in the Middle East, both physical and political held tremendous impact and felt real, tragic, and deeply frightening. May they never come to pass in reality.
  
  3. The entire chapter on the grandfather’s funeral was authentic, heartfelt, and very moving; as were young Sam’s, and later on Max’s Bar Mitzvah speeches. By themselves, these portions of the book earned an extra half-star.
  
  4. Aside from the witty and unwitting wisdom from the three boys’ minds, this book gave me other things to ponder:
  
  - “And there are no cures for the hurt that hurts most. There is only the medicine of believing each other’s pain, and being present for it.”
  
  - “Without context, we’d all be monsters.”
  
  - “Blessings are just curses that other people envy.”
  
  - “How to Play Sadness: It doesn’t exist so hide it like a tumor.”
  
  - “How to Play Fear: For a laugh.”
  
  - “Maybe it was worse to have survived, if continuing to be required destroying the reason to be.
  
  - “Things can be for the best and the worst at the same time.”
  
  - “My feelings have never once cared about what they should be.”
  
  - “Life is precious", Jacob thought. “It is the most important of all thoughts, and the most obvious, and the most difficult to remember to have.” He thought: “How different my life would have been if I could have had that thought before I was forced to.”
  
  5. The ending of the book was very well done.
  
  Balanced out, the good parts of this book did outweigh the bad parts although my preference would have been for the bad parts not to have been there at all – or, at the very least, that a different approach could have been taken that would have been as, if not more effective in getting the points across. This was a very good book, and I’m sad because it could have been a great one.
• 
  Kirsty

  Since the moment I heard that the god of contemporary authors, Jonathan Safran Foer, was going to be releasing a new novel, the barely-concealed bookworm inside me has been almost continually squealing with excitement. Whilst markedly different to the original information – Escape from Children’s Hospital was supposed to be released in 2015 – his newest novel, Here I Am, is well worth the wait.
  
  The novel focuses upon a family living in Washington DC. Jacob and Julia Bloch have been married for sixteen years, and have three sons – Sam, on the cusp of an unwanted Bar Mitzvah, ‘basically eleven’-year-old Max, and five-year-old Benjy. We also meet members of the Bloch’s extended family – Jacob’s parents, Irv and Deborah, his great-grandfather, Isaac, and several of his Israeli cousins. The plot revolves around the sudden failure of the Bloch’s marriage, and Sam’s Bar Mitzvah celebration, which is supposed to be filled with pomp and circumstance, and which he is utterly dreading.
  
  Here I Am is a deep familial jigsaw, which has been incredibly well pieced together. The dialogue is wonderfully constructed, and there is a very dark humour to it in places, which adds a great balance to the whole. Above all, the novel feels very believable; the characters are lifelike, and their problems and interactions are very realistic indeed.
  
  Safran Foer’s writing is, as ever, both startling and stunning, and I was reminded immediately as to why I love his work so much. Throughout, I adored the little details which he made use of – for instance, ‘a redheaded boy who still got chills from so much as thinking about the epilogue of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
  
  As always, the Jewish history which Safran Foer has included was both rich and fascinating. In terms of the plot, Here I Am begins in a manner which feels less historically reliant than Everything is Illuminated (2002) and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005), but this history builds, and is consequently used in masterful ways. He is an incredibly thoughtful and understanding author, who sees the importance and consequences of many things which have occurred throughout history; primarily, here, the focus is upon the effects of the Holocaust upon the children and grandchildren of survivors.
  
  I was pulled into Here I Am immediately, and despite its almost-600 page count, I found myself racing through it, quite unable to put it down. Never once does the story become lost. I was reminded of Zoe Heller throughout (also a wonderful contemporary author), who examines similar themes in The Believers (2008). Elements are discussed which can be found in Safran Foer’s earlier efforts; not in a repetitive way, but in a more grown-up, political manner. Identity, family, and Jewishness are the most prevalent of these. Here I Am is politically shrewd on a global scale; Julia and Jacob’s marital problems play out against the backdrop of a Middle East fraught with disasters – an earthquake which triggers a cholera epidemic, starving people, and full-blown war.
  
