25 & Trying

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

I have to confess when writing about this book that it was the very first book that I ever cried after reading it. I think that it is a testament to the ability of a writer to leave a lasting impression on his readers, but also on the world itself.

It is a 9/11 book, in the topical sense, and ironically I read it on a plane. The book chronicles the journey of a family – the Schnells – and the pain and survival that has dominated their lives. The young boy Oskar is the main voice of the work, and his perspective brings a clarity to tough issues that I think wouldn’t have been there without his opinions.

His father Thomas was killed in the World Trade Center attack on 9/11/01 and he still hasn’t come to terms with it two years later. He keeps secret a phone that his father left five messages on the day of the attack. Sometimes he takes it out and listens to it for comfort, or even out of habit.

He is constantly inventing things, including ways of dealing with his father’s death. His mother and grandmother are his constant companions – and his grandmother’s story of survival parallels his throughout the work. She is a survivor of World War Two, as well as a survivor of a tumultuous relationship that shows what happens when people come together because of shared pain.

I couldn’t really get into the language at first – Foer is actually known for this fact. He writes exactly as his character would speak or think. It is authentic. In his other famous work Everything is Illuminated, there is a similar immersion in a particular type of dialogue.

I fell in love with this book, and with these people. Oskar can’t really deal with the death of his dad, and Foer doesn’t tie it up in a nice bow at the end. But throughout the book, Oskar is searching. He is searching for a lock that fits a key he found in his dad’s clothing. The envelope that contains the key simply reads “Black,” so Oskar proceeds to visit all of the Blacks in the phonebook in New York City.

It is a realistic attempt to rationalize something that is not explainable or rational. Regardless of the outcome, I found myself not really caring as much about the key, as I cared about Oskar, and what would ultimately happen to him.

Also, the parallels between the Holocaust and 9/11 are particularly fascinating to me. I found my pain equal in both cases, as an American and as a Jew. It shows the survival of people in different times, in different eras, with the same level of pain and confusion.

The tears I found myself crying at the end of the book were a mix between sentimentalism and the passion I felt for the characters. I had never been that attached to the human emotions that fictional people were expressing. They were finite and almost touchable. As I sat in my plane seat between my sleeping husband and a stranger, I thought about pain and suffering – and the happy moments that make up the in between times. Or the reverse. It all depends on your perspective.

I can’t really do justice with a review of this book. It is to be experienced rather than read about. I hope that Mr. Foer knows how amazing his work is, and that if he comes across this review, it will remind him.