The Devil's Advocate

Jonathan Safran Foer recently wrote a novel that I painstakingly read, over coffee, because my bloodshot eyes were straining to hold their lids open throughout the turning of the pages. The novel was entitled Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, and was written about a nine-year old boy and his Grandparents from irritatingly alternate points of view. One could argue that the main character is the father of Oskar, a ridiculous child constructed of Foer’s toilet humor and petty inventions. The man, Thomas Schell, is killed in the World Trade Center disaster of 9-11, and this seemingly pointless collection of thoughts, pictures and letters surrounds his life and death through the eyes of Oskar, his grandmother and his grandfather. Foer’s writing seems to be misleading to readers, juvenile grammatically, sadistic in nature, and disgustingly graphic. Oskar Schell is our first character, who is troubled, of course, by his father’s death, and goes snooping through his mother’s closet to find a vase with an envelope labeled “Black,” and goes on a journey through the entire city of New York (by himself, mind you) to question every person with the last name Black about the key found inside the mysterious envelope. This boy is a social outcast, who finds friends of the 103 year-old nature along the way, and asks a woman, Abby Black, who is at least ten years older than he, if he can kiss her. Promoting pedophilia, Abby tells him to kiss her later in the story, but thankfully, Oskar declines, saying that he is embarrassed. After the whole novel of searching for the missing lock to his key, which we are lead to believe will lead Oskar to one final tie to his dead father, we find out that this key actually has nothing to do with either Oskar or his father. Or us, as readers, for that matter. I felt tricked by Foer’s book; I feel like I was strung along on this journey with no real purpose. Throughout the nine-year old boy’s journey, we are repeatedly subjected to parts of the book which are Grandma’s “feelings.” The grammar and writing style in these sections are confusing, with needless line-breaks, and left-aligned paragraphs. Mr. Foer subjects us to interesting and immoral concepts like incest, particularly between Grandma and her sister. They share a kiss; with tongue, and Grandma expresses her love for her sister, which comes across more like the love you would have for your first crush. Eventually, we find out that Grandma marries her sister’s husband after her untimely demise in the Dresden bombings, which is another reference to war and death, almost as if Foer intends to just strangle his readers’ feelings by bringing up horrific tragedies for his own personal dramatic gain, I suppose, just like his first novel, which was supposedly about the holocaust. If these characters seem ridiculous, you will be blown away by the immature and intensely confounding Grandfather, who speaks to his audience through letters to his son he’s never met. The man left his pregnant wife, Grandma, whom he married after her sister, Anna died (if you’re following) in Dresden. He stopped speaking after Anna passed away while she was pregnant. Some of the pages whose voice belongs to Grandpa are single words, or a phrase, or even sometimes a simple picture of a doorknob. I stopped reading picture books in second grade. The day of 9/11, Grandpa shows up at Grandma’s house and they eventually make up, leading to a disgustingly graphic love-making scene in the book between the two that was utterly unnecessary, and left me reaching for my barf-bag all through the night. Overall, I think that this book was an overly graphic, immature, sadistic, and ridiculously pointless endeavor into a journey through time-space-New York. It left me extremely bored and incredibly confused. Jonathan Safran Foer’s writing style was wild, difficult to understand and all over the place. Luckily, I had two pots of coffee, a baby to keep me taking breaks and a classroom of peers to vent to while I suffered through the insufferable. Maybe someone could find some good in this filthy pile of dog pies; I, however, will stick to my Dean Koontz and Brian Weiss, who can keep me awake through the night with their awe-inspiring words.