One of the nice things about being stoned is the added dimension of humor or profundity that otherwise inconsequential things can assume in our impression of them. I remember once having my mind blown at the idea of language, and how any two unrelated people, having been raised in the same country and while having no connection at all to each other, or there being any crossover among those who have taught or influenced them, can meet each other one day and have a mutually intelligible conversation. Fascinating, right? Well, no not really, but it sure as hell seems fascinating when you're high. 
 I feel as though the only way I could have read this book and found it as funny and profound as other readers found it is if I were completely and totally baked. 
 Everything Is Illuminated is essentially comprised of two narratives interwoven in a nonlinear arrangement. The first is the account of a small Jewish settlement in the Ukraine which, along with most of its quirky inhabitants, is wiped out by the invading Nazis in 1941. The "writer" of this section is a fictionalized version of Foer himself, who is a direct descendant of some of these villagers. The second narrative is that of a present-day Ukrainian who recounts his experiences with Foer as they try to locate a mysterious woman who Foer believes helped his family escape that aforementioned invasion. The Ukrainian, whose name is Alex, is hired by the fictional Foer as a translator in his endeavors. 
 While Alex is the source of much of the book's comedy in his unintentional misuse of the English language, the comedic value stemming from this quickly ran dry for me. I think there is also an absurdity with which Foer describes the ancestral characters in the Ukrainian village (called Trachimbrod) but to me most of the quirkiness seemed forced and unnatural, and ruined what could have provided an endearing element to the story. I mean, we're talking about a village wherein characters collect each other's tears in thimbles and send each other pieces of string that match the length of their body parts in order that their recipients be assuaged of any fear that their loved ones have "changed." (Blech.) 
 And then there are the sentences, the ones I think are meant to sound deep and awe-inspiring but which only come across as shallow and trite in my non-Coloradan state of sobriety. (Sorry, Coloradans, but I guess that's your thing now.) Sentences, for example, like these! 
 We burned with love for ourselves, all of us, starters of the fire we suffered--our love was the affliction for which only our love was the cure. 
 They reciprocated the great and saving lie--that our love for things is greater than our love for our love for things--willfully playing the parts they wrote for themselves, willfully creating and believing fictions necessary for life. 
 She never ran from his fists, but took them, went to them, certain that her bruises were not marks of violence, but of violent love. 
 The Kolker was trapped in his body--like a love note in an unbreakable bottle, whose script never fades or smudges, and is never read by the eyes of the intended lover--forced to hurt the one with whom he wanted most to be gentle. 
 Yes, there is a lot of talk of love in this book. (I think JSF wrote it before he got himself hitched.) 
 Anyway, there is a section toward the end of the novel during which Alex's grandfather reveals an atrocity that occurred in his presence, and in which he was involved, and that revelation was very heartfelt and exemplifies, possibly, what JSF can be good at. But it wasn't enough to rescue this book from its overall effect of having kind of irritated the crap out of me.