Free Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer Page B

read every one of them.
The Book of Recurrent Dreams
was a very beautiful thing, and I must say that the dream that we are our fathers made me melancholy. This is what you intended, yes? Of course I am not Father, so perhaps I am the rare bird to your novel. When I look in the reflection, what I view is not Father, but the negative of Father.
    Yankel. He is a good man, yes? Why do you think he made to swindle that man so many years ago? Perhaps he needed the currency very severely. I know what this is like, although I would never swindle any person. I found it stimulating that you made another lottery, this time to dub the shtetl. It made me think about what I would dub Odessa if I was given the power. I think that I might dub it Alex, because then everyone would know that I am Alex, and that the name of the city is Alex, so I must be a very premium person. I also might name it Little Igor, because people would think that my brother is a premium person, which he is, but it would be good for people to think so. (It is a queer thing how I wish everything for my brother that I wish for myself, only more rigidly.) Perhaps I would name it Trachimbrod, because then Trachimbrod could exist, and also, everyone here would purchase your book, and you could become famous.
    I am regretted to end this letter. It is as proximal a thing as we have to talking. I hope you are appeased by the third division, and as always, I ask for
your forgiveness. I attempted to be truthful and beautiful, as you told me to.
    Oh, yes. There is one additional item. I did not amputate Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior from the story, even though you counseled that I should amputate her. You uttered that the story would be more "refined" with her absence, and I know that refined is like cultivated, polished, and well bred, but I will inform you that Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior is a very distinguished character, one with variegated appetites and seats of passion. Let us view her evolution and then resolve.
    Guilelessly,

Alexander

GOING FORTH TO LUTSK
    S AMMY D AVIS , J UNIOR , J UNIOR converted her attention from masticating her tail to trying to lick clean the hero's spectacles, which I will tell you were in need of cleaning. I write that she was trying because the hero was not being sociable. "Can you please get this dog away from me," he said, making his body into a ball. "Please. I really don't like dogs." "She is only making games with you," I told him when she put her body on top of his and kicked him with her back legs. "It signifies that she likes you." "Please," he said, attempting to remove her. She was now jumping up and also down on his face. "I really don't like her. I don't feel like games. She's going to break my glasses."
    I will now mention that Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior is very often sociable with her new friends, but I had never witnessed a thing like this. I reasoned that she was in love with the hero. "Are you donning cologne?" I asked. "What?" "Are you donning any cologne?" He rotated his body so that his face was in the seat, away from Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior. "Maybe a little," he said, defending the back of his head with his hands. "Because she loves cologne. It makes her sexually stimulated." "Jesus." "She is trying to make sex to you. This is a good sign. It signifies that she will not bite." "Help!" he said as Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior rotated to do a sixty-nine. Pending all of this, Grandfather was still returning from his repose. "He does not like her," I told him. "Yes he does," Grandfather said, and that was all. "Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior!" I called. "Sit!" And do you know what? She sat. On the hero. In the sixty-nine position. "Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior! Sit on your side of the back seat! Get off the hero!" I think that she understanded me, because she removed herself from the hero and returned to punching her face against the window on the other side. Or perhaps she had licked off all of the hero's cologne and was no