Jonathan Safran Foer might just be my new favorite author. Sadly he has only written two books, Everything Is Illuminated, which I read last year, and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which I just finished. Mr. Foer, please write more books. And soon.
There was so much I liked about this book. Completely unconventional, it is a hodgepodge of different literary techniques set against the dramatic backdrop of the fallout of 9/11. Oskar Schell, our nine year old narrator, spends the book dealing with the death of his father. Foer nailed the childhood voice so well I found myself both laughing and crying at how Oskar describes his world. He refers to the day his father died as "the worst day" and when he gets extremely sad, he says "my boots were really heavy." In addition to Oskar's story, we get strange narratives from both his grandfather and grandmother, and random pictures of doorknobs, houses, the back of people's heads, a person falling from the sky.
I love the utter strangeness of his writing. I love how his characters are sometimes so matter of fact in their weirdness. The grandfather doesn't speak and has yes and no tattooed on the palms of his hands so he can easily answer yes and no questions. The ending is surprisingly sad and you don't see it coming even though you do because how else can it end when the premise is a little boy learning to deal with his father dying in the 9/11 attacks?
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