Here I Am
Jonathan Safran Foer
[Farrar, Straus and Giroux]
Readers anticipating more of the literary fireworks and postmodern magical realism that defined JSF’s first two books will be disappointed. Here I Am is a sharp departure in style; nearly 600 pages dedicated to Zionist apologist politics and the minute domestic details of an upper-middle-class family. The book opens by dramatically announcing the “destruction of Israel” – a fictionalised earthquake provides a handy deus ex machina, although it takes 250 pages of hydrocortisone suppositories, teak garbage bin enclosures and marital strife before we get to it.
Dismayingly, as the book trudges on, it becomes apparent that these crises – domestic, geopolitical, and existential – are only explored from the viewpoint of Jacob Bloch, a chronically dissatisfied whinging man-child whose life revolves around his iPhone podcasts and “ricotta-stuffed brioche French toast”. His marriage is breaking down over a series of explicit text messages. He is challenged by his exaggeratedly masculine Israeli cousin to go and fight for “his homeland”. A ludicrous scene in which he jumps into the lion’s den at the zoo attempts to locate him as a quasi-Biblical figure; in truth he is another overly self-indulgent case of the ubiquitous white male Generation X identity crisis. This feels like JSF’s attempt at writing something weightier, the Great American Jewish Novel. It may be that he is attempting to “put away childish things” but the result is a work far less emotionally substantial than his previous books. The reader is ultimately left regretting his decision to abandon the fireworks.
Words – Liza Cox
