Meaning in the Meaningless (Ryan McFarland)

Oskar Schell in many ways attempts to answer the existential questions hat face any atheist. Many times throughout Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close he searches for meaning in a world that constantly presents him with awful situations. From his father dying in the world trade center to 9/11 in general he begs the question: Why? He discusses various opinions on how everything came to be and is adamant about the fact that he does not believe in a higher power. He discusses how Stephen Hawking portrays the universe in his book A Brief History of Time, yet even Hawking himself cannot answer Oskar’s questions about why things are the way they are.

An interesting complication to this idea that Hawking himself was an atheist is the fact that when Hawking is describing the beginnings of the universe in his book, he uses the terminology “first mover” to explain how it all started. I read Hawking’s book about a year ago and was blown away that even he did not understand how it started. He describes everything that happened from a second after this “first mover” started the universe until are current state of existence in the universe. He stands in complete awe of how unlikely the situation we are in is, but still believes that it is all explainable through science.

I believe that Foer gives s his answer to the problem of how to create meaning in the meaningless. When Grandma sends the letter this time she ends it with, “I love you.” This is what many authors have determined is the meaning of life in a Godless universe. Kurt Vonnegut reaches a similar conclusion at the end of his book Sirens of Titan. If we are nothing more than a tiny speck of meaningless particles in the middle of a meaningless universe, it doesn’t matter. The fact that we love and can be loved makes it all worth it. The capability for two humans to bond and communicate makes the entire universe worth living in. It is worth experiencing even if there is no afterlife. This is why Oskar is so upset about the last moments of his father’s existence. He and his father did not get to communicate the only meaningful thing the universe has to offer just one last time.

Extremely Complicated & Incredibly Simple- Chelsea Gill

I finished this book and decided to start at the beginning again to find connections I had since forgotten. It is safe to say that from start to finish this book consistently uses ‘extremely’ and ‘incredibly’ numerous times and in many different contexts. There has to be a reason for this. The words are even in the title so what is so important about these two words?
I began to think what it would be like to be incredibly close to someone while being extremely loud. Why would anyone need to be in such a position, and what characters in the book would have this need? I thought of a ghost desperately trying to get the attention of a loved one left behind in life. I thought of a ghost yelling in someone’s face while that person stares straight through him. Then I tried connecting that thought to the book and I got the answer. Throughout the book, Oskar is searching frantically for some piece of his father. He becomes obsessed with a key that eventually opens a safety deposit box of another man’s dead father. He focuses so hard on finding the lock, the simple solution to an impossible problem. One of the last pages of the book, Oskar says, “…but I believe that things are extremely complicated, and her looking over me was as complicated as anything ever could be. But it was also incredibly simple.”(324). I thought this applied well to his search for his father. The search for the lock that fit the Black key was extremely complicated. It took Oskar eight months for a search that ended in disappointment, but his reason for such complexity was simple; he was trying to keep a part of his father alive.
I am sure there are other, much more philosophical, opinions to why the title and the book focus so obsessively on extremes and incredible epiphanies, but I thought the answer to be rather simple. People do crazy things when they love someone and sometimes one cannot simply say it. “And how can you say I love you to someone you love?”(314).

An "expert at watching": How to avoid connections and alienate people...

