Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Jonathan Safran Foer’s followup to Everything is Illuminated is set in New York, post-September 11, and the primary narrator is precocious nine year old Oscar Schell, who lost his father in the World Trade Centre. Oscar is a wonderful invention of Foer’s: a truly original and contemporary voice, with his tambourine, veganism and vast working knowledge of Beatles material. Other strands of narrative are narrated by Oscar’s paternal grandparents: his grandfather a survivor of the bomber of Dresden, and his grandmother the survivor of her husband’s abandonment. These narratives are stylistically differentiated by formatting, so the voices remain clear. From time to time the short sentences of Oscar’s grandmother is a little wearing, but as the narratives merge this very shortness adds an immediacy to the story.
This is a novel about survival, and about the gaps in what people say and cannot say to each other as survivors. Oscar cannot articulate his grief and feelings of guilt over his father’s death, and so when he finds a mysterious key he has never seen before in his father’s closet he decides to search for the lock it opens. There is a sense, as Oscar tells us the number of locks in New York City alone, that he expects he will not be able to find the lock: that it is the act of searching which is important to Oscar. There is an honesty to this writing: as in his first book, Foer approaches tragedy through comedy. The comedy here is gentler however, not laugh-out-loud in the same way as the intertwining narratives of Everything is Illuminated. Foer’s previous book is probably more dazzling, but there is a directness in this book which I personally found more appealing.
The book also contains pictorial material: this is more successful in some instances than others. Oscar collects this material for the book of things that have happened to him. Photographs of locks punctuate the text: this is innocuous enough. Some photographs are difficult to grasp, except in considering Oscar as a product of a media-saturated generation. Other photographs, and a marked up, corrected-with-red-pen version of the bombing of Dresden is powerful material. On the other hand, sheets of paper from an art supply store border on the twee.
This is a novel about survival, and about the gaps in what people say and cannot say to each other as survivors. Oscar cannot articulate his grief and feelings of guilt over his father’s death, and so when he finds a mysterious key he has never seen before in his father’s closet he decides to search for the lock it opens. There is a sense, as Oscar tells us the number of locks in New York City alone, that he expects he will not be able to find the lock: that it is the act of searching which is important to Oscar. There is an honesty to this writing: as in his first book, Foer approaches tragedy through comedy. The comedy here is gentler however, not laugh-out-loud in the same way as the intertwining narratives of Everything is Illuminated. Foer’s previous book is probably more dazzling, but there is a directness in this book which I personally found more appealing.
The book also contains pictorial material: this is more successful in some instances than others. Oscar collects this material for the book of things that have happened to him. Photographs of locks punctuate the text: this is innocuous enough. Some photographs are difficult to grasp, except in considering Oscar as a product of a media-saturated generation. Other photographs, and a marked up, corrected-with-red-pen version of the bombing of Dresden is powerful material. On the other hand, sheets of paper from an art supply store border on the twee.
posted by Kate Middleton at 3:51 AM
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