Foer looks at the age-old issues of loss, forgiveness, and what truly matters in his book. The questions he forces the reader to think about are timeless, but his approach is distinctive. Faced with the loss of his father in the 9/11 Twin Towers incident, Oskar’s story is not the in-your-face tragedy one would expect from the book title. Time has passed and the reader follows Oskar through his ups and downs as he tries to deal with the implications of his loss. In an effort to stay close to his father, Oskar searches New York City to meet a series of people with the last name Black and to find the lock that the key he found in his dad’s closet will open. The novel deals with the aftermath of “the worst day” and the frenzy of those first few days after 9/11 when the nation was in a panic is recalled, but not relived. Foer does not downplay the effect of 9/11 on the American mind, but instead relates the event to other moments of pain on personal, national, and international levels.
However, more than Foer’s surprising use of 9/11 as background, his writing style is truly what makes this book an atypical read. Oskar is neither an average nine-year-old boy nor a typical leading character. He is in many ways beyond normal, and this gives him truly a human personality that is so strong it is a fault. Oskar writes letters to Stephan Hawking and likes using French phrases, but he is not familiar with Harry Potter and only wears white clothes. Many young people have a famous role model whom they would love to talk to, enjoy showing what they know, are not familiar with every aspect of popular culture, and have a favorite color. These traits make Oskar a human character the reader can relate to, but in the specifics, he is clearly not average and this is a fault that makes him both improbable and human with flaws, just like the rest of us.
The combination of characteristics that is Oskar makes him both unrealistic and so “true” that Oskar’s pain is the reader’s pain. Oskar’s father valued truth and Oskar is in search of the truth as he tries to find the lock to the key his father left behind and therefore Oskar is often hurt by things and suggestions that do not stick to the scientific rules that he believes in. Oskar relates, “Even though I’m not anymore, I used to be an atheist, which means I didn’t believe in things that could not be observed. . . . It’s not that I believe in things that cannot be observed now, because I don’t. I just believe things are extremely complicated.” Even though the truth hurts, Oskar does not want anything less. Through various techniques such as pictures and conversations, Foer gives shocking glimpses of life as true and as complicated as Oskar sees it. The reader sees the images Oskar thinks describe his life. One of the most frequent and important is a photo Oskar copied from a foreign website of a body falling from one of the Twin Towers. This is one of the many deaths Oskar invents for his father and it ties in dramatically to the very human concern about the end of life.
Following one of Oskar’s conversations is also enlightening. One minute Oskar is betraying the depth of his emotional pain and telling his mother, “If I could have chosen, I would have chosen you [to die]!” and in another a shy little boy asks “Can I pet him?” referring to a small baby held by a young father. Foer demonstrates through Oskar how difficult it is to be human and to try to deal with all the conflicting feelings that bombard a person at any given point in their lives. In fact because he is so confused, Oskar wants to invent a shower that enables a person to know how they are feeling by color coding their body. Who would not like to be able to truly understand themselves?
Along with integrating pictures and conversations, Foer uses pages with no words, few words, and too many words to great effect. The reader is not left alone to imagine the world the author has created in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, but instead given guidelines that direct him or her to a greater understanding of the pain and challenges faced by Oskar and particularly his grandparents. The trouble the grandparents have expressing themselves is an integral part of the novel and Foer captures that struggle in the way he presents their words on the paper. Oskar is the focus of the novel, but the stories of his grandparents lend weight and substance by bringing the understanding that only age and experience can share. The loss of Oskar’s father is not the first tragedy in their lives and they are able share thoughts of wisdom such as “When I looked at you, my life made sense. Even the bad things made sense. They were necessary to make you possible.” Foer, through the grandparents, encourages his readers to reflect on life and the decisions they make.
One of the most thought provoking aspects of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is the attempts of Oskar’s grandparents to define everything as either Something or Nothing. They classified rooms or even areas of rooms as Something or Nothing by taping off certain sections of their apartment. If a person was standing in a Nothing area he or she was assured of complete privacy and could not be seen by the other. They wanted a place to escape too, Nothing, and tried to define what was important in life, Something, but eventually the noise or light from a Something area would violate the sanctuary offered by a Nothing area. Life is complicated and their attempts to categorize it in such a simple fashion forced them apart instead of bringing them closer. The concept of categorizing the world as Something and Nothing, what matters in life and what does not, keeps the reader thinking long after the book is finished, however. What really matters in life and what makes it Something rather than Nothing?
Another distinctive aspect of the book that addresses old questions in new ways is the back and forth movement of the story in time. Part of the story is told by Oskar as he relates and thinks about his search to be closer to his father by investigating the key left behind. For much of the novel the search is both the past and the present. The search is in the past, but the emotions are still present in the way life truly is impacted by the past. Meanwhile, the grandfather’s letters are offered as present tense and dated in the past. In his unique time jumping fashion Foer reminds the audience that the past is both the source of our future and our key and solution to it.
Foer’s approach to writing and life may not appeal to every reader. Oskar is not an average protagonist. The flow of the story has the potential to irritate a reader who needs to follow a predictable rhythm. The pictures and text variations do not fit into the traditional definition of a novel while some of the revelations to Oskar from his grandparents seem inappropriate. However, appreciate the techniques or not, Foer makes a reader think.
Essentially, throughout the entire book Oskar and his grandparents are thinking and their concerns are the ones humanity has been facing forever. Oskar often calls this inventing, but in many cases he is truly just trying to imagine a solution to his pain, thinking about a way to cope. This is the purpose of the novel as a whole. It is both why it should be read and perhaps Foer’s intention in writing it. It is not about liking or disliking the novel, but about thinking and questioning. The lessons the book shares are more important aspects of the novel than liking the book itself. Foer would probably be fine if a person said that they did not like his novel, but it made them think.
One of the book’s many intriguing characters, a Mr. Black who lives upstairs in Oskar’s building, makes Oskar and the reader think. Mr. Black is over a century old and a former war correspondent who wrote one word biographies for everyone he ever met. He helps Oskar with his search and in his succinct and original fashion, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close can be defined in the following one word biography:
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: Life
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