Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Synopsis: Nine-year-old Oskar Schell is an inventor, amateur entomologist, Francophile, letter writer, pacifist, natural historian, percussionist, romantic, Great Explorer, jeweller, detective, vegan, and collector of butterflies. When his father is killed in the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Centre, Oskar sets out to solve the mystery of a key he discovers in his father's closet. It is a search which leads him into the lives of strangers, through the five boroughs of New York, into history, to the bombings of Dresden and Hiroshima, and on an inward journey which brings him ever closer to some kind of peace.

Review: I'm really impressed with Jonathan Safran Foer's writing, he's just so creative and innovative - his stories are almost woven not written. This is the tale of Oskar Schell, a very bright nine year old with an enquiring mind whose ambition is to be a great inventor. Oskar's father died in the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Centre and he is having a terribly hard time dealing with it, thinking about it gives him 'heavy boots' and he is haunted by the answer phone messages, left by his Father just before he died, which only he has heard. He lives and re-lives the tragedy, and continually thinks up all sorts of imaginary inventions that would help prevent such a disaster happening again .. such as skyscrapers which have deep roots so they could never topple, airbags for skyscrapers and incredibly long ambulances which connect every building to a hospital.

Rather like 'Everything is Illuminated' there are several narratives running through the story, Oskar's is the main one but there are also narratives by Oskar's Grandmother and Grandfather (told separately in letter form,) stretching way back to when they were young and living through their own tragedy .. the terrible bombing of Dresden. These are the only bits that can at times seem wearying .. it's a story of lives not lived, voices lost and life stories written up as blank pages ... literally, there are blank pages scattered through the book along with incredibly closely typed pages and pages with just numbers on etc etc but eventually it all melds together to make a beautiful whole.

Again, like the last book, this is a noisy chattering story especially where Oskar is concerned, everything he thinks and feels just comes rattling out - along with all his quirks of speech and flights of fancy and this is what makes you get to know him in double quick time. He has found a key in an old vase in the back of his Fathers closet and, believing it to be a quest, sets out to try and find the lock that the key fits (this is one of those impossible quests which only happen in books and one that introduces a lot of oddball characters to the story as Oskar searches the New York boroughs for every family by the name of 'Black' .. the one word written on the envelope which contained the key) hoping that what he finds will help him to make sense of everything.

'The next morning I told Mom I couldn’t go to school again. She asked what was wrong. I told her, “The same thing that’s always wrong.” “You’re sick?” “I’m sad.” “About Dad?” “About everything.” She sat down on the bed next to me, even though I knew she was in a hurry. “What’s everything?” I started counting on my fingers: “The meat and dairy products in our refrigerator, fistfights, car accidents, Larry –“ “Who’s Larry?” “The homeless guy in front of the Museum of Natural History who always says ‘I promise it’s for food’ after he asks for money.” She turned around and zipped her dress while I kept counting. “How you don’t know who Larry is, even though you probably see him all the time, how Buckminster just sleeps and eats and goes to the bathroom and has no raison d’être, the short ugly guy with no neck who takes tickets at the IMAX theatre, how the sun is going to explode one day, how every birthday I always get at least one thing I already have, poor people who get fat because they eat junk food because it’s cheaper. . .” That was when I ran out of fingers, but my list was just getting started, and I wanted it to be long, because I knew she wouldn’t leave while I was still going. “. . . domesticated animals, how I have a domesticated animal, nightmares, Microsoft Windows, old people who sit around all day because no one remembers to spend time with them and they’re embarrassed to ask people to spend time with them, secrets, dial phones, how Chinese waitresses smile even when there’s nothing funny or happy, and also how Chinese people own Mexican restaurants but Mexican people never own Chinese restaurants, mirrors, tape decks, my unpopularity at school, Grandma’s coupons, storage facilities, people who don’t know what the Internet is, bad handwriting, beautiful songs, how there won’t be humans in fifty years –” “Who said there won’t be humans in fifty years?” I asked her, “Are you an optimist or a pessimist?” She looked at her watch and said, “I’m optimistic.” “Then I have some bad news for you, because humans are going to destroy each other as soon as it becomes easy enough to, which will be very soon.” “Why do beautiful songs make you sad?” “Because they aren’t true.” “Never?” “Nothing is beautiful and true.” She smiled, but in a way that wasn’t just happy, and said, “You sound just like Dad.”

It's impossible not to snivel your way through most of it as you read about Oskar and his grief over 9/11 and the Dad he has lost (and what a Dad! ... the sort of Dad that makes every day exciting.) He visits foreign websites which show and tell him far more about 9/11 than he has been able to glean from American news footage and he painfully invents and re-invents the details of his Father's death. He picks over all these details and gives himself bruises, he has phobias about tall buildings and the underground. Reading it gave me heavy boots and I ended up with a binful of crumpled soggy tissues.

It's true to say that anyone who hated 'Everything is Illuminated' will not like this because they are written in such a similar style but anyone who even vaguely liked it will probably enjoy this one more because it is that little bit easier to read and keep track of the threads, only a little though. It's also true to say that Oskar is perhaps a little bit too advanced and knowing for his age but not unbelievably so (such is his cheek that to gain sympathy on his quest he sometimes gives his age as eight but ups it to twelve if there is any sign of a sexual encounter .. though he knows next to nothing about it ... 'I know lot's about birds and bees but hardly anything about the birds and the bees.') His mum, who herself is suffering but trying to move on, comes in for some pretty harsh treatment at times from her son in that unreasonable way children have of thinking that they are the only ones affected. In the story Oskar keeps a scrapbook entitled 'Stuff That Happened To Me' which is full of pictures and clippings, not of stuff that has happened to him but stuff that is affecting him, like a recurring image of a body falling from the twin towers (which, in order to discover if it's his Dad, he has zoomed in to until all that can be seen is pixels,) and these are scattered throughout the book, somewhat distressingly.

Not an easy read, not an escapist comfy cosy read, but a book to make your brain and heart ache.