Through Foer’s last chapters of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, he comments that without meaning, without expressing our true emotions, without love, we forget and regret our past, and our lives become insignificant. Foer relating traumatic events backwards, from both the Grandmother’s life and Oskar’s life contrasts the differences between their expression of love, and what the current consequences of these actions are. With the end line of “It’s always necessary. /I love you, /Grandma” (314), Foer expresses that this emotion is what holds our sanity together, and is the only “necessary” (314) way to live lives. The Grandmother, who does not express her emotions in the beginning of her life; the evident split of internal emotion, “I wanted to shout, It isn’t fair, and bag my fists against the table like a child” (307) and external calm reaction, “Everything special” (307) towards her husband, brings a sense of loss and unanchored existence in her world because she holds regret and the unspoken lie of unloving in her life. Because her life with her husband, a relationship built upon the safety of togetherness rather than the mutual exchange of emotions, the Grandmother cannot remember the loving relationship of her family, the small, insignificant details, such as the “front door of the house I grew up in” (308). Foer conveys by ingoing the presence of love in our lives and living in the past, we as people, stop the act of living, we merely become spectators in life, “an expert at watching” (309). However, though these last three chapters, Foer conveys that Oskar, who now carries the realization that there is someone in the world who loves him currently, not only in the past, can move on in his own life. In these chapters, Oskar is alluded to having a new beginning, realizing that he is not alone in his search for the lock to his key, his mother had known all along, and his idol, Stephen Hawking has written back to him after the countless generic form letters. Through these chapters, Foer develops Oskar as living with a new paradigm with life, that will help him emotionally to move on after the death of his father. Through these chapters, Oskar now realizes that he is not alone and insignificant in the world, but he is connected to others. Oskar is a new beginning. Instead of dwelling on the past events of his life without the ability to move on, he can remember the past of his life. “He said, Let there be light. And there was darkness. Oskar” (313). These are the words of his Grandmother, who could not let go of her losses of the past, but knows Oskar can, and will move on in his life. Both of these characters relive their past lives through these chapters, with events moving from current to the past. Foer writes that both of these characters finally have realized that connections to others, the abandonment of being "experts at watching", and expressing love will hold their lives together. With their mirroring final words of “I love you” (314, 326), and Oskar's last line of "We would have been safe" (326), convey the two character's realization of how love holds people extremely close to each other.

Oskar: Growing Up (Philip Newland)

The most important aspect of this final section of the novel, for me, was the relationship displayed between Oskar and his mother.  After returning to his apartment early in the morning after digging up his father's grave, Oskar is hardly confronted by his mother to his own surprise.  It is easy to relate to this situation of returning at odd hours of the night or morning and having a parent waiting up for me yet, unlike Oskar's mother, my parents would be livid.  Yet she remained calm and when Oskar questions her about her seemingly apathetic mood, she states, "I trust you".  This simple three word statement represents what Oskar needed to hear throughout his epic quest of finding the connection between the Black families and the key left for him in this novel.  Oskar, being a young and extremely intelligent boy, repressed his feelings toward his father's death yet this sort of trust within his remaining family is exactly what he needed to heal his pain.

The second interesting moment between Oskar and his mother is in the morning after Oskar returns from his grave-digging and finds his mother in the exact same place she was the night before when he returned.  This is when she surprises him, and me as the reader, by saying that Oskar's father called her the day he died from the buildings.  She says, "He told me he was on the street, that he'd gotten out of the building. He said he was walking home".  Oskar, using his intelligence, guesses that "He made it up so you wouldn't worry".  Yet, his mother replies, "But he knew I knew".  This simple interaction could have taken place at the beginning of the novel and could have ridden Oskar of his guilt from not answering the phone that fateful morning yet, I believe, it was all part of the process.  Earlier in this final passage, Oskar finds out that his mother had talked to all of the Blacks before he even visited them, therefore meaning that she knew what he was doing the entire journey without letting him know.  I see this as her making sure he was safe during his quest while also giving him the necessary distance to figure things out on his own.  Thus, there are now several instances in the novel where Oskar finds out things from his mother which could have previously helped yet they were withheld for his own good.  I would say that the overall message of this novel is one of growing up for Oskar and, with his mother keeping secrets from him, allowed him to do just that.  While Oskar is an extremely intelligent and insightful young boy, his repressed emotions about his father's death are what held him back from being a "normal" boy.  Therefore, after keeping watch from a safe distance and withholding some information from him, Oskar's mother allowed him to mature and develop on his own and thereby fulfilling what I see as the main point of the novel: maturation.

