Extremely Loud & Incredibly Keith

Extremely Loud & Incredible Close, by Jonathan Safran Foer.  I bought this book at the Washington Book Festival back in September, where he was one of the speakers.  I also bought Everything is Illuminated, which I am planning on reading soon. 

This book was told from a few different perspectives, but mostly centers around Oskar Schell, a brilliant but eccentric nine year old in New York City, who loses his father in the 9/11 attacks.  His father left behind a key that Oskar found, and it leads him on a quest around New York so he can find the lock that it belongs to.  Ultimately, Oskar meets many interesting characters in the city, and he also discovers more about his own family and his father.  There is also the backstory of the love between Oskar's grandfather and grandmother, who fled from Dresden during World War II.  His grandfather, who was mute and communicated with only his notebooks and the tattoos of 'yes' and 'no' on his hands, left his grandmother to raise their son (Oskar's father) on her own, and only returned after his death.

The novel was told mostly through the voice of Oskar.  There are many catchphrases that he uses often, such as 'heavy boots' for being sad, and 'a hundred bucks' for being happy.  Oskar is very naive and courageous at times, venturing all around the city by himself and meeting strangers, although all the strangers that he meets are very nice and accomodating, which gives the book a very optimistic tone, although he is very cautious about other things, like bridges and elevators.  Oskar is also extremely bright, and is a walking encyclopedia of facts.  He is pretty emotional as well, keeping a picture diary of things that happened to him (and he shows the pictures in the book, which is a great touch), and listening to his dad's answering machine messages from after the tower was hit.

My favorite part of the book is some of the magical realist stories that are told throughout.  I loved the story of the sixth borough of New York that floated away.  I loved the story of how Oskar's grandfather lost his ability to speak word by word, until all his vocabulary was gone and he had to use notebooks to communicate, and he would flip back to certain phrases used over and over again.  It is a very creative book, and Foer uses many little gimmicks, like throwing in photos, shrinking text size to barely readable, to
showing the phrases from the grandfather's notebook.

In the end, Oskar discovers that the key belonged to someone else, and his father acquired it by mistake.  But this seems to put Oskar at peace since he was able to solve the puzzle his father left behind.  It is an optimistic book, even though it deals with some weighty subjects and ends with a flip book of photos of a person jumping out of the World Trade Center.  But actually the flip book is reversed, so the person is going upwards, not down.

An enjoyable and interesting, although different, read.  Four and a half out of five stars.