extremely loud and incredibly close read

I love the way all his words, all his days are recorded in books, on the backs of envelopes, on napkins or on his own arms – what these pieces of paper are used for, where his words get stuffed, what washes off, is fabulous. The fact that he has YES and NO tattooed on his hands becomes symbolically significant too. This is so cleverly done, it means that everything is gradually (as the author would say) illuminated. His letters are interspersed with photos of doorknobs (you’ll find out why) and pages that he has written messages on to other people. What is completely brilliant about this is that Grandpa can’t talk, so communicates by writing in notebooks. The humour comes from Oskar’s telling of the story, but it’s also crushingly sad.Īt the same time, we gradually learn the story of Oskar’s grandfather, who left his grandmother before his dad was born, through a series of letters written to the son he never met. They can’t help but love him – he’s unintentionally funny, curious, and straightforward. He travels all across New York meeting everybody in the phone book with the surname Black. A year later, going through his dad’s things, he discovers a mysterious key in an envelope, and makes it his mission (his ‘raison d’etre’ – he’s learning French) to find out what it unlocks. His dad was killed in the twin towers on September 11. In summary, Oskar is a smart, nine year-old nerd. It’s about things being simple, yes and no, and things being complicated. It’s about regret, and the things you just can’t talk about. It’s about the personal consequences of war. It’s about loss, and how loss can disrupt your entire life. If I had to tell you what it’s about, I’d say it’s about missing people. It again features the stories of multiple generations of a family, and again much of the narration is done through letters. The title is again inspired by the narrator’s distinctive way of describing things. So I bought Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close on the back of that good experience. It was funny, weird, tragic, original and totally brilliant. The strange-sounding title comes from the narrator’s technique of trying to write well in English by using a thesaurus far too liberally. I’d heard about that book a lot, but always thought it sounded like some pretentious intellectual tome that I’d never want to wade through. I was introduced to Jonathan Safran Foer perhaps a year ago when my old housemate Liz leant me his first novel, Everything is Illuminated. It’s probably not, but the fact that I am sitting here trying to get over it makes me think it’s a real contender. Yesterday I finished what I think might possibly be the best book I’ve ever read.

Extremely loud and incredibly close read