  Here I Am is as strong a novel as his previous works, but it feels like a departure of sorts from them; it is a more grown-up novel, with less experimental writing, and a dose more realism. Here I Am feels very personal on a number of levels, and the ending is nothing short of heartbreaking. I loved this well-realised and masterful novel, but I must admit that in no way was it what I was expecting.
• 
  Maxwell

  Full review to come.
• 
  ·Karen·

  It isn't what it's talking about that makes a book Jewish - it's that the book won't shut up. (Philip Roth)
  
  Mind you, talking about bar mitzvahs and rituals and Holocaust and eruv and Zionism and homeland and Torah and kosher food and Israel and Hebrew and seder does kind of give the game away.
  Also: it doesn't shut up.
  
  I come away exhausted: the high octane disputatious posturing, the quick-fire wordplay and cross-talk, the swift montage of tweets and text messages and interior monologue and exterior dialogue are dazzling, the thing teems with life and love and fracturing of love and natural disaster bringing geopolitical catastrophe and leaves the mind spinning and reeling, euphoric and replete, with dopamine rushing through all the pleasure and reward centres at once.
  Also: the jokes are good. Really good.
  
  I suppose that makes it sound terribly clever - you know, a bit too clever for its own good, and I'm afraid that's probably a criticism that can be levelled with some justification. The aqua seafoam doesn't quite sustain the dystopian cataclysm. The manic pace such a welcome change from
  Villette gives an aura of glibness rather than gravity. There are plenty, oh yes plenty, of parallels and resonances and echoing themes in there, but it would take two weeks of study to unpick them all, shake them out and scrabble through the debris. But that's not why I read Foer, to tease out all the manifold connections. It's the sheer blast of skeetering joy he gives.
  Also: I laughed. A lot.
  
  Also: for all the modernist montage, the narrative point of view is astonishingly, boldly, confidently 19th Century: an all-knowing, all seeing narrator that can move in and out of scenes and lives, eavesdrop on interior and exterior worlds of all the characters, portray the microlevel Bloch family and the macrolevel fate of Israel. The narrator as god and creator of this huge fictional world. I'm not sure if it is weighty - there'd be the two weeks of teasing out to decide on that - but lawks it is fun.
• 
  Emily May

  2 1/2 stars. Foer explores what it means to be a Jew in this epic, messy monster of a book. He starts with a Franzen-style look at the American family - a spiraling web of relationships and conflicts that on its own would have still resulted in a dense, challenging work, but probably one significantly less convoluted and more satisfying.
  
  The protagonist is Jacob - a modern day version of the biblical man by the same name. Much of his conflict - internal and external - is either about family or faith, reminiscent of his namesake. Foer makes a lot of interesting observations about humanity, Americans and Jews, and it is the family aspect of the book where he shines.
  
  However, the novel just gets weighed down more and more by everything else Foer keeps adding. The geopolitical conflicts between Israel and the Arab world add another huge layer to an already complex novel. This drags the second half of the book down and, unfortunately, the introduction of the struggles in the Middle East made me lose interest in the parts of the story I was previously enjoying.
  
  
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• 
  Gill

  'Here I Am' by Jonathan Safran Foer
  
  2.5 stars/ 5 out of 10
  
  I was very impressed by "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" by Jonathan Safran Foer, so was interested to read his latest work, "Here I Am".
  
  I found the story disjointed to begin with, but after about 50 pages I settled into its pattern. I thought the way that Julia and Jacob's relationship changed over time was developed in an interesting way. It kept me eager to find out more about them and their family. I found the sections relating to the avatars thought provoking. I enjoyed some of the humour, but felt that much of it was lost on me, because my cultural background is so different from that of the protagonists.
  
