BOOK REVIEW: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE by Jonathan Safran Foer made me laugh out loud on page two. I was ready to be hooked. By page four I was not so sure.

Nine year old Oskar Schell is on a mission to find the secret behind a key that he found in his father’s closet, in an envelope hidden in a vase. His father had been killed in the World Trade Center on 9/11 and Oskar is obsessed with finding a final connection with his dad.

He and his father had played lots of games that had required Oskar to go on searches around New York City to solve mysteries and the word “BLACK” written on the envelope is definitely a clue. Oskar decides to visit every person in New York with the last name of Black, hoping to find what the key opens. His adventures, sometimes touching and very often humorous, take him from Central Park to Coney Island, to Harlem and all points in between. There are quite a few people with the name of Black in New York City.

Oskar has a very close relationship with his grandmother who lives across the street. Interspersed with Oskar’s search, we hear her story of how her family had been destroyed in the bombing of Dresden during the Second World War and how she had married Oskar’s grandfather, but telling that here would be giving too much away.

I liked Oskar. He was constantly inventing neat stuff, like a shirt made of bird seed so that the birds could fly a person to safety. I loved the illustrations in the book. They captured Oskar’s imagination so well. I liked that he played the part of Yorick in his school production of Hamlet. Yes, I know Yorick is only a skull, but Oskar was able to make so much more of it.

I did find the book to be a little dis-jointed. The switch from Oskar and his key to the grandmother during and after the war was a little confusing. I have to say though that Foer brought it all together perfectly in the end. The theme of losing loved ones in a war was well handled. 

This is not a book for everyone. It is hard to follow at times, but if you are looking for something different, you might enjoy Oskar very much.