161,999,999 Locks in New York Will Hide My Unhappiness

…Double Happiness… “Not a character pronounced very often-almost exclusively used in written form” (www.orientaloutpost.com).
In the chapter “Happiness Happiness”, Noah Blumenthal writes, “In the interview with Tomoyasu…the interviewer kept asking about the generic facts of the bombing… like the mushroom cloud and the black rain, but Tomoyasu replied ‘I didn’t see the mushroom cloud, I was trying to find Masako”. Like Oskar, the interviewer is so focused on the facts that he cannot really connect to the emotional aspect of tragedy. For Oskar, he cannot fully realize and come to terms with the emotional effect of his Dad’s death, although it affects him every day. Through his speech and actions, especially after his presentation to the class, parallels are drawn between how he speaks after his class presentation of the atom bomb tragedy, and his manner of speaking, his intellectually driven approach, towards everyday life. After his class presentation, Oskar is so focused on the facts he cannot acknowledge the sadness, the reaction of the class. When the teacher says, “that seemed pretty complete to me” (189), Oskar ignores this, going on by saying, “Because the radiant heat traveled in straight lines from the explosion, scientists were able to determine the direction towards the hypocenter…” (189). Oskar here ignores the emotional side of the tragedy, focusing on the facts as a tool to distance himself from the event. Oskar uses this same technique when thinking about his father, ignoring the actual fact that he is gone, instead focusing on the numbers, the “161,999,999 locks in New York” (200), and “Lie #77” (196).
Throughout the novel, Oskar deals with his inability to express emotion, his inability to outwardly confront his mother about the bruises he gives himself, or vocalize his violent and angry feelings demonstrated though his imagined play. Through this chapter, relating the narrative of the loss of a loved one parallels the fact that Oskar has also lost a loved one, affecting his ability to express himself. Throughout the chapter, themes of expression where Oskar is left out of the joke, left out of the conversation convey his inability to communicate effectively. “Mr. Keegan got angry and said, ‘Jimmy!”…I could tell that Mr. Keegan was cracking up too” (190), and the encounter where Oskar’s language of English, and even French “Parlez-vous francais?” (195), leaves Oskar on the outside looking in. Through the chapter, Foer develops to what extent Oskar’s father has connected him to the rest of the world, and allowed him to connect all of his thoughts into words. When Foer writes the two speaking in Spanish were “cracking up together” (195), Oskar is merely an observer, and cannot communicate, because he does not know the language. Here the ‘language’ is not only diction and syntax, but is used as a symbol for the connection of two people.
After Oskar’s father is gone, Oskar finds it difficult to communicate his emotions. At his psychiatrist appointment, after the question, “Does this emotionaless of yours, does it affect your daily life?” (201), Oskar answers “yes” (195), but in a very round-a-bout way, taking about three sentences to answer a simple question. Before Oskar’s response is “Well, to answer your question, I don’t think that’s a real word you used. Emotinalness. But I understand what you were trying to say, and yes” (201). Through this example, Foer develops language’s variations of expression, from Oskar’s lengthy answer to a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question to the three short words, “Mother. Water. Mother” (187), uttered by the girl coming towards Tomoyasu. Through this comparison of language, Foer develops Oskar’s language’s inability to convey, to express true meaning.
For Oskar, his “yes” (195), and the journey to that simple syllable revealed his hesitancy and avoidance to connect to his feelings. In contrast, the young girl whose “skin was melting down her” (187), and her utterance of three short words, “Mother. Water. Mother” (187), convey more than her want for her mother and water; this phrase expresses her want and need for comfort, safety, and protection. Through this example, Foer juxtaposes the expressive nature of language, and how, by using such a large quantity of objective, of written factual language, Oskar avoids the personal emotion, the personal expression of his own language. Corresponding with this theme of non-expressional language is Foer’s title of the chapter, “Happiness Happiness”, an allusion to the Japanese symbol of double happiness, though this symbol is rarely spoken. Like Oskar’s response to his tragedy, his response to the word “happiness” (202) asked by his psychiatrist leaves Oskar at loss for words, moving Oskar to say, “I’m feeling uncomfortable” (202). Oskar’s inability to respond to the word “Happiness” (202) reveals how his language cannot expresses his feelings, and how Oskar reveals the tragic death of his father forces him to rarely experience happiness.

