By the end of the novel, my willing suspension of disbelief had departed, and I began to see major flaws as I re-read the book. What led Foer to write about this subject, and why through the eyes of a child? In my investigation of this question, I realized that it’s a situational dramedy[1] with a backdrop of hysterical realism[2]. The characters seem to do things just for the sake of symbolism, as if trying to write their psychology into the world. On first reading and a short distance into the book, I felt like Oskar and I had a lot in common. We’re both atheists, and we’re both creative. Then came Oskar’s mannerisms, his interaction with others, and I began to think of Napoleon Dynamite. In fact, I imagine Oskar as a pre-pubescent Napoleon now. He makes friends with everyone he meets, except anyone his own age. Napoleon was probably charming when he was a young know-it-all, but around puberty it becomes awkward and a little bit creepy.
Even as Foer paints the fourth wall[3], a tactic familiar to consumers of esoteric literature, he struggles to draw the reader in while trying to tell several characters’ stories simultaneously. He relies on special effects, such as the triumvirate of characters with a hybridized format. He is content to say little with more words, rather than to say more with less. Most reviewers cite the author’s exposition on his inner child as a major reason for their discontent. The general contention over form is not so much the novel’s awareness of its medium as the failure to effectively use that awareness. As writers go, Foer feels amateurish. Simply, it feels derivative in every sense.
Derivative of what, though? This is a novel told from three different perspectives about a disastrous situation that takes on issues of family, loneliness, and what it means to lose things. This is a remake of House of Leaves, by Mark Danielewski. So why do I prefer House of Leaves to Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close? The parallels are uncanny, but laughable. Instead of the labyrinthine closet we get yet another September 11th cliché. A mute graphomaniac[4] replaces the blind graphomaniac. A nine-year-old author insertion replaces the tattoo artist who is slowly going mad. For the grandmother, who really isn’t essential to the story given Oskar and the grandfather’s narrative, House of Leaves has an appendix containing letters the tattoo artist’s mother wrote to him from an asylum. The cohesive parallel narrative of House of Leaves is replaced by a disjointed serial narrative that seems like it should run in parallel.
Reading either book will likely remind you of the other. House of Leaves is a mysterious ink-blot-test-like book which, depending on the way you look at it, may be a fractured love story, a Lovecraftian horror story, or a satire of academic critique. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a train wreck, and won’t age well. If you hate it, it will get worse the more you look at it. If you enjoyed it the first time, it will get better with additional readings.
[1] Dramedy – a portmanteau of drama and comedy.
[2] Hysterical realism – coined by James Wood while describing Zadie Smith’s novel White teeth, meaning a "big, ambitious novel" that pursues "vitality at all costs" and consequently "knows a thousand things but does not know a single human being."
[3] Painting the fourth wall – the use of metafictional devices, such as fonts and text position in a book, to indirectly convey a particular story-related message by deliberately breaking the accepted conventions of the medium.
[4] Graphomaniac – one who writes excessively.
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