  I found the sudden change of focus halfway the book quite strange, and I didn't find it an easy one. I'm sure that Jonathan Safran Foer had a clear intention as to why he did this, but I thought it made the first and second half of the book disconnected. I found the part of the plot relating to the Middle East hard to follow, and I wasn't engaged enough to try to understand it more. There were still aspects of the 'family' story that I enjoyed in the second half of the book, but overall I lost interest.
  
  This novel did not come up to my expectations. It may be that I am not the audience that Jonathan Safran Foer was aiming for, but I found the novel overlong, confusing and often uninteresting.
  
  Thank you to Penguin Books (UK) and to NetGalley for an ARC.
• 
  Roula

  Τον Τζόναθαν Σαφραν Φοερ αρχικά τον "γνωρισα" στο εξαιρετικά δυνατα και απίστευτα κοντά, το πρωτο βιβλίο του που διάβασα. Όπως είχα πει, το βιβλίο αυτό το είχα λατρέψει και όταν βγήκε το ιδού εγώ, ήξερα με βεβαιότητα ότι θα το διαβάσω και αυτό. Έτσι κι έγινε. Σκεπτόμενη τι είναι αυτό που τόσο μου αρέσει στη γραφή του Φοερ, θα έλεγα πως είναι ότι φτάνει στη ρίζα του συναισθηματος και έχει τη δυνατότητα να το περιγράφει με έναν εκπληκτικό τρόπο, είτε πρόκειται  για ευχάριστο, είτε για δυσάρεστο συναίσθημα.. Το ιδού εγώ μιλά για πολλά και φαινομενικα τυχαία γεγονότα και θέματα, για ένα μπαρ μιτσβα που θα οδηγήσει στην ενηλικίωση το γιο του πρωταγωνιστή, για έναν σεισμό που οδηγεί σε έναν πόλεμο, για την απιστία, για τη φιλία, για την αγάπη, για το διαζύγιο, αλλά πάνω από όλα για την οικογένεια και για το πως πραγματικά αυτή είναι..τα τσιτάτα δίνουν και παίρνουν και καλό θα είναι να έχεις εύκαιρο σημειωματάριο και όρεξη να καταγραφεις απίστευτες ατάκες. Η μελαγχολία είναι κατά τη γνώμη μου το συναίσθημα που επικρατεί, άλλωστε μιλάμε για το πως δύο άνθρωποι έφτασαν στη διάλυση του γάμου τους, αλλά και μπόλικα σπαρταριστα περιστατικά που με έκαναν να γελάσω. Γενικώς ένα απόλυτα απολαυστικό βιβλίο. Το μόνο αρνητικό που βρίσκω είναι ότι κατά τη γνώμη μου δε χρειαζόταν να είναι τοοοοσο μεγάλο και ειδικά στις τελευταίες 100 σελίδες αισθάνθηκα λίγο να με κουράζει. Παρόλα αυτά ο φοερ εξακολουθεί να είναι ένας από τους συγγραφείς που ο, τι γράφει με αφορά και θα συνεχίσω να το διαβάζω.
  Υ. Γ. Τώρα ας μιλήσουμε λίγο για κουτσομπολιό :ας μιλήσουμε για το ότι ο φοερ περιγράφει την ιστορία του διαζυγίου του με την επίσης συγγραφέα σύζυγο του nicole Krauss, ο οποίος επήλθε λόγω του ότι αυτός πήγε και ερωτεύτηκε τη Νάταλι την πορτμαν (για το θεό, most overrated person ever) και ανταλλασε μαζί της email (τα οποία διάβασα και πιο βαρετά πεθαινειιιις 🤣🤣) και φυσικά τώρα θα διαβάσω κ το βιβλίο που έχει γράψει η εν λόγω πρώην σύζυγος για το διαζύγιο τους για να δω ποιος είναι καλύτερος συγγραφέας, μη φανταστείς 😂
  