Parallels Between the Generations

In the sections we read this week, we’re finally given some answers to fill in the story’s blanks, especially in regards to Oskar’s grandfather. But there is one revelation that I would have skipped over if it hadn’t been there in red ink staring me in the face. The section “Why I’m Not Where You Are 4/12/78” is marked up with red circles. Honestly at first I thought some hoodlum had decided to be stupid with a pen, but then I realized that the circles were a part of the book. Then I noticed how annoying it was to read with the red circles, and thought about how Oskar’s dad used to circle mistakes in the newspaper with red pen. It wasn’t until later that the obvious struck me. Thomas Schell must have read the letter.
Now I’m not going to hypothesize on what effect, if any, that has on the story, but it made me wonder at the similarity between Thomas and his father. They both left their sons and wives, went away one day and never returned, and left behind messages received by their children. It’s not much to go on, but just that there are similarities I feel is somehow important. I might be stretching things too far with this, but I see a connection between Thomas and his father in what they are (were?) thinking on the day they left. Obviously Oskar’s father can’t have put all his feelings about his life and how he felt about leaving Oskar on the answering machine. But the elder Thomas can leave his feelings and reasons behind in the form of his letters. I wonder, if Oskar could receive letters from his father, if they wouldn’t read something like the ones we’re seeing.
On a completely different topic but still with a focus on the parallels between the generations, I couldn’t help but notice the similarities between the bombing of Dresden and 9/11. We’re given pages of description of the bombing, from the grandfather’s letter, and there’s a definite connection with the description of the destruction of the twin towers that we read earlier in the book. Plus the two and a half pages of the description of the bombing of Hiroshima at the beginning of “Happiness, Happiness” as used in one of Oskar’s class presentations. Now we get a connection between Oskar and his grandfather. They both survived the attacks, but lost someone they cared deeply for, and have been changed because of it, in the way they act, think, feel, and interact with others. Plus they’re both left with people who occupy a far less important place in their lives than the one they lost – Oskar has his mother and his grandfather has his grandmother. I wish I could say more about how this all works together, and I know it does, but as of right now the bigger picture is still out of my grasp.

Stephen Hawking and Oskar - Tasha

Stephen Hawking and his book appear many times throughout this novel. I believe he might actually be the reason Oskar is so depressed. After playing for his class an interview of Tomoyasu who experience first hand the bombing of Hiroshima, Oskar shows his class one of his own little experiements that has to do with light's attraction to figures on paper and how it can burn letter-shaped holes. “I held up the sheet of paper, with the first page of A Brief History of Time in Japanese, which I got the translation of from Amazon.co.jp. I looked at the class through the story of the turtles” (190). To understand this section as well as other parts of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, we need to take a look at Stephen Hawking’s book as well. A Brief History of Time begins with a description of a lecture in which an old lady confronts the astronomy lecturer by suggesting the whole world is sitting on the back of a giant turtle. The lecturer responds by asking what this turtle carrying the world is sitting on. The old lady then retorts, “It’s turtles all the way down.” This idea, that the world is essentially only a very small, finite part of an infinite world (of turtles) is pretty depressing because it forces the idea that a human being is pretty insignificant. It is through this lens that Oskar literally looks at his class, and perhaps the rest of the world.
While Hawking’s book scientifically argues that mankind is not the center of the universe, Oskar’s dad tries to convince his son that a human being is significant. We’ve already discussed the ideas on page 86 in which Oskar’s dad tries to teach him the significance of a human life. It seems as though Oskar is caught in between two of his own heroes: his dad, who argued that human life is important (although he has died), and Stephen Hawking who argues that human life isn’t as important as we think it is (yet still is alive). But he also associates Stephen Hawking, more specifically Hawking’s impersonal letter, with events that are mysterious or sad. The very impersonal response from Hawking appears on page 12, after which Oskar tells his mom “ I have something incredibly wonderful that I want to preserve.” It also appears so far in our reading on pages 106 and 200. I’m not sure what the repeated appearance of this letter means. However, I feel that the impersonal nature of this response has to do with the way Oskar is feeling throughout the novel. Oskar spent the time to write this man a letter, yet all Hawking can do is send him a typed response telling Oskar how he doesn’t have enough time to respond personally. This must make Oskar feel very insignificant. Oskar depression starts with the death of his father, a real hero in Oskar’s eyes, but continues with the lack of personal connection with his other hero, Stephen Hawking. This is just one way, in spite of Hawking’s argument that humans are insignificant, that one person or one book can influence another person’s life.

