#562
Title:
Extremely Loud and Incredibly CloseAuthor: Jonathan Safran Foer
Publisher: Mariner Books
Year: 2006
368 pages
Spoilers. You've been warned.
* * *
I
first read this as an audiobook, which clarifies the flow of the narrative
but loses the graphic and typographic pastiche of the printed book,
which I then skimmed. On the whole, I'd recommend the printed book since
the pastiche parallels protagonist Oskar's book of "Stuff That Happened
to Me" and other characters' letter- and journal-writing, uses
typographic strategies to illuminate aspects of internal monologues and
external dialogues, and uses images to underscore aspects of the text
that are emotionally important to Oskar. Overall, the pastiche serves to
give the reader/viewer a more immediate understanding that Oskar's
world and patterns of thought are not entirely linguistic or linear,
which is important because, like the protagonist of Haddon's
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,
Oskar is not what you'd call neurotypical. Neither does he seem to be
aspie, or schizophrenic, though he presents some aspects of each. The
visual pastiche gives the reader a visceral door into Oskar's perceptual
world, which contributes to the story's credibility and the reader's
identification with him. For an added dimension, listen to the book
while reading it in print, since telephone calls also figure
prominently.
Like Foer's
Everything Is Illuminated,
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
is less about its plot and more about grief--the great, huge, gasping,
heart-wrenching grief of societal tragedy as well as the more personal
astounded horror of individual loss. It's also about the ultimately
inexplicable nature of Stuff That Happens To Us. Why, out of all people,
was Oskar's father in the World Trade Center on September 11th? In
contrast to Haddon's protagonist, Oskar's obsessive attempts to make
sense of this mystery must fail. Oskar will never know if the pixelated
falling man is his father, and in a way, this degree of specificity and
closure, though it seems as if it will make the death more tolerable,
is not useful or necessary. Oskar must emerge from the ultimately
deflating search for his father with greater insight, maturity, and
ability to tolerate the random and unknowable, not by filling his
father's coffin with language (though he does so), but by sharing
secrets and grief in meaningful human relationships. The final sequence
of images, of the body flying up, is a poignant ending and holds the
readers' hopes and wishes, for we, like Oskar, had to live through this
loss.
RIP Jonathan Randall, d. 9/11/01.