  "όλα τα ευτυχισμένα πρωινά μοιάζουν μεταξύ τους, όπως και όλα τα δυστυχισμένα, κι αυτό είναι τελικά που τα κάνει όλα τόσο βαθιά δυστυχη: η αίσθηση ότι αυτή η δυστυχία έχει υπάρξει και πριν, ότι κάθε προσπάθεια να την αποφύγεις, θα την κάνει πιο δυνατή.,ισως μάλιστα να την επιδεινώσει, και ότι το σύμπαν για κάποιο λόγο ασύλληπτο στον κοινό νου, αχρείαστο και άδικο, συνωμοτει ενάντια σε μια αθώα καθημερινότητα ρούχων, πρωινου στο τραπέζι, βουρτσισματος δοντιών, χτενίσματος μαλλιων, σχολικών τσαντών, παπουτσιών, μπουφάν και αποχαιρετισμων στην πόρτα. "
  
  " αγαπούσα το γιο μου παραπάνω από όσο μπορούσα να αγαπήσω, αλλά δεν αγαπούσα την αγάπη. Επειδή με συνέτριβε. Επειδή ήταν αναγκαστικά σκληρή. Και επειδή δε χωρούσε στο σώμα μου,αναγκαστηκε να
  μετασχηματιστεί σε μια αγχωδη υπερπροστατευτικοτητα, που περιέπλεξε τα πράγματα, που από τη φύση τους ήταν απλά - την ανατροφή και τ�� παιχνίδι. Επειδή η αγάπη ήταν υπερβολική, δεν άφηνε χώρο στην ευτυχία. "
• 
  Eva Pliakou

  Μοναδικό βιβλίο, σαν να γράφει ο Φρανζεν την ιστορία διαζυγίου ενός μιλλενιαλ ζευγαριού. Το ότι έχει χιούμορ ο Φοερ είναι γνωστό, αλλά εδώ αυτό πάει σε άλλα επίπεδα. Είναι όμως και εντελώς σπαρακτικό βιβλίο (ειδικά οι τελευταίες εκατό σελίδες), ενώ ταυτόχρονα προσφέρει μια σπουδαία ανάγνωση πάνω στην εβραϊκότητα. Κάτι του έλειπε για να γίνει αριστούργημα, αν και είναι πολύ κοντά σε αυτό.
  
  "Στην αρρώστια και στην αρρώστια. Τούτο μόνο σου εύχομαι. Μην ζητάς ούτε να ελπίζεις σε θαύματα. Όχι πια. Ούτε υπάρχει γιατρειά για τις πληγωμένες καρδιές. Ένα μόνο γιατρικό υπάρχει: να πιστεύεις στον πόνο του άλλου και να μην τον εγκαταλείπεις στην αγωνία του."
• 
  Dennis Jacob

  A book about the slow disintegration of a marriage while constantly meditating on what it means to be Jewish. I spend almost three weeks reading it while working on my Master's Thesis. I found it to be quite beautiful and at times heartbreaking. I'm curious as to what gentile readers think of it. Foer is not very inclusive and I imagine that to someone unfamiliar with Judaism and Jewish culture lots of concepts, words and philosophical discussions will seem foreign and impenetrable.
• 
  Roman Clodia

  A messy, chaotic book that zooms between big ideas and forges massive connections between the personal and political, between the family and the state of Israel. As a marriage falls apart, so does the Middle East when a huge earthquake devastates Israel and allows it to be invaded by a pan-Arab/Muslim alliance.
  
  JSF uses these dual scenarios to explore issues of identity and Jewishness, fractures between Jews and Israelis, and questions of national identity versus common humanity. The whole book reads like an unstoppable outpouring of ideas that feels almost unmediated, almost spontaneous in its untidiness. We can't help but feel that we're in the presence of something deeply intelligent, deeply creative... and yet also, to some extent, almost unformed. In parts thrilling, in others laborious, a difficult, idiosyncratic and iconoclastic book.
  
