A Review of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

A Review of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close:
By Jonathan Safran Foer

The second novel by the celebrated young author of “Everything is Illuminated”, hits the ground running, and pulls the reader along a twisting, enigmatic path from its first to final page. The novel is set in the aftermath of the 9/11 tragedy in New York and follows the quest of a little boy who lost his father on that infamous day. While this subject could gimmicky or sensational, Foer uses the event for setting and as launching point rather than a crutch to prop-up the story line. Instead, this novel is driven by captivating characters and an irresistible mystery.
Immediately, Foer introduces us to his young hero, Oskar Schell. We become chaperones for the precocious nine year old as we follow him on his surreal journey through the city’s boroughs to find the origin of a strange key he discovers in his dead father’s closet in an envelope simply titled “Black.” From the beginning we are intrigued by Oskar’s complex personality and the ambiguities developing around him and his family. With Oskar’s outlandish claims such as, “My most impressive song that I can play on my tambourine is ‘The flight of the Bumblebee.’” we’re not sure if we can even believe him. Foer’s character is at once unreliable, annoying, curious, yet vulnerable and endearing. He quickly captivates the audience and by the end of the chapter when Oskar recalls hearing the recording of his father’s desperate cell phone calls on the morning of the attack, we are hooked. We willingly to suspend our disbelief and surrender the keys to Oskar, letting him take the wheel on Foer’s multimedia ride.
The novel is well crafted holds the reader’s attention to spite it’s, at times, disorienting jigsaw construction. Each chapter seems to give us a new puzzle piece to the unfolding story and we are compelled to keep reading to see how it all fits together. The novel’s plot is strengthened by its unique characters, such as Oskar and his grandparents. They vacillate between unbelievably eccentric and transcendently real. I often found I missed them when I put the book down. Foer weaves a surprising amount of intricate detail into the plot of the book. Like Hansel and Gretel, he continuously drops the reader clues, like pebbles, to lead them along a storyline that is mysterious, heartbreaking and magical.
The most notable aspect of the novel is the visual imagery that proliferates the pages. The vivid graphics, allow the reader to interact with the text in a way I’ve never experience before in a novel. They begin even before the story itself with images of a door lock, birds in flight, and an apartment building which tantalize the reader upon opening the book. Extremely Loud’s visuals are a scrapbook for the novels characters. They allow the reader to enter their world and experience what they see, or what they want us to see, first-hand; like a portfolio. While it has been said that Foer’s use of visual images are indicative of lazy narration or a ploy, I think they speak to a new generation of readers. As Foer wrote this book, the world was experiencing a digital revolution. Life is now shaped multimedia experiences. Children are using computers before they read, adults and teens are downloading and uploading everything from photos, to videos, to news, and music, while grandparents are “skype-ing” their grandkids on the weekends. A novel which integrates images into its textual plot is simply speaking the language of its audience.
Yet, Foer’s novel isn’t just for the Blackberry generation. This is a book is cross- generational. I would recommend it as readily to my high school English students, as to my own parents. It has elements of both a coming of age novel and a narrative for the greatest generation. Foer explores many universal themes in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close: the devastation of war, loss of innocence and love, the complexities of family and relationships. These ideas connect with readers of all ages and engage them in the experiences of the characters. While many of the characters could be described as lost misfits, Foer is still able to create an intimacy with them which allows us to identify with them and feel their love, their hurt, and their longing.
“I watched the bags go around the carousel, each held a person’s
belongings, I saw babies going around and around, possible lives
I followed the arrows for those with nothing to declare, and that
Made me want to laugh, but I was silent. One of the guards asked
me to come to the side, ‘That’s a lot of suitcases for someone with
nothing to declare,’ he said, I nodded, knowing that people with
nothing to declare carry the most.”
Through Oskar and his family, we achieve a catharsis. We learn that no one gets out of this life without pain, and the way we live with it is what make us who we are. Regardless of his youth, Foer is able to create these moments of human truth which elevate his novel from merely entertaining to enlightened and worth at least one read, if not two.