Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

May-June 2006 -- Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (fiction)

Meeting Location: Capones

We were scheduled to meet at the end of May but with the end of school year and all, people were having a hard time finishing the book. Since I'd read it in February it wasn't so bad for me, but I did want to reread it and I hadn't done that yet either. So we rescheduled on June 3rd at Capone's for a Saturday lunch. Larry, Judy, Pam and I were there to discuss and it seemed that the general agreement was this book deserves a thumbs up. Not sure about the rest, but I intend to read Everything is Illuminated, Safran Foer's other book that was recently made into a movie.

One aspect of this book that I found delightful was the visual layout of the pages... there were photographs and unusual things done with the typography. One thing I liked but others found somewhat distracting was the dual stories that were happening in periodic alternating chapters in which we hear the voices of Oskar's grandmother and that of his grandfather. I actually liked those bits quite a lot and felt that they added depth to his story.


FROM THE PUBLISHER

Oskar Schell is 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 to find the lock that fits a mysterious key belonging to his father, who died in the attacks on the World Trade Center.An inspired creation, Oskar is endearing, exasperating, and unforgettable. His search for the lock careens from Central Park to Coney Island to the Bronx and beyond. But it also travels into history, to Dresden and Hiroshima, where horrific bombings once shattered other lives. Along the way, Oskar encounters a motley assortment of humanity—a 103-year-old war reporter, a tour guide who never leaves the Empire State Building, lovers enraptured or scorned—all survivors in their own ways. Ultimately, Oskar ends his journey where it began, at his father's grave. But now he is accompanied by the silent stranger who has been renting the spare room of his grandmother's apartment. They are there to dig up his father's empty coffin.