  Thanks to the publisher for an ARC via Netgalley
• 
  Simone Subliminalpop

  Indeciso fino all’ultimo tra 3 o 4 stelle.
  Personaggi e scrittura non si discutono, ottimi livelli per entrambi.
  Dialoghi scritti magistralmente, forse troppo però (io dei bambini che parlano/ragionano così li farei internare) e sicuramente troppi.
  La trama principale viene resa molto bene, mentre la “sottotrama” che riguarda la guerra d’Israele è forse la parte più debole (e non è cosa da poco, rivelandosi comunque abbastanza portante per il romanzo). Molta attenzione per l’essere umano e relativamente poca per l’ambiente nel quale tutto avviene.
  È un buon libro? Sì.
  Era migliorabile? Altrettanto sì (quanto meno “asciugando” alcune parti).
  
  
  Cit.
  
  
  
  
• 
  Ιωάννα Μπαμπέτα

  Ένα βαθιά ανθρώπινο βιβλίο. Ένα ζευγάρι με τρία παιδιά στη σύγχρονη Αμερική. Τόσο διεισδυτικό και ειλικρινές που με συγκίνησε.
  Κατά την ανάγνωση χρειάζεται οπωσδήποτε μολύβι. Σημείωσα τόσες πολλές σκέψεις του συγγραφέα...
  «Η διαφορά ανάμεσα στην παραδοχή και στην αποδοχή είναι η κατάθλιψη»
  «Δεν είναι συλλεκτικό κομμάτι η πικρία να τη βάλεις στο ράφι»
  «Τίποτα δεν περνάει από μόνο του. Αν δεν ασχοληθείς εσύ με αυτό, θα ασχοληθεί αυτό μ’ εσένα»
  «Νικήσαμε στον πόλεμο. Χάσαμε την ειρήνη»
  «Η σχέση τους οριζόταν όχι από όσα μπορούσαν να μοιραστούν, αλλά από όσα δεν μπορούσαν. Κάθε φορά, ανάμεσα σε δύο υπάρξεις βρίσκεται μια μοναδική, αγεφύρωτη απόσταση, ένα απαραβίαστο ιερό. Κάποιες φορές παίρνει τη μορφή της μοναχικότητας. Κάποιες της αγάπης».
  
  Το κεφάλαιο η Βίβλος ήταν αριστούργημα!
  Παραδέχομαι πως με κούρασαν λίγο τα σημεία που αφορούν την εβραϊκότητα ως πολιτισμική και όχι ως θρησκευτική ταυτότητα και ο πόλεμος στη Μέση Ανατολή. Είχαν ενδιαφέρον αλλά θα τα προτιμούσα πιο σύντομα.
  
  Εξαιρετική γραφή. Έγινε από τους πιο αγαπημένους μου συγγραφείς.
• 
  Intellectual_Thighs

