The lives of nine-year old Oskar, his grandmother (as a girl, woman and crone) and grandfather (as a teen and adult) overlap in Jonathan Safran Foer’s story about our lifelong struggle to come to terms with loss. In Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, JSF skillfully weaves wordless suffering throughout the novel, illustrating how loss is loss is loss, with or without eloquent expression. The 3 narrators use photographs, sign language, written notes and imagined inventions (like a shower that reacts to the emotional chemistry of the bather, pigmenting the skin like a living mood ring to better communicate feelings — to others and the self) to communicate when feelings overwhelm the ability to speak.
Purple. Or green?
Oskar, like his grandparents — one of whom struggled with English as a second language — uses any means necessary to convey emotion when words fail. To this end, JSF uses images thoughtout the novel to demonstrate how the power of some feelings are easier to show visually than describe verbally. Take the notion of writing the name of a color (purple) in a pen of a different color (green). A lengthy description could talk around the concept of how we struggle to say the WORD purple when written in the COLOR green. Or, as JSF does, a picture of the word black written in red ink can be shown, allowing the reader to experience the confusion first hand.
Similarly, photographs of movement are paired with their description in the plot, giving the reader a chance to call up memories of sound, smell and light to complement what each character struggles to describe. Reading about the flock of birds that flies near Oskar, “extremely loud and incredibly close”, then seeing an image of such a flock connected me with an amalgam of other groups of other birds from my own memories. The feel of air against my face in sync with wingflaps; the dusty smell of dander stirred by sudden, rapid movement; the unmistakeable sound of wings beating — all called to mind with a single image. And for this, the novel is a richer and much more personal experience.
The birds were extremely loud and incredibly close
Some readers object to the use of a nine-year old protagonist navigating a post-9/11 theme, claiming Oskar is unable to adequately speak about the tragedy. But his inability to hold an adult conversation about many things, including the 9/11 bombings, is actually the point. What is Oskar if not a metaphor for the post-9/11 US? Shock, feeling strong emotions but being unable to articulate the grief, confusion, overwhelm and a general lack of understanding — all are sentiments that correctly describe Oskar and what was felt nationwide after 9/11.
The selection of characters who struggle to communicate, along with relevant images throughout the story make this book a successful exploration of how we strive to understand life — especially when loss flings us beyond our vocabulary. Well done, JSF.
