Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Paperback, 326 pages

English language

Published Aug. 8, 2006 by Penguin Books.

ISBN:
978-0-14-102518-6
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4 stars (91 reviews)

A new novel by the author of Everything Is Illuminated introduces Oskar Schell, the nine-year-old son of a man killed in the World Trade Center bombing who searches the city for a lock that fits a black key his father left behind. Jonathan Safran Foer emerged as one of the most original writers of his generation with his best-selling debut novel, Everything Is Illuminated. Now, with humor, tenderness, and awe, he confronts the traumas of our recent history. What he discovers is solace in that most human quality, imagination. Meet Oskar Schell, an inventor, Francophile, tambourine player, Shakespearean actor, jeweler, pacifist, correspondent with Stephen Hawking and Ringo Starr. 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 …

19 editions

Review of 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' on 'Goodreads'

2 stars

This book is told primarily from the point of view of 8-year old Oskar Schell, whose father was killed in the world trade center towers on 9/11 and who, a year or so later, is still dealing with the loss and grief. He appears to be a very intelligent kid but probably somewhere on the autism spectrum (based both on his behaviour in the book, and the fact his therapist Dr. Fein suggests to his mother that he might be put in some kind of special care facility). Oskar finds a key in his father's closet and makes it his mission to find the lock it fits; the only clue he has is the name "Black" written on the envelope it was in, so he begins an epic journey to speak to every person named Black in New York city.

Interspersed with Oskar's key mission are back stories from his …

Review of 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Man, did this book make me wear heavy boots. I'm probably going to be wearing them for a few days after finishing this.

Oskar lost his father in the 9/11 attacks. Much like [b:The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time|1618|The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time|Mark Haddon|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327882682s/1618.jpg|4259809], he is a young boy trying to solve a mystery that really holds deeper meaning to understanding his entire life. But, this isn’t just Oskar’s journey through grief; this is also about Oskar’s grandmother, grandfather, and his mother, too.

Is it uniquely written and a little gimmicky? Yes, but it worked for the narrative. Unique like Oskar, like his grandfather, like his grandmother, the different parts of the book fit together to tell the story of a family who have experienced and endured grief, joy, and all of the other parts of life that make it special.

I hesitate …

Review of 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Un enfant de 9 ans, à l'intelligence supérieure à la moyenne et à l'imagination débordante, essaye de faire le deuil de son père, mort dans les attentats du 11 Septembre. C'est un drôle de roman, un peu compliqué à suivre : ça part dans tous les sens, c'est bourré d'histoires parallèles, même on parvient à reconstituer les pièces du puzzle à la fin. C'est joli, plein de bons sentiments, parfois émouvant. Mais il m'a manqué quelque chose pour en faire un très bon roman. Peut-être parce que certains passages sont assez pénibles à lire.

Review of 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' on 'Storygraph'

3 stars

I read this because I assigned Nicole Krauss' History of Love as a summer reading assignment, and this book was mentioned in pretty much every review of that book. The two books do share some similarities (both are about a child investigating a mystery of their dead father and both mix traditional narrative storytelling with piecemeal excerpts of letters/journals/etc.) but I think Foer's effort was not nearly as good as his wife's. The parts of the books told from Oskar's point of view are remarkable. Foer perfectly captures the voice of an intelligent, curious, and shellshocked little boy. The other parts of the book, consisting of letters written by Oskar's grandparents and the occasional scrapbook photograph aren't nearly as engaging. The way Foer uses simple, declarative sentences to try to capture the voice of Oskar's immigrant grandmother quickly grows tiresome. And I'm honestly not sure what to think about the …

Review of 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I read this book because the movie is coming soon and it was a good excuse to read it. I’ve been interested in reading a Jonathan Safran Foer for a while (yet another step in becoming a book snob) and now I had no excuse. While the movie looks really good; I’ve struggled how it would work now that I’ve read the book. There is a lot of key elements of this book that would not translate well in a movie, for example Oskar’s inner thoughts, the letters he writes to random people that interest him and then there is the renter (Oskar’s grandfather) who doesn’t speak at all and writes everything on paper for others to read.

