Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Jonathan Safran Foer |
This is a child’s eye view of 9/11 – another of the “child on a quest” stories – woven together with a narrative of the 1945 bombing of Dresden.
Meet Oskar Schell, an inventor, Francophile, tambourine player, Shakespearean actor, jeweler, pacifist. He is nine years old. And he is on an urgent, secret search through the five boroughs of New York. His mission is to find the lock that fits a mysterious key belonging to his father, who died in the attack on the World Trade Center. An inspired creation, Oskar is alternately endearing, exasperating, and hilarious as he careens from Central Park to Coney Island to Harlem on his search. Along the way he is always dreaming up inventions to keep those he loves safe from harm. What about a birdseed shirt to let you fly away? What if you could actually hear everyone's heartbeat?
It is a clever novel – stuffed with eccentric characters, making use textual and typographical tricks (much in the style of Sebald, who makes use of found photos and objects within his books that speak of loss and displacement). Relationships progress and events become clearer in the course of the book, and we learn more about the damage the characters have sustained.
If you like ths book, you might want to try books by Mark Haddon and Richard
Powers. Also, go read W. G. Sebald.