My
legal name is Alexander Perchov. But all of my many friends dub me
Alex, because that is a more flaccid-to-utter version of my legal
name. Mother dubs me Alexi-stop-spleening-me!, because I am always
spleening her. If you want to know why I am always spleening her,
it is because I am always elsewhere with friends, and disseminating
so much currency, and performing so many things that can spleen a
mother. Father used to dub me Shapka, for the fur hat I would don
even in the summer month. He ceased dubbing me that because I
ordered him to cease dubbing me that. It sounded boyish to me, and
I have always thought of myself as very potent and generative. I
have many many girls, believe me, and they all have a different
name for me. One dubs me Baby, not because I am a baby, but because
she attends to me. Another dubs me All Night. Do you want to know
why? I have a girl who dubs me Currency, because I disseminate so
much currency around her. She licks my chops for it. I have a
miniature brother who dubs me Alli. I do not dig this name very
much, but I dig him very much, so OK, I permit him to dub me Alli.
As for his name, it is Little Igor, but Father dubs him Clumsy One,
because he is always promenading into things. It was only four days
previous that he made his eye blue from a mismanagement with a
brick wall. If you're wondering what my bitch's name is, it is
Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior. She has this name because Sammy Davis,
Junior was Grandfather's beloved singer, and the bitch is his, not
mine, because I am not the one who thinks he is blind.

As for me, I was sired in 1977, the same year as the hero of this
story. In truth, my life has been very ordinary. As I mentioned
before, I do many good things with myself and others, but they are
ordinary things. I dig American movies. I dig Negroes, particularly
Michael Jackson. I dig to disseminate very much currency at famous
nightclubs in Odessa. Lamborghini Countaches are excellent, and so
are cappuccinos. Many girls want to be carnal with me in many good
arrangements, notwithstanding the Inebriated Kangaroo, the Gorky
Tickle, and the Unyielding Zookeeper. If you want to know why so
many girls want to be with me, it is because I am a very premium
person to be with. I am homely, and also severely funny, and these
are winning things. But nonetheless, I know many people who dig
rapid cars and famous discotheques. There are so many who perform
the Sputnik Bosom Dalliance — which is always terminated with
a slimy underface — that I cannot tally them on all of my
hands. There are even many people named Alex. (Three in my house
alone!) That is why I was so effervescent to go to Lutsk and
translate for Jonathan Safran Foer. It would be unordinary.

I had performed recklessly well in my second year of English at
university. This was a very majestic thing I did because my
instructor was having shit between his brains. Mother was so proud
of me, she said, "Alexi-stop-spleening-me! You have made me so
proud of you." I inquired her to purchase me leather pants, but she
said no. "Shorts?" "No." Father was also so proud. He said,
"Shapka," and I said, "Do not dub me that," and he said, "Alex, you
have made Mother so proud."

Mother is a humble woman. Very, very humble. She toils at a small
café one hour distance from our home. She presents food and
drink to customers there, and says to me, "I mount the autobus for
an hour to work all day doing things I hate. You want to know why?
It is for you, Alexi-stop-spleening-me! One day you will do things
for me that you hate. That is what it means to be a family." What
she does not clutch is that I already do things for her that I
hate. I listen to her when she talks to me. I resist complaining
about my pygmy allowance. And did I mention that I do not spleen
her nearly so much as I desire to? But I do not do these things
because we are a family. I do them because they are common
decencies. That is an idiom that the hero taught me. I do them
because I am not a big fucking asshole. That is another idiom that
the hero taught me.

Father toils for a travel agency, denominated Heritage Touring. It
is for Jewish people, like the hero, who have cravings to leave
that ennobled country America and visit humble towns in Poland and
Ukraine. Father's agency scores a translator, guide, and driver for
the Jews, who try to unearth places where their families once
existed. OK, I had never met a Jewish person until the voyage. But
this was their fault, not mine, as I had always been willing, and
one might even write lukewarm, to meet one. I will be truthful
again and mention that before the voyage I had the opinion that
Jewish people were having shit between their brains. This is
because all I knew of Jewish people was that they paid Father very
much currency in order to make vacations from America to Ukraine.
But then I met Jonathan Safran Foer, and I will tell you, he is not
having shit between his brains. He is an ingenious Jew.

So as for the Clumsy One, who I never ever dub the Clumsy One but
always Little Igor, he is a first-rate boy. It is now evident to me
that he will become a very potent and generative man, and that his
brain will have many muscles. We do not speak in volumes, because
he is such a silent person, but I am certain that we are friends,
and I do not think I would be lying if I wrote that we are
paramount friends. I have tutored Little Igor to be a man of this
world. For an example, I exhibited him a smutty magazine three days
yore, so that he should be appraised of the many positions in which
I am carnal. "This is the sixty-nine," I told him, presenting the
magazine in front of him. I put my fingers — two of them
— on the action, so that he would not overlook it. "Why is it
dubbed sixty-nine?" he asked, because he is a person hot on fire
with curiosity. "It was invented in 1969. My friend Gregory knows a
friend of the nephew of the inventor." "What did people do before
1969?" "Merely blowjobs and masticating box, but never in chorus."
He will be made a VIP if I have a thing to do with it.

This is where the story begins.

But first I am burdened to recite my good appearance. I am
unequivocally tall. I do not know any women who are taller than me.
The women I know who are taller than me are lesbians, for whom 1969
was a very momentous year. I have handsome hairs, which are split
in the middle. This is because Mother used to split them on the
side when I was a boy, and to spleen her I split them in the
middle. "Alexi-stop-spleening-me!," she said, "you appear mentally
unbalanced with your hairs split like that." She did not intend it,
I know. Very often Mother utters things that I know she does not
intend. I have an aristocratic smile and like to punch people. My
stomach is very strong, although it presently lacks muscles. Father
is a fat man, and Mother is also. This does not disquiet me,
because my stomach is very strong, even if it appears very fat. I
will describe my eyes and then begin the story. My eyes are blue
and resplendent. Now I will begin the story.

Excerpted from EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED © Copyright 2003
by Jonathan Safran Foer. Reprinted with permission by
HarperPerennial, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. All rights
reserved.