Hello friends and lovers,
It's 2013, and the world is still here. I hope your New Year's resolutions include a great reading list. As always, if you want to recommend books to us, or if you want recommendations for books from us, don't be shy. After all, Whiskey Before Breakfast is dangerous by yourself, but it's a lot of fun with friends.
Jonathan Safran Foer wrote Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close in 2005. You may have heard of this novel, or the film based on the novel, which was released in 2011. I have not seen it, but I have watched the trailer on YouTube. You should, too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_quK9SEGYE.
Extremely Loud follows nine year-old Oskar Schell as he struggles to understand the world after his father dies in the World Trade Center during the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Oskar feels a sense of personal responsibility for the death of his father. He works through his feelings of guilt, anger, and sadness as he searches New York City to find the owner of a key that he discovers in his father's closet. As he meets and interacts with various strangers, he learns more about his father, as well as himself.
The narrative is primarily told through the young but brilliant Oskar, in his distinctive stream-of-consciousness style. His imaginative narration is woven together with several of his own notes and photographs, as well as a series of letters written by his grandparents. They tell their own life stories, filled with sadness, pain and loss, as well as profound advice for living and loving.
Side note: Oskar's grandparents write extensively about the World War II bombing of Dresden, Germany--an event which they both survived. You may be familiar with the Dresden bombing, particularly if you have read Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut. Foer draws a fascinating parallel between the senseless destruction of Dresden and the tragedy of September 11th. Oskar's close relationship with his grandmother becomes more powerful and meaningful as you begin to understand their shared pain and similar circumstances. End note.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close may be the most emotional novel I've ever read. There are long chapters of heart-wrenching despair and grief, yet the narrative is punctuated with stunningly beautiful moments of triumph and love. Because Oskar is so young, his feelings have a certain undiluted potency; he describes everything as "extremely" this or "incredibly" that (hence the title). Oskar is so fascinating because he speaks and thinks with a sense of clarity and rationality far beyond his years, but he feels emotion with the raw intensity of a child. He's painfully real, too.
The novel itself is fairly long (300+ pages) and somewhat daunting. This book is not written in a clean, linear format. It tends to be run-on, jumbled, and even chaotic. But that's the beauty of it! Emotions are messy! The human experience is extremely cruel and incredibly painful. Oskar desperately wants to rationalize the horrific tragedy that took his father's life, but he slowly learns the fundamental truth: we do not enjoy life because we understand it; we enjoy life precisely because we don't understand it. Each moment is too precious to be spent in bitterness or selfishness.
As Achilles (Brad Pitt) famously said in Troy: "The gods envy us. They envy us because we're mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we're doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again."
You really should read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I hope I've convinced you, at least a little bit. Oskar is one of the most emotionally honest protagonists I've ever encountered. This novel will remind you of what it is to be a child, and that essentially each one of us is a child, looking for his or her reflection in a mud puddle.
--Spence
P.S. This novel has an extraordinarily well-developed sense of place. A true New Yorker might appreciate this story a little more than the rest of us. Oskar's sadness is compounded by the fact that his father died in the city he loved.
