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Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

By Jonathan Safran Foer

(601)

| Others | 9780141025186

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Critics

A nine-year-old and 9/11

Extremely Loud and Terribly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer hamish Hamilton £14.99, pp320 Jonathan Safran Foer has marked out for himself the territory of literary prodigy. His first novel, Everything Is Illuminated, conceived while an undergraduate, w ... (read full critics)

guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

A tower of babble

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer 356pp, Hamish Hamilton, £14.99 Just as the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center instantly epitomised the clash between Islamic fundamentalism and capitalist hubris, the writing of Jon ... (read full critics)

guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

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43 Reviews

7 people find this helpful

Reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

This novel from Jonathan Safran Foer (recently named one of Granta Magazine's best young American novelists) deals directly with the aftermath of 9/11 and its effect on the lives of those who were touched by the tragedy. The story is (primarily) told from the viewpoint of youngster Oskar Schell, who ... (continue)

This novel from Jonathan Safran Foer (recently named one of Granta Magazine's best young American novelists) deals directly with the aftermath of 9/11 and its effect on the lives of those who were touched by the tragedy. The story is (primarily) told from the viewpoint of youngster Oskar Schell, whose father was killed when the World Trade Center collapsed. Oskar, who was closer to his father than any other person in the world, tries to make sense of his loss. When he discovers a vase with a key inside of it in his father's closet, Oskar makes it his mission to understand what his father had to do with the key and with a mysterious person named Black. To that end, he sets out to meet every single person with the last name in New York City.
Along with Oskar, the story is also revealed through the journals of his grandfather (a man who cannot speak and must write everything down - he left his wife and unborn son many years ago) and letters of his grandmother.
The book might be a little too precious for some - Oskar is a brilliant young mastermind with great knowledge of certain things but who is clueless on other subjects. There are also several "devices" used to further the plot that some might find annoying, but I rather liked.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close actually comes to a bit of an abrupt end - as if Foer got tired of writing and just decided to wrap it all up. Even so, it's easy to get wrapped up in Oskar's story and see it through to the end.

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moogle said on Mar 28, 2007 about the Hardcover edition | 1 feedback

6 people find this helpful

"I spent my life learning to feel less.
Every day I felt less.
Is that growing old? Or is it something worse?
You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness."

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StealYouAway said on Oct 29, 2008 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

4 people find this helpful

AWESOME, no matter what some people say...

Some say soppy, some say complacent, some say not original.
Yes: the starting point is 9/11 and the fall of the towers.
Yes: Foer plays with the language e modifies the standard book.
And yes: he's not the first one to do that.
BUT we should be able to read it with no prejudice, as a good writer can ... (continue)

Some say soppy, some say complacent, some say not original.
Yes: the starting point is 9/11 and the fall of the towers.
Yes: Foer plays with the language e modifies the standard book.
And yes: he's not the first one to do that.
BUT we should be able to read it with no prejudice, as a good writer can talk about a tragedy without being soppy, play with his medium without being complacent, or do something that's already been done without just repeating but on the contrary creating something new and valuable.
And in fact the result is AWESOME!
Delicate, witty, funny. Characters both complex and interesting, as complete and interesting are their connections one to the other. A tragedy seen through the eyes of a child, who no matter how smart and mature gets only as much.
So rich and on so many levels to be sometimes hard to follow.

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maCmq said on Jul 10, 2011 | Add your feedback

"She had fallen in love so many times that she began to suspect she was not falling in love at all, but doing something much more ordinary."

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Paveita said on May 15, 2012 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

extremely sweet and incredibily sad

It has been said even too much on the 11/09, but maybe it has never said enough. But this book isn't about the 11/09 directly. This book is about a little kid that unexpectedly loses the father and find very hard to deal with it. Oskar is a special kid, and it is very difficult to not want to jump i ... (continue)

It has been said even too much on the 11/09, but maybe it has never said enough. But this book isn't about the 11/09 directly. This book is about a little kid that unexpectedly loses the father and find very hard to deal with it. Oskar is a special kid, and it is very difficult to not want to jump into the book and hug him tight.
The book doesn't take the 5th star, coz I found very hard at some stage to follow what was happening, and even if at the end is all (almost) clear, it was still a bit hard to stay tuned on the book.
A good read, toward the end I had to keep inside the tears.

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jaahbaba said on Apr 22, 2012 | Add your feedback

1 person find this helpful

I really had great expectations but this book didn't impress me so much. It seems to me that the story is based on a very insignificant fact, I mean when the child found the key in the father's closet I was not involved in trying to know what it opened because it's clear that it had nothing to do wi ... (continue)

I really had great expectations but this book didn't impress me so much. It seems to me that the story is based on a very insignificant fact, I mean when the child found the key in the father's closet I was not involved in trying to know what it opened because it's clear that it had nothing to do with the tragic death nor to the great love that there was between father and son , and also it wasn't a "key" for Oskar to understand something more about his father . You have not to wait the end to understand it. For this reason I found the Mom's behaviour too much unreal, it's unbelivable to let a son do this kind of things even in a tragic situation like this one and even if they told us that he was acting under her strictly undervision.
I've just seen the trailer of the film that in Italy will be in cinemas next month, and it seems to be promising, we will see.

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Rossella said on Mar 23, 2012 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback