extremely loud and incredibly close read

He misses his father a lot, and you can safely say he is traumatised by his father’s death. Inventor, jewelry designer, jewelry fabricator, amateur entomologist, francophile, vegan, origamist, pacifist, percussionist, amateur astronomer, computer consultant, amateur archeologist, collector of: rare coins, butterflies that died natural deaths, miniature cacti, Beatles memorabilia, semiprecious stones, and other things.īut besides all these extraodinary hobbies and interests, and his intelligence, Oskar is also deeply hurt. He has his own business card featuring the following “professions”: Oskar is full of imagination, and isn’t just like any other nine-year-old boy. This brings me to the last reason this novel is so extraordinary, which is Oskar himself. These images are of all kinds of different things Oskar encounters on his journey to find the story behind the key. The separate stories make for an interesting reading experience, since they don’t come together until (near) the end. What enhances this experience even more is the fact that the writing is interspersed with pictures and drawings. The novel is written mainly from the perspective of Oskar but there’s also a different perspective, and with that perspective a different storyline. Secondly, the structure of the novel is quite unconventional. I’ve read novels about the First and Second World Wars, and they are truly devastating, but it’s an entirely different reading experience when you can actually remember the day in your life the tragedy struck. Reading a book from the point of view of a little boy who has lost his father because of the tragedy that was (and is) 9/11 is really heartbreaking and confronting. I was quite young when 9/11 happened, but I remember it, and I’ve seen how the world has changed after it. But will it take him any closer to, or even further from, his lost father?Įxtremely Loud & Incrediby Close by Jonathan Safran Foer is one of the most extraordinary books I’ve ever read, for a couple of reasons.įirstly, it’s the only book I’ve read about the aftermath of 9/11 and, specifically, the aftermath for a family who has lost a member of it because of the disaster. He gets heavy boots, he gives himself little bruises and he inches ever nearer to the heart of a family mystery that stretches back fifty years. So begins a quest that takes Oskar - inventor, letter-writer and amateur detective - across New York’s five boroughs and into the jumbled lives of friends, relatives and complete strangers. But which of New York’s 162 million locks does it open? The key belonged to his father, he’s sure of that. In a vase in a closet, a couple of years after his father died in 9/11, nine-year-old Oskar discovers a key…

Extremely loud and incredibly close read