Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel

5 Responses to “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close: A Novel”

1. Yvette Graveline says:

   May 31, 2010 at 6:02 am

   Foer’s novel is reminiscent of a Jackson Pollock painting–a pointless mess on white pages somehow being hailed as “progressive art.” His link to 9/11 is more exploitative than anything; it is surprisingly shallow, considering the depth and complexity of the event on both an emotional and political level. For example, nine year ancient Oskar Schell (the main character) declares “Everything that’s born has to die, which means our lives are like skyscrapers. The smoke rises at different speeds, but they’re all on fire, and we’re all trapped” (245). At first, this passage seems poignant; a clever way of adage that death is inevitable. Yet, the skyscraper reference is obviously alluding to 9/11. Is Foer adage that 9/11 was inevitable? For one, he misses the socio-political context of 9/11 entirely, by flattening all tragedies into one: The Holocaust, Hiroshima, The Spanish American War, 9/11, etc. Secondly, such tragedies are really not inevitable at all. Man made disasters ( as opposed to natural disasters ) may be landmarks along the continuum of our society’s history, but they are ignited by the same human volition that can choose not to place a match to them. Subsequently, in regard to 9/11 specifically, scientists, geo-political specialists, and scholars have establish strong evidence debunking mainstream claims that the WTC was “unexpected,” and that our own government really allowed it to take place (and I’m not talking in a Michael Moore conspiracy theory sense). Not to mention the fact that it was our very own government who had supplied the alleged “terrorists” with weapons years back during Iran-Contra. We supplied them with weapons so that we could use them for our own geo-political strategy–we just didn’t expect them to turn on us years later. His novel would have done the victims, friends, and family tree members of 9/11 more justice had it added this socio- political dimension. Yet Foer either fails to know, acknowledge, or chat about such a critical layer. Still, because the pages are littered with a mess of gimicky images, and non- punctuated ramblings, he has the capacity to draw a crowd attracted to anything that appears “unique” and sees him as a literary maverick for whatever reason. His “unique” and “progressive” tendencies seem more like attention seeking motives than anything. Upon being interviewed at Umass Amherst this past Fall, in response to questions about how he writes, he dodged answers, and then covered them up with the same terrible, self-involved humor as exhibited by Oskar Schell. This to me says that even Foer himself isn’t sure what the point of his writing is. Overall, I establish this book to be extremely lousy, and incredibly over-rated.
   Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
2. S. Bruce says:

   May 31, 2010 at 8:02 am

   If you have absolutely nothing to do and want to waste 10 hours of your life — then this is the book for you!
   Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
3. Lodovico says:

   May 31, 2010 at 8:32 am

   Foer tries to imitate fantastic Today`s German Writers and even dares to choose the bombing of Dresden as literal theme. Naturally, he knows nearly nothing about the theme. Some tricks might help? So he talks about the ruined zoo, assuming animals are equal everywhere at any time. Ridiculous. No american leader will ever reach european, specially german qualities in writing about WW II. Wouldnt the U.S. be such an arrogant and narcisstic nation, they’d choose to learn as a replacement for of snub. This book would have hardly establish a publishers house in europe. It is full of terrible immature tricks and gimmicks, lacking much substance. Vengan writing.
   Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
4. Mary Ann says:

   May 31, 2010 at 9:57 am

   Please help me to know why anyone would delight in this book. I establish it so hard to read and forced myself to end it- but felt I did not know the novel nor did I want to.
   Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
5. S. Pownell says:

   May 31, 2010 at 12:21 pm

   I’m sorry, but I’m not a name who will pretend to be interested in a book that pretends to be intellectually significant and emotionally profound when all it seems to be is an excuse to exploit the tragedy of September 11th. Sure the main character is heartbreaking and honest -how can he not be after losing his dad at such a young age? But I never reasonably understood any of the additional characters in the book or their motivations; his mom who allowed an emotionally and psychologically hurt child to wander for hours alone in a city like New York, while being concerned enough to take him to a shrink…. Somehow many of the characters just didn’t make sense to me. Nor did the situations our small boy got in to seem right agreed that he supposedly had a concerned mum who should be watching over him. We never learn why she isn’t. We never really learn much about her at all. To me this book was another example of commercial writing that is weird or off-beat simply to BE weird in an attempt at pseudo intellect. Finally, the repeat images in the book of a poor soul jumping from the World Trade Center were TOTALLY UNNECESSARY to the tale, disgustingly disrespectful to the victim pictured (repeatedly), all the victims, and the reader! And all in the name of fiction….. Or perhaps all in the name of high-brow commercial exploitation of a horrid event with virtually no redeeming value. I’m sorry to be so harsh. There were a few wonderfully poignant moments in this book – but not enough to redeem its overall quality, and certainly not enough to excuse blatant exploitation of one of our nations most personal and painful tragedies.
   Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5