  Η εβραϊκότητα κουβαλά ένα φοβερά μεγάλο βάρος, γιατί σετάρει με την πεποίθηση ότι ποτέ δεν θα φανείς αντάξιος των προγόνων σου, που εκδιώχθηκαν, βασανίστηκαν, θανατώθηκαν. Αλλά σκέψου το έξτρα βάρος ενός άθεου Αμερικανοεβραίου με την αίσθηση ότι δεν είναι αντάξιος ούτε αυτών που θα τον ακολουθήσουν και που στο ερώτημα "να ζει κανείς ή να μη ζει" είναι η τρίτη επιλογή που δεν δόθηκε ποτέ απ'τον Σέξπιρ "να ζει κανείς χωρίς να ζει".
  Ένας μακροχρόνιος γάμος που συνοδεύεται από παιδιά, έχει βάρη που κανείς δεν σου έχει πει, ότι δηλαδή οι "οικογενειακές στιγμές" είναι κατά κύριο λόγο διεκπεραίωση υποχρεώσεων, το "καθάρισμα" που πρέπει να κάνεις μετά από οτιδήποτε, η εκπλήρωση όχι με την έννοια της πληρότητας, αλλά η εκπλήρωση των καθηκόντων. Σκέψου το έξτρα βάρος ανάμεσα σε ένα ζευγάρι που αγαπάει περισσότερο τα παιδιά του απ ότι ο ένας τον άλλον, και που γνωρίζονται πλέον τόσο καλά που είναι δύσκολο να υποκριθούν ότι ορίζουν με τον ίδιο τρόπο την ευτυχία και την εμπιστοσύνη.
  Η παιδική ηλικία, έχει βάρη που όλοι κουβαλήσαμε, τις αλλαγές καθώς διαμορφώνεται η ενήλικη εκδοχή μας, αυτά που αντιλαμβάνεσαι κι αυτά που υποθέτεις, η ανάγκη να ξεφύγεις απ'την πραγματικότητα και να βρίσκεσαι κάπου που είσαι αποδεκτός. Σκέψου τώρα το επιπλέον βάρος της ευφυίας, ευαισθησίας, αντίληψης ιδιαίτερων παιδιών που βλέπουν τους γονείς τους να απομακρύνονται.
  Η οικογένεια Μπλοχ κουβαλάει τα βάρη της, μυστικά και εμπόδια που πρέπει να αντιμετωπίσει την ίδια στιγμή που στο Ισραήλ ξεσπάει μια άνευ προηγουμένου κρίση. Πίστη στην οικογένεια, πίστη στους προγόνους, πίστη στον εαυτό μας παρόλα τα βάρη, τόσα βάρη και τόσα προβλήματα, είναι όμως το μεγαλύτερο πρόβλημά μας το ότι μας λείπουν τα αληθινά προβλήματα, είναι εντέλει η τόση ανάλυση μια πολυτέλεια που μας δίνει η εν-τάξει ζωή; Η ζωή είναι πολύτιμη και ζούμε στον κόσμο. Έτσι είναι ο κόσμος στον οποίο ζούμε. Τι να κάνουμε. Μόνο αυτόν έχουμε.
  Το βιβλίο αυτό είναι εξαιρετικό, τα μέτωπα που ανοίγει είναι τόσα όσα σου ανοίγει και η ζωή τις πιο ακατάλληλες στιγμές και ο Φόερ τα καταγράφει με φοβερή ευαισθησία και ανεπιτήδ��υτο χιούμορ, δίνοντάς μας ένα βαθιά ανθρώπινο και ειλικρινές μυθιστόρημα.
  ΚΑΙ ΜΠΡΆΒΟ ΤΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΩΠΑ ΤΟΥ.-
• 
  Tonia

  Ένας πόλεμος, ένας τελειωμένος γάμος, ένας γιος που κινδυνεύει να αποβληθεί από το σχολείο και έχεις την υπόθεση του βιβλίου.
  Όχι δεν είναι τόσο απλό. Είναι και οι ήρωες, είναι και οι χαρακτήρες που μπαίνεις στη θέση τους, που θέλεις να συγκρούστεις εσυ για χάρη τους. Που πονάς με όσα νιώθουν, που έχεις νιώσει και εσυ κάποια από αυτά και συμπασχεις.
  Όχι δεν είναι ένα βιβλίο που δεν το άφησα από τα χέρια μου. Γιατί το άφηνα. Το άφηνα γιατί δεν ήθελα να τελειώσει, δεν ήθελα να σταματήσω να μαθαίνω για το Τζέικομπ και για τη Τζούλια. Ήθελα να συνεχίσει αυτή η παρακολουθήση της ζωής τους, που εβλεπα στοιχεία και λάθη που έχω κάνει και εγώ και οι φίλοι μου και οι γύρω μας.
  Απόλαυσα το «Ιδού εγώ», μου θύμισε κάτι από Φρανζεν και Ροθ. Αλλά είχε κάτι μοναδικό δικό του. Ανάλαφρο και χιουμοριστικό στα σημεία που έπρεπε. Στα σημεία που η φόρτιση ήταν έντονη ερχόταν το χιούμορ του Φόερ για να ελαφρύνει την κατάσταση.
  
