Extremely loud and incredibly close

Hardcover, 326 pages

English language

Published Nov. 19, 2005 by Mariner Books.

ISBN:: 978-0-618-32970-0
OCLC Number:: 57319795

(4 reviews)

A new novel by the author of Everything Is Illuminated introduces Oskar Schell, the nine-year-old son of a man killed in the World Trade Center bombing who searches the city for a lock that fits a black key his father left behind. Jonathan Safran Foer emerged as one of the most original writers of his generation with his best-selling debut novel, Everything Is Illuminated. Now, with humor, tenderness, and awe, he confronts the traumas of our recent history. What he discovers is solace in that most human quality, imagination. Meet Oskar Schell, an inventor, Francophile, tambourine player, Shakespearean actor, jeweler, pacifist, correspondent with Stephen Hawking and Ringo Starr. 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 World Trade …

A new novel by the author of Everything Is Illuminated introduces Oskar Schell, the nine-year-old son of a man killed in the World Trade Center bombing who searches the city for a lock that fits a black key his father left behind. Jonathan Safran Foer emerged as one of the most original writers of his generation with his best-selling debut novel, Everything Is Illuminated. Now, with humor, tenderness, and awe, he confronts the traumas of our recent history. What he discovers is solace in that most human quality, imagination. Meet Oskar Schell, an inventor, Francophile, tambourine player, Shakespearean actor, jeweler, pacifist, correspondent with Stephen Hawking and Ringo Starr. 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 World Trade Center on 9/11. An inspired innocent, 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? His goal is hopeful, but the past speaks a loud warning in stories of those who've lost loved ones before. As Oskar roams New York, he encounters a motley assortment of humanity who are all survivors in their own way. He befriends a 103-year-old war reporter, a tour guide who never leaves the Empire State Building, and lovers enraptured or scorned. 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

16 editions

crabbygirl reviewed Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

Review of 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

[guessing at the star rating / mining my old FB notes now that they are almost impossible to find]

after getting a heads-up about this book at girl detective, i put this book on hold at the library months ago. when it finally showed up and i saw the cover, i realized why it was in such demand: it's a movie! in fact it's an oscar-nominated movie.

the first 2 pages are funny and then it goes to sad and stays there. the story has left me with mixed feelings. from the start, it hooked me and so i read about two-thirds of it over the weekend, but then i put it down and the urgency simply disappeared. i realized i didn't care all that much about the main character and whether he came to terms with his father's death on 9-11. and then i thought about how easy …

[guessing at the star rating / mining my old FB notes now that they are almost impossible to find]

after getting a heads-up about this book at girl detective, i put this book on hold at the library months ago. when it finally showed up and i saw the cover, i realized why it was in such demand: it's a movie! in fact it's an oscar-nominated movie.

the first 2 pages are funny and then it goes to sad and stays there. the story has left me with mixed feelings. from the start, it hooked me and so i read about two-thirds of it over the weekend, but then i put it down and the urgency simply disappeared. i realized i didn't care all that much about the main character and whether he came to terms with his father's death on 9-11. and then i thought about how easy and cheap it is to set your story with 9-11 as the background - a whole emotional well to pull from without having to do the heavy lifting of creating that drama on the page. same thing with referencing the dresden fire bombings without actually bringing them to life on the page. characters seemed to have good lines (for a movie?) but didn't have compatible philosophies described.

lastly, i don't want to read about old people having sex using the same type of descriptions and vocabulary as is used with young people. or maybe i just don't want it described by a father in a letter to his son. (pretty sure the son wouldn't want to hear it / read it either)