Extremely Loud and Indredibly Close

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer is an incredible story of a young boy, Oscar, suffering from the devastating death of his father after September 11th, and the intertwining pasts of his relatives. Looking through his father’s belongings, Oscar finds a key in an envelope labeled “Black”. Oscar decides to find the key’s lock by contacting everyone with the surname “Black”, hoping to gain closure. The story is alternated with letters: letters written by Oscar’s mute grandfather to his son (which were never sent) and letters telling of the almost-love story between Oscar’s grandparents. Although I found this confusing at first, not knowing who was writing what and to whom s/he was writing to, but as the story progressed, everything cleared up. I think this added to the reader’s insight of how Oscar perceives events. When Oscar’s grandfather described his devastating memories of the bombing of Dresden, I found it interesting to draw parallels between this event and September 11th and the varying effects it had on its victims. The novel is extremely well written and depicts a very real situation with the emotion and sentiment it deserves.