Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close in A Book Walks Into a Bar

Feb 21, 2016 Travis rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is told in alternating sections: a first-person narrative told by Oskar Schell, a 9-year-old boy whose father, Thomas Schell, had died two years earlier in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001; letters from Oskar's grandfather, Thomas Schell, Sr., to his son, written from Dresden, Germany, where he had fled after learning that his wife was pregnant with his son; and a long letter from Oskar's grandmother to Oskar.

All of the sections (and the entire boo Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is told in alternating sections: a first-person narrative told by Oskar Schell, a 9-year-old boy whose father, Thomas Schell, had died two years earlier in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001; letters from Oskar's grandfather, Thomas Schell, Sr., to his son, written from Dresden, Germany, where he had fled after learning that his wife was pregnant with his son; and a long letter from Oskar's grandmother to Oskar.

All of the sections (and the entire book) are wonderful, but I especially enjoyed Oskar's narration. I was reminded of another famous child narrator: Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. Oskar has such a unique voice: precocious in some areas, very immature and childish in others, extremely smart, endlessly curious, marvelously inventive, caring, kind, humane, and indefatigable. I loved Oskar as I have loved no other child narrators other than Scout and Huckleberry Finn.

As I read, I found myself saying out loud on numerous occasions, "Oh, my god! This book is so good!" Jonathan Safran Foer's story is brilliantly and intricately plotted, with seemingly incidental narrative details introduced in one section revealingly and unexpectedly connecting up with other details later on. The primary characters--Oskar and his grandparents--are all flawed in various ways, but they are characters about whom we readers come to care very deeply, characters with whom we laugh and rejoice and for whom we weep.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a book about death and grieving, and as such, it is in many sections very sad, yet for a book filled with tragedy and sadness, there is also joy and happiness. Foer's treatment of tragedy is not maudlin nor sentimental but is extraordinarily deft and, most importantly, true.

This is just an incredibly (to use one of Oskar's favorite adjectives) moving story. Foer shows himself to be a masterful literary craftsman. Previously, I had only read Foer's nonfiction book, Eating Animals, which is also fantastic. Here in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Foer shows that he is even better at writing fiction than nonfiction. He's just an amazing talent.

There are few books that are so good that I would recommend them to anyone--regardless of who that person might be or what types of books (if any) she or he might like. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a book that I would recommend to everyone. It is that good. ...more

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