So. "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" is my first experience with Foer-- and, having finished the novel over a week ago, I'm still unsure what I think. There is a deal of great work here, in this novel of loss, grief and living in the face of tragedies from marriages to the events of September 11, 2001 to the bombing of Dresden during World War II. Parts of this novel work-- and come close to soaring-- and others, frankly, do not. The sections narrated by Oskar Schell, a young boy who has lost his father in the World Trade Center on 9-11, are interesting and involving, though not without their problems. The sections narrated by the boy's grandparents are somewhat more problematic, although some of the most poignant writing in the novel appears in their sections.I could write of how the grandparents' relationship, or the uniformity of the people Oskar meets in his quest take away from the realism of the novel and-- ultimately-- it's emotional effect; but I would rather talk about what works here. Sections such as the tape Oskar plays of Hiroshima survivors' interviews, the "Hamlet" performance and the actual bombing of Dresden (save the over the top ridiculousness of the zoo) are very well written, and worth the reading of the novel alone. And for all the narrative's faults, how Oskar's quest is resolved was very well written, in some ways unexpected and appreciated. And the novel's final images truly are haunting. While some of my problems with the text lie within the disconnect between the actual text and the images used throughout, the imagery of the dream where all is reversed, as the only, simple reaction to major tragedy, combined with Oskar's final flip book, is haunting: leaving the questions and sadnesses not fully explored within the novel with the reader after the last page has been turned.
