Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
I just finished reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. It took me a while to get into it, but once I did I really enjoyed it. I admit that I was a bit apprehensive about reading this novel because I live very close to New York City-close enough to see the smoke on 9/11-and I actually knew a lot people who had parents who worked in the Towers. Though I didn't actually know anyone who died on 9/11, it did hit pretty close to home.
The narrator, 9 year-old Oskar Schell and his search for the lock first drew me to the novel. I thought I would like his quirkiness, and I wasn't let down. At times, his precociousness was a bit unrealistic but at other times I think Foer was successful in creating a 9 year-old narrator who had realistic emotions and thoughts. For me, Oskar's story really made the novel. His quest to find some sort of meaning for the key was really entertaining and I liked many of the characters that he met during his search (especially his upstairs neighbor Mr. Black). I had a hard time thinking that this 9 year-old would be realistically allowed to do all of these things with such little adult interference and that he would be so warmly received by everyone he met along the way…but, I tried not to let that get in the way of the story and its larger themes. I'm still not sure how I feel about the postmodernist twists Foer stuck in the novel like the stock photographs or the handwritten notes, the numerical conversation Thomas had with Grandma, or the blank pages.
It's hard to explain the emotions that this novel was able to stir up in me, but I know that it was touching and I couldn't help thinking of the children who had parents in the Towers on that day and what they must be going through every day of their lives.
Something Oskar and Grandma's stories made think about was just how normal that day started out and how it made you wish you could go back and do things differently-like saying I love you because it would be the last time. The story of Oskar's grandparents didn't take anything away from Oskar's story. I read a few reviews that poked at Thomas' (Grandpa) story and didn't like the fact that they had been in the Dresden fire bombings, but I actually liked that part of the story better at times than Oskar's story. It was a nice change of pace for me, as following Oskar on a wild goose chase through NYC was at times just too much for my "suspension of disbelief." Also, I've never really read any account of the Dresden fire bombings and found them as interesting and heart wrenching as the attacks on 9/11-perhaps I liked learning about Dresden even more than Oskar's story of the 9/11 attacks which the media have sensationalized too much for me. The story of those living through the bombing of Dresden was more pure for me-it wasn't clouded by the media like 9/11 has been for me.
Ultimately this was a story about people who have been broken by the experiences of hate and war in the world. But it's also about learning how to cope with the pain and I think that was what really spoke to me because even though I haven't been so deeply hurt by 9/11 or war, the brokenness is something that everyone experiences in some way in their life.
The narrator, 9 year-old Oskar Schell and his search for the lock first drew me to the novel. I thought I would like his quirkiness, and I wasn't let down. At times, his precociousness was a bit unrealistic but at other times I think Foer was successful in creating a 9 year-old narrator who had realistic emotions and thoughts. For me, Oskar's story really made the novel. His quest to find some sort of meaning for the key was really entertaining and I liked many of the characters that he met during his search (especially his upstairs neighbor Mr. Black). I had a hard time thinking that this 9 year-old would be realistically allowed to do all of these things with such little adult interference and that he would be so warmly received by everyone he met along the way…but, I tried not to let that get in the way of the story and its larger themes. I'm still not sure how I feel about the postmodernist twists Foer stuck in the novel like the stock photographs or the handwritten notes, the numerical conversation Thomas had with Grandma, or the blank pages.
It's hard to explain the emotions that this novel was able to stir up in me, but I know that it was touching and I couldn't help thinking of the children who had parents in the Towers on that day and what they must be going through every day of their lives.
Something Oskar and Grandma's stories made think about was just how normal that day started out and how it made you wish you could go back and do things differently-like saying I love you because it would be the last time. The story of Oskar's grandparents didn't take anything away from Oskar's story. I read a few reviews that poked at Thomas' (Grandpa) story and didn't like the fact that they had been in the Dresden fire bombings, but I actually liked that part of the story better at times than Oskar's story. It was a nice change of pace for me, as following Oskar on a wild goose chase through NYC was at times just too much for my "suspension of disbelief." Also, I've never really read any account of the Dresden fire bombings and found them as interesting and heart wrenching as the attacks on 9/11-perhaps I liked learning about Dresden even more than Oskar's story of the 9/11 attacks which the media have sensationalized too much for me. The story of those living through the bombing of Dresden was more pure for me-it wasn't clouded by the media like 9/11 has been for me.
Ultimately this was a story about people who have been broken by the experiences of hate and war in the world. But it's also about learning how to cope with the pain and I think that was what really spoke to me because even though I haven't been so deeply hurt by 9/11 or war, the brokenness is something that everyone experiences in some way in their life.