Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Jonathan Safran Foer

[goodreads]

Title: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Author: Jonathan Safran Foer
Genre: Fiction
Rating: 2.5/5
# pages: 323
Date read: June, 2010

Meet Oskar Schell, an inventor, Francophile, tambourine player, Shakespearean actor, jeweler, and pacifist. 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.

This is a really, really weird book. I still haven't quite decided what I think of it. I can see its literary merit, but I guess it just didn't appeal to me at all. I did like the way Jonathan Foer used the medium to tell the story though. I always appreciate it when authors dare use the book as more than just something to carry the words. However, the writing style did come across as very artsy at times. Not necessarily a bad thing (Milan Kundera does the same, and I rather liked his The Unbearable Lightness of Being), but completely different from what I had expected, so I wasn't prepared for it. However, it wouldn't surprise me if this becomes the kind of book people study in high school 5-10 years from now.

I'm glad I've read it, but I'm also glad I just got it out of the library rather than buy it, as I doubt it's a book I'd want to read again.