I think it's a strong first novel, and it makes me interested to see what else Foer has up his sleeve.

But I was sorry that he didn't have better guidance in places (negative commentary about MFA programs, notwithstanding, I think new writers need a firm hand, whether that's an editor or a professor). He kept giving us openings and then not following through, which I found frustrating, especially in the stetl business. How can you start a theme of "I had to do it for myself," given the structure of the novel, and then just drop it? I think the answer is that he's 24 and he missed the forest for the trees in places.

It's uneven. And where it works, it's lovely. And sometimes I think it's completely coincidental that it works in the places that it does. But sometimes while I was reading it I thought that in a few years he'll be writing much deeper and more affecting prose, and so I'm glad to have been introduced to him.

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All meetings end in separation
All acquisition ends in dispersion
All life ends in death
- The Buddha

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='_'=

Every hundred years, all new people