Eleven pages and god knows how many words that say nothing at all.........and "My Feelings".

Sarah Worth’s critique of Foer’s chapter “My feelings” in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is that the thoughts are jumbled, and the quality of the “seamlessness” is lost, giving way to and “unconventional” style that leaves the reader in confusion as to what the purpose of the chapter is about. However, this jumbled, seemingly random pattern is how Foer conveys the definition of human existence. A person’s feelings are shaped by sum experiences, the sum total of all thoughts and background of a person. Though this chapter, Foer is trying to convey that the human experience forms feelings, and that the human experience, or fate is out of our control, because a force larger than ourselves is working around us, shaping, our feelings, and who we are. “I was always moving them around, trying to make connections. I wanted to understand” (79), is the theme of this chapter, which is the desire, the need for humanity to understand itself. Foer conveys that to understand ourselves, we must try to relate our feelings to other events, and then connect those events, because that string of connection is what holds the pieces of meaning in our life together.
Through the “jumbled” prose, Foer merely creates an invitation into the mind of Oskar’s grandmother, allowing us to enter into the un-linear thought process of making decisions, of living. As people age, they gain more experience, and use that experience to influence future decisions. By using flashbacks of conversation and events of the Grandmother, Foer develops the complexity of life, and to what extent our past experiences shape us. This conveys the truth that our past events are always on our minds, and we must look towards our past to move on in our future. Instead of trying to analyze the spacing and changes in conversation, the reader should take the structure as merely a structure used to convey thoughts. For example, when on page 83, when Foer uses many short sentences,
“The birds would sing in the other room.
I would undress.
He would position me.
He would sculpt me.
Sometimes I would think about those hundred letters laid across my bedroom floor. If I hadn’t collected them, would our house have burned less brightly?” (83), it merely expresses the complex thought process of an individual. Connecting present thoughts and events to past thoughts and events is Foer’s tool to develop the narrator’s history, and at the same time, giving the reader a closeness to the character. Here, Foer is not being profound or intellectual, he merely writes in a very expressive way, taking what all people innately have, feelings, and writing them on paper. Certain thoughts, certain images, and Foer’s ability to relate those universally to many readers is what makes him an accomplished, a celebrated author.
Foer has so much insight unto the average stream of consciousness; his art is to write nothing, and let it express so much. To let it express the human experience. Foer uses loaded language and images that create unspoken profound statements, such as the closing dialogue,
" Why does anyone ever make love?
He took his pen and wrote on the next and last page, No children.
That was our fist rule.
I understand, I told him in English.
We never used German again.
The next day, your grandfather and I were married" (85)
and one insight developed in class, “Foer is trying to say the banal, the everyday occurrences, is what makes life on the whole meaningful”. As an author, he takes phrases that could mean so much, like “Together and separately” (84), but really forces the reader to interpret all of the words to mean something, something individually profound. Foer doesn’t use words to “symboclially…point to something”(Sarah Worth, English Blog, Foer response, pages 75-107), He makes the reader do all of the work, receiving all of the credit. As an author, Foer has the talent of drawing the reader into a story, using language to create a history, using eleven pages of text, with god knows how many words to describe the chapter “my feelings”, but in reality saying nothing at all.