Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

As I read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, I was moved by Jonathan Safran Foer's weaving of past and present memories of people affected by 9-11 and his decision to include accounts of the bombings of Hiroshima and Dresden. Although he shows parallels in these stories of loss and trauma, we are aware throughout the text of the singularity and exceptionality of each one. Safran Foer describes the very personal suffering of individuals who must coexist with memories and physical artifacts of these events as they go about activities in everyday life- traveling, writing letters, lying to one another, sleeping and dreaming, looking at photos or letters. The characters of Oskar, his grandmother and grandfather attempt to make sense of their lives in a world that moves forward while they remain in a liminal state of doubt and uncertainty. The author captures the frustration they experience when they realize that fundamental, life-changing questions associated with these events will never be answered; thankfully, the author does not present a completely pessimistic picture of human relationships at the end of the book. Each character is presented with an opportunity to re-evaluate the most important things in their lives, and each chooses to engage with their memories in ways that are not self-destructive and directed exclusively inwards. They share their feelings with one another, and are less lonely for it.

I was also reminded when I read this book of my friend who traveled to Hiroshima and saw people’s shadows burned into walls as a result of the blast's impact. What are the artifacts of loss when everything is blown apart and people simply disappear, leaving shadows, and not bodies, behind? I believe our artifacts are memories, texts, photographs, ephemera that may mean nothing to some but everything to others- and as some of my peers have pointed out, Safran Foer offers us many ways of documenting or representing life as doodles or even blank pages.

Given the fact that I don't read much fiction anymore (no time, sadly), I found myself missing the psychological space of novels and the powerful combination of abstraction and intimacy that I experience when reading a good one. Until now, I have not experienced the novel as a way of reflecting upon the events of September 11, and I found that Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (through the author's careful writing) existed within a medium that could offer a more thoughtful, nuanced, and honest way of representing the anger, confusion, and sadness of people coping with the aftermath than other representations (fiction films, mostly) or forms of documentation that I have encountered. Even though it may be difficult for many us to verbalize their thoughts in a completely transparent manner, due to physical and social limitations, it is possible to express ourselves more freely through writing, especially in memoir form.

Finally, I want to add that I enjoyed the experience of bringing Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close everywhere throughout my travels in New York City. I picked it up at the Strand, and brought it to Bushwick, Washington Heights, into the tunnels of the subway, upstairs, downstairs, and finally to Teachers College. Like the space of memory, good works of fiction allow us to engage in one activity or be present in one space while absorbing ourselves in another. In some ways, the act of reading or writing a novel is to create a safe space for embracing affect that would, in other contexts, be prohibited or ignored.