  «Το να μην έχεις επιλογή είναι και αυτό μια επιλογή»
• 
  Laura King

  "You only get to keep what you refuse to let go of"
• 
  Lauren

  I was the perfect audience for this novel. I'm a huge fan of JSF's fiction, and I had a Jewish upbringing exactly like the one that was the focus of the book. And yet.
  
  Here I Am contains several storylines that were unsuccessfully wound together. We have the imagined destruction of Israel which could have made for a grand and fascinating telling, but it was a more or less an abandoned plot-line. We also have the destruction of a marriage, but there was nothing there we haven't seen before.
  
  There were no fleshed out characters to be found. The writing was beautiful as always, but I found it was lacking his signature strangeness that I was so looking forward to (a la Everything is Illuminated ).I loved the deep cultural references to the Ashkenazi-American experience, but anyone who isn't from that background will likely be confused, as everything was presented without context.
  
  It seems like this was written for JSF himself; everything from his life and his brain whipped together into a neat package for his own enjoyment. While I enjoyed parts of this enough to give it 3 stars, nothing in here moved me-- a huge disappointment coming from an author whose two previous works moved me more than anything else (especially Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close ).
  
  I am very interested to see how this is received by the masses once it's released in a few weeks. I wanted to love this but it wasn't in the cards for me. I hope it will speak to some other readers.
• 
  Ayelet Waldman

  Amazing first half. The Israel stuff left me cold.
• 
  Chryssouline

  αριστούργημα!
• 
  Gemma

  Not an easy one for my first ever review! This is a long novel with a lot going on. Perhaps a little too much. There were large parts I absolutely loved. The family life of Jewish couple Jacob and Julia Bloch, their three boys and dog was riveting. I can’t recall a novel that depicts the growing tensions between a husband and wife as razor sharp in its insights as this. And Foer is so good at getting the amazing and profound things young children can suddenly come out with. I loved the three boys in this book. Then there’s the bigger picture. A catastrophic earthquake in the Middle East unlocks all the tensions there and before long Israel is under attack. The Bloch family experience this as newsreel footage, almost like virtual reality, which is nicely contrasted by the virtual world in which the eldest son spends a lot of his time and the sextexts Joseph has exchanged with a female work colleague and Julia stumbles upon. There’s a lot of soul searching about Jewish identity in this novel, a little too much for me. But the speech a rabbi gives at Joseph’s grandfather’s funeral was so moving it brought me to tears. I can’t give this less than five stars because, despite some meandering sideshows, the central thrust of the novel was absolutely brilliant.
• 
  Tsvetelina