This book was such a pleasure to read, while it’s not a particular exciting plot; the characters and the writing were just so great that it was nothing but a joy to …

Review of 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

This book is beautiful, engaging, complex, thoughtful, and moving. [a:Foer|2617|Jonathan Safran Foer|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1274633302p2/2617.jpg] doesn't write books, he crafts them, carefully, attentively, and skillfully. His talent for weaving disparate storylines together into a complex, layered narrative that is somehow still intimately accessible and illuminating was demonstrated forcefully in [b:Everything Is Illuminated|256566|Everything Is Illuminated|Jonathan Safran Foer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1298482115s/256566.jpg|886727], and is on full display in his second novel. Except that it's not so much on display as it is underneath, providing a foundation and background that rarely calls attention to itself but enriches the story in a way that has made Foer the well-deserved success that he is.



His first book played lightly with the medium of the novel, fiddling with things like type and interwoven chapters, but this book takes his art to a whole new level. A quick perusal will reveal full-color prints, seemingly random sequences of photos, blank pages, series of pages with …

Review of 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' on Goodreads

5 stars

This book is beautiful, engaging, complex, thoughtful, and moving. [a:Foer|2617|Jonathan Safran Foer|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1274633302p2/2617.jpg] doesn't write books, he crafts them, carefully, attentively, and skillfully. His talent for weaving disparate storylines together into a complex, layered narrative that is somehow still intimately accessible and illuminating was demonstrated forcefully in [b:Everything Is Illuminated|256566|Everything Is Illuminated|Jonathan Safran Foer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1298482115s/256566.jpg|886727], and is on full display in his second novel. Except that it's not so much on display as it is underneath, providing a foundation and background that rarely calls attention to itself but enriches the story in a way that has made Foer the well-deserved success that he is.



His first book played lightly with the medium of the novel, fiddling with things like type and interwoven chapters, but this book takes his art to a whole new level. A quick perusal will reveal full-color prints, seemingly random sequences of photos, blank pages, series of pages with …

Review of 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' on 'GoodReads'

5 stars

This book is beautiful, engaging, complex, thoughtful, and moving. [a:Foer|2617|Jonathan Safran Foer|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1274633302p2/2617.jpg] doesn't write books, he crafts them, carefully, attentively, and skillfully. His talent for weaving disparate storylines together into a complex, layered narrative that is somehow still intimately accessible and illuminating was demonstrated forcefully in [b:Everything Is Illuminated|256566|Everything Is Illuminated|Jonathan Safran Foer|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1298482115s/256566.jpg|886727], and is on full display in his second novel. Except that it's not so much on display as it is underneath, providing a foundation and background that rarely calls attention to itself but enriches the story in a way that has made Foer the well-deserved success that he is.



His first book played lightly with the medium of the novel, fiddling with things like type and interwoven chapters, but this book takes his art to a whole new level. A quick perusal will reveal full-color prints, seemingly random sequences of photos, blank pages, series of pages with …

Review of 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Although there were sections that left me confused, this book made me both laugh and cry. I think if the whole story was narrated by Oskar I'd have given it 5 stars but unfortunately the grandparents' story kept making me put the book down. The story is laced with a feeling of loneliness throughout.

Review of 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' on 'Goodreads'

No rating

A good book for discussion. (Caroline had suggested it, for no other reason than that she wanted someone to talk about it with.) It was interesting enough that everyone enjoyed it, more-or-less (except for Alan, who didn't come), even though they had problems with parts of it. The visual gimmicks were intriguing, but also a bit over the top (and not present in the taped version). Oskar was either unbelievably precocious, or the spitting image of grandkids or former students. The grandparents, however, were too caricatured to have much depth. And Oskar's mother, as seen through Oskar's eyes, was a blank.

Review of 'Extremely loud & incredibly close' on 'Storygraph'

5 stars

September 11th forms the backdrop for this honest examination of love and loss. In the case of many contemporary novels, that last sentence would have ended "love, loss and redemption," but here there is no single, easy moment of salvation, acceptance or understanding. While the novel contains all of those things, each of the characters has to work continually in order to achieve them.

If that sounds depressing, I promise you it isn't. These characters never fully recover from their loss; they deal with it from day to day. They think about it, write about it, travel with it, ignore it, run away from it and return to it. Foer has managed to turn this struggle into something extraordinarily beautiful, while recognizing that it is also extraordinarily difficult.

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