Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a 2005 novel by Jonathan Safran Foer.The book's narrator is a nine-year-old boy named Oskar Schell. Two years before the story begins, Oskar's father dies on 9/11. In the story, Oskar discovers a key in a vase that belonged to his father that inspires him to search all around New York for information about the key.

Narration

The main narrator of the story is a nine year old child, Oskar Schell, an intellectually curious and sensitive child of Manhattan progressives. He is a pacifist, a vegan, musical (he plays the tambourine), academically inclined, and above all, earnest. Two additional narrators, Oskar's paternal grandparents, tell the story of their childhood, courtship, marriage, and separation before the birth of Oskar's father; much of their story is presented as a series of letters addressed to Oskar or his father.

Criticism

Critical response towards Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close has been generally less positive than for Foer's first novel; John Updike, writing for The New Yorker, found the second novel to be: "thinner, overextended, and sentimentally watery", stating that "the book’s hyperactive visual surface covers up a certain hollow monotony in its verbal drama".Updike, John. "" The New Yorker, March 14, 2005. In a New York Times review Michiko Kakutani said, "While it contains moments of shattering emotion and stunning virtuosity that attest to Mr....
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