Donna Holland
10-2-09
Book Review
Reading Foer’s work is analogous to walking through an art gallery surveying a retrospective work of his characters lives; each of the main characters is in the middle of some stage of the grieving process. We are guided by Foer, like a gondolier, securely wrapped in his hand-crafted vessel of words and images to ride the ebb and flow of the waves of emotions he conjures within each character, and within each one of us. As we stop to evaluate each work of art we are often struck by an immediate slap to senses. At each piece along the exhibit we a confronted with a new challenge to our collectively agreed upon morals, values and judgments. We stop to look at the image of a young boy who stirs a protective instinct within us. We view the image of a woman who brings about a sad smile to our faces. We are stricken by the image of a broken old man who causes looks of confusion and maybe even anger to fleet across our brow. We pick up our pace wanting to find answers to these emotions. We speed along viewing the various stages in the lives of these individuals alternately embracing and shunning these characters as we move through the story. We reach the end of the exhibit and suddenly we realize that Foer has surreptitiously been guiding us through a reflective exhibit designed to bring us to a point of clarity regarding love.
The reader begins the novel with the understanding that Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is going to be exploring the topic of grieving through the character of 9 yr. old Oskar Schell who lost his father due to the terrorist acts of September 11th. It is a difficult task for adults to delve into the grieving process of a 9 year old, but Foer ushers the reader into a position of comprehension of, and empathy for, Oskar. We, the reader, internalize every emotion Oskar emotes, and through Foer’s subtle artistry the reader is also guided on a path to self-awareness. Foer’s choice to have Oskar play the character of Yorick in a production of Hamlet is layered with meaning. Essentially, Yorick is nothing but a mere skull, a dead friend whom Hamlet once knew. Oskar is mourning the loss of his best friend, his father. Oskar is being confronted with his first experience with death. It is his first experience with real loss. It is his first experience with the death of love, pure love. It is a graphic image of the slow painful emotional death of Oskar Schell. It is a mirror to the reader of their own losses, their own duels with death. Yorick signifies the inevitable, that everyone knows about and no one wants to acknowledge. In both Hamlet and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Yorick requires both the characters and the audience to confront the fact that death is inevitable.
A second way we look at grief is through the character of the grandmother. She has always loved, but she has never had the opportunity to experience that true, deep, soul-altering love that only comes from a relationship where there is a real meeting of the souls. She experiences parental love, and grandparental love, but she is never allowed the opportunity to know what it is like to share her life, the deepest inner-most part of her life with anyone. She grieves this loss throughout the entirety of her life. We look at her, and we love her as a character, but it is difficult to understand some of the choices she makes when trying to communicate her grieving process to her grandson Oskar. Grandmother has lost everyone she has ever loved, with the exception on Oskar, and she is fully invested in writing a letter to him that allows him to understand how important finding that soul-changing love is. She makes some choices that at first may seem awkward and even wrong when discussing her sexual life with grandpa. Although, it is impossible to get to the depth of complete understanding concerning the complexities of the bond that comes from that one physical and emotional connection. She needs Oskar to understand when he grows up that sex is sex, but love in its purest and most vulnerable form is most profound with your soul mate when in the act of making love. She doesn’t want Oskar to spend his life grieving, and she is willing to go to any extreme to make that clearly understood to him. In the end Grandma brings us the most complete understanding of love in all of its forms.
A third way we look at grief is through the character of the Grandfather. His representation of grief to us is the rawest; the most destroyed by the ravages loss can take upon one’s soul. We see the steps of the grieving process the most clearly through the character of the Grandfather; not because he is able to complete the entire process, but because he becomes stuck in one spot and never leaves. After the loss of his first, and only true love Anna, he walks into the grieving process and finds nothing but quicksand. As he tries to move forward he is slowly sucked under the weight of the grief he feels until he loses his ability to speak. He doesn’t want to be there, but he doesn’t know any other way out. He goes so long within that quicksand quagmire that no one, not even himself, can recognize how lost he is in the maze of his emotions. Grandfather’s inability to cope in turn causes much more grief upon those he loves, which he has no idea how to deal with either. His inability to move forward from that one point in grief frustrates the reader, it angers us and makes us sad all at the same time. In the end the Grandfather is a very necessary character. We are able to see inside the desires and motivations of someone who can’t move forward no matter how hard he tries. We are also able to see what a devastating effect that can have on all of those around him, and he teaches us the moral to continue to push through that pain. He is a great example for every reader what will happen to them and their loved ones if they allow themselves to sink within.
Foer’s gallery of life, love, learning, and grieving is a complete picture of reality. He doesn’t tie up the end in a nice little bow, so that the reader can finish the novel knowing everyone was okay, and forget all about it. Foer continues to stick to a realistic journey through the difficulties of life. No one ever has it all figured out, and Foer doesn’t try to play God, he leaves you with clear pictures and moral lessons for life, but in the end no one knows everything about life it still continues on even when you cease to be. It is the legacy that is left behind for those you loved and are in relationship with, to continue on loving, learning and growing. There is not a single person who could not benefit from this book if they are willing to be vulnerable and open-minded. There is a lifetime full of lessons contained within Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.
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