  “Ето ме“ е роман за смъртта на надеждите на обикновен��я човек. „Ето ме“ разказва и за надеждата на обиновения човек да избегне смъртта на малкия си живот. Защото смъртта на човека е различна от смъртта на живота му.
  "Ние сме избрали да превърнем живота във върховната еврейска ценност, вместо да решим доколко са ценни отделните видове живот, или да направим още по-крайната стъпка, да се признае, че има неща, които са по-важни от това да си жив."
  Фоер е създал задълбочен, тежък роман, към който не бих посегнала втори път – не защото не е добър. Напротив, „Ето ме“ е великолепен роман, но също така е непоносим по начин, който удря обикновения човек право в сърцевината на големите му страхове за малките смърти.
  „Там, върху пръстта, насред подобието на савана насред столицата на страната той почувства нещо толкова неудържимо и истинско, че то или щеше да му спаси живота, или да го съсипе.
  Три години по-късно щеше да целуне с език момиче, за което на драго сърце би си отрязъл ръцете. Следващата година въздушна възглвница щеше да му разкъса роговицата и да му спаси живота. Две години по-късно щеше да гледа удивен уста, поемаща пениса му. А по-късно през същата година щеше да каже на баща си онова, което от години говореше зад гърба му. Щеше да изпуши един чувал марихуана, да гледа как коляното му се измята по време на глупав футболен мач, в един непознат град щеше да бъде необяснимо трогнат до сълзи от картина на жена с бебе, щеше да докосне мечка в зимен сън и застрашен мравояд, да чака цяла седмица резултати от изследвания, да се моли тихо за живота на съпругата си, докато тя крещеше, а от тялото й излизаше нов живот – това бяха все моменти, в които животът му се струваше важен, ценен. Но те бяха съвсем малка част от времето му на земята. Пет минути годишно? Колко правеше това? един ден? Най-много. Един ден, в който се чувстваш жив за четири десетилетия живот?“
  „Ето ме‘“ ни въвежда дълбоко в еврейските традиции и ценности и еврейската душевност, но също така разлиства пласт по пласт от вътрешния свят на средностатистическия човек, попаднал в капана на средностатистическия си живот. Докато четете „Ето ме“, ще се питате – каква е ролята на семейството и религията в нашето съвремие, познава ли ни това семейство достатъчно добре, познаваме ли се самите себе си достатъчно добре? Може ли религията ни да ни даде утеха и да освети пътя ни напред в битието, което ни затиска и от което сме свикнали да се чувстваме вечно уморени? Или религията ни ограбва от възможността да бъдем себе си и да изберем сами пътя си? Предопределя ли историята ни какви да бъдем, какъв живот да изберем и как да го живеем? „Винаги съм вярвал, че единственото, което е необходимо, за да променя изцяло живота си, е пълна промяна на личността.“
  Има ли ни нас? Има ли кой да ни каже: ето те. Ето ме.
  
  Джоната Сафран Фоер е изключително интелигентен, остроумен и проницателен писател. Този негов труд (единственият, който съм чела досега) успява не просто да скицира сблъсъка на религията, вярата ( и липсата на такава), съвремието на семейството и позицията на човека в рамките и извън рамките на семейството, историята и пресечната точка на поколенията. Той рисува експресивно душевността на своите пълнокръвни герои, използва светлосенки, тъй като е недопустимо да говорим черно-бели идеи, избори и действителности. Всичко в писането му е комплексно, една жива и непримирима съвкупност от минало, настояще и неясно бъдеще. Колебанията на героите са неизмерими, решителността им също. Присъдите на миналото настигат настоящето и изцеждат сегашните избори от възможност за избор. Но „да нямаш избор също е избор“. И насред всичко това процъфтяват неудовлетвореността и тъгата, които, неизразени и потиснати в „равния, скучен пейзаж“, който обитаваме, се превръщат в гнева, който ни пречи да видим „върха на тази планина“.
  Посегнете към тази книга. Посегнете към нея сега, ако дори малко съм разпалила любопитството ви. „Ето ме“ трябва да се прочете поне два пъти. Онези, на които романът ще проговори обаче, ще останат без сили да се впуснат отначало, защото „Ето ме“ ни задава много въпроси, но и ни тласка към отговори, които бихме искали да оставим само за себе си.
• 
  Jaclyn

  Foer has written a/the great Jewish American novel. This book is INTENSLY personal and ambitious. It explores the breakdown of a marriage and religious identity for Jewish Americans and Israelis. Where it truly succeeds/transcends is the marriage/relationship/family/kids/pets/parents stuff. It's very easy to feel you are reading an account of Foer and Krauss's marriage ending. But I dislike when critics/readers equate the author with the fiction. And yet... Where it gets a little heavy/self indulgent/overwritten is the religious identity stuff. Foer does some exciting stuff with form: video game text, TV bible, speeches which he mostly pulls off with his characteristic wit, humour and skill. There are some real laugh out loud moments in here and it's infinitely quotable.