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From Publishers Weekly
Oskar Schell, hero of this brilliant follow-up to Foer's bestselling Everything Is Illuminated, is a nine-year-old amateur inventor, jewelry designer, astrophysicist, tambourine player and pacifist. Like the second-language narrator of Illuminated, Oskar turns his naïvely precocious vocabulary to the understanding of historical tragedy, as he searches New York for the lock that matches a mysterious key left by his father when he was killed in the September 11 attacks, a quest that intertwines with the story of his grandparents, whose lives were blighted by the firebombing of Dresden. Foer embellishes the narrative with evocative graphics, including photographs, colored highlights and passages of illegibly overwritten text, and takes his unique flair for the poetry of miscommunication to occasionally gimmicky lengths, like a two-page soliloquy written entirely in numerical code. Although not quite the comic tour de force that Illuminated was, the novel is replete with hilarious and appalling passages, as when, during show-and-tell, Oskar plays a harrowing recording by a Hiroshima survivor and then launches into a Poindexterish disquisition on the bomb's "charring effect." It's more of a challenge to play in the same way with the very recent collapse of the towers, but Foer gambles on the power of his protagonist's voice to transform the cataclysm from raw current event to a tragedy at once visceral and mythical. Unafraid to show his traumatized characters' constant groping for emotional catharsis, Foer demonstrates once again that he is one of the few contemporary writers willing to risk sentimentalism in order to address great questions of truth, love and beauty.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From School Library Journal
Adult/High School-Oskar Schell is not your average nine-year-old. A budding inventor, he spends his time imagining wonderful creations. He also collects random photographs for his scrapbook and sends letters to scientists. When his father dies in the World Trade Center collapse, Oskar shifts his boundless energy to a quest for answers. He finds a key hidden in his father's things that doesn't fit any lock in their New York City apartment; its container is labeled "Black." Using flawless kid logic, Oskar sets out to speak to everyone in New York City with the last name of Black. A retired journalist who keeps a card catalog with entries for everyone he's ever met is just one of the colorful characters the boy meets. As in Everything Is Illuminated (Houghton, 2002), Foer takes a dark subject and works in offbeat humor with puns and wordplay. But Extremely Loud pushes further with the inclusion of photographs, illustrations, and mild experiments in typography reminiscent of Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions (Dell, 1973). The humor works as a deceptive, glitzy cover for a fairly serious tale about loss and recovery. For balance, Foer includes the subplot of Oskar's grandfather, who survived the World War II bombing of Dresden. Although this story is not quite as evocative as Oskar's, it does carry forward and connect firmly to the rest of the novel. The two stories finally intersect in a powerful conclusion that will make even the most jaded hearts fall.-Matthew L. Moffett, Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Most helpful customer reviews
10 of 12 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
"It's always necessary",
By
This review is from: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Paperback)
This is a beautifully written book about loss & recovery, and expression & humanity within relationships. The way we do & do not communicate with each other. The last few chapters & the ending will pull you by the heart & will not ask for mercy, it is so fulfilling.There are two types of books: when finished a book & someone asks you how it was, you tell them what it was about; the second type of book, when finished, you can only describe how it made you feel. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is the latter.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
Imaginative and wide in scope and emotion,
By
This review is from: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Paperback)
As with Foer's first novel, Everything is Illuminated, he uses multi-character narratives and weaves them together to create a disorienting, but ultimately connected set of stories that culminate in a great ending. Although some may call Foer's writing gimmicky with its use of letters, historical bending, images, and stylistic flourishes, he manages to use these for a purpose rather than simply as a way to show off his Writing 101 skills. I'm not sure if he can sustain this for a third novel, as it would be nice to see him evolve.The story follows the aftermath of a boy who loses his father in the 9/11 towers, but also includes scenes from WW2 and the history of the boy's family. The boy finds a key from his late father and goes in search of what the key opens. In this way the story has elements of a mystery, kind of an elementary detective story with a child as the protagonist. We meet a huge cast of quirky and oddball characters, who have charming conversations and strange personalities. Reading this novel is like piecing a puzzle together, where in the beginning there are so many pieces that you're sure they can't all belong to the same puzzle image, but sure enough as you piece them together and keep going a strong and united image emerges. A better novel than his first one, I would say. More daring and authentic. Heartbreaking as well as hilariously funny in parts. It has been a novel I have thought about well after finishing it, and I'm sure I'll read it again one day.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
My recent Amazon purchase,
By H. MIller (United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Paperback)
I purchased this book, along with the book ME TALK PRETTY by Sedaris, and loved them both. Oskar is the protaginist in this compelling novel by Foer, the author that gave us "Everything is Illuminated." While I liked his first book, i thought this one was better. No, i did not feel he was taking advantage of 9/11 as some have said, but rather using that as a jumping off point for the story. Would also have to recommend the novels MIDDLESEX by Eugenides and the other books of David Sedaris. Also, if you like EXTREMELY LOUD, you will love a writer from another generation--Kurt Vonnegut. Peace out.
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