The Beginning of the World Often Comes

For this quarter's outside reading, I have chosen Everything is Illuminated, by Jonathan Safran Foer (I chose this book because I enjoyed Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and I enjoyed the movie Everything is Illuminated). Many parts of this novel are similar to Safran Foer's other book. First, alternative formatting is used for dialogue.

"The good gefiltefishmonger Bitzl Bitzl R watched the commotion from his paddleboat, which was fastened with twine to one of his traps. What's going on over there? he shouted to shore. Is that you, Yankel? Is there some sort of trouble?" (8)

While some dialogue is written in italics, other speakers are signified by writing in all capital letters. Safran foer also uses a different format for the descriptions of dreams. These passages have all the print centered in the page, like it was a piece of a newspaper article that was cut out and pasted into the book.

I usually get bored reading books with long chapters and classical format, so these diverse writing styles really makes the story more interesting to read.