"Happiness, Happiness" (Kelly Aiken)

The chapter “Happiness, Happiness” I believe really shows Oskar’s character, and how he is mature and wise beyond his eleven years. For his class presentation, I found it interesting that Oskar chose one that involved the Hiroshima bombings. The interview gave such a horrific and terrifying description of what happened to the people and this mother who lost her daughter. The class reaction had girls crying, and boys pretending to barf. I doubt this would be something a child at Oskar’s age would normally do a presentation on, because it is horrific. But what Oskar has been through, and seen and experienced would allow him to stomach something of this sort, and allow him to think of it from a scientific point of view (instead of talking about the emotional aspect, he talks about how the “radiant heat traveled” [p.189]). This bombing would connect to all the men in the Schell family; in the next chapter, the grandfather finally describes the day of the bombings in Dresden and Oskar’s father was in one of the towers. It’s interesting to then look at how each dealt with these situations, even if Oskar wasn’t involved in the Hiroshima bombings. Thomas Sr. spent the rest of his life regretting and writing letters, not able to fully handle what happened in Dresden. In Thomas Jr.’s messages, he always seems rather calm trying to explain what is happening and trying to talk to somebody. For Oskar to give this presentation, he does not even blink at the idea of people being killed from the bombings. This translates to how Oskar deals with the tragedy and his emotions in general. Instead of facing something, he would give himself a bruise and it wouldn’t even phase him. When he talks with Dr. Fein, he only gives brief answers to how he is feeling. We’ve also seen earlier in the scene during Hamlet that Oskar wanted to bash the other boy’s skull in til it bled to make himself feel better, but instead didn’t do anything. This happens again when Dr. Fein asks Oskar if “any good can come from [his] father’s death” (203). Oskar wanted to respond, “No! Of course not, you fucking asshole!” which would show his true feelings, and let him open up his emotions (203). Instead Oskar shrugs his shoulders. It makes me wonder about Oskar and if he’ll ever be able to let his emotions go and deal with them openly instead of burying them in bruises and in his subconscious.

Happiness and Why I'm Not Where You Are - Noah Blumenthal

First, I just wanted to say that the interview with Tomoyasu made me think of Paul D talking to Sethe about the boys in the barn. The interviewer kept asking about the generic facts of the bombing, like the mushroom cloud and the black rain, but Tomoyasu replied with, "I didn't see the mushroom cloud. I was trying to find Masako." It reminded me of Sethe not caring about anything other than, "They took my milk."

Now then, "Happiness, Happiness" and "Why I'm Not Where You Are, 4/12/78" were suprisingly similar, for all their content seemed to be day and night. First of all, they're both written as a stream of consciousness (more so in WINWYA), which makes everything somewhat befuddled, and can give the impression that the narrator is dreaming (again, more so in WINWYA). In the case of Happiness, I got the befuddled feeling from the random insertions of letters to Oskar (especially since none of them included the letters they were responding to) and from the erratic passage of time (even though it was clear at what time everything was happening, it was suddenly announced that "Monday was boring," for example). It didn't have the same effect as bombs everywhere and suddenly being told to shoot animals that escaped from the zoo and running from cellar to cellar and seeing people in the lake and equating thinking with living, but then the better connection to draw would be between the two Thomas Schells.

Second of all, there were small images that were referenced in both chapters. In "Happiness," Oskar sees a clothesline for the first time and Alice black was covered in charcoal. In "WINWYA," Thomas sees a charcoal-stained shirt hanging from a clothes line, and the "charcoal stained" is circled, so the author wanted people to notice it. There's also a line in "WINWYA" that says, "...sometimes I take [an encyclopedia] down and read about other people's lives, kings, actresses, assasins, judges, anthropologists, tennis champions,..." and so on. Apart from one of the Blacks being someone who had wanted to be an actor, that is very similar to what Oskar is doing, only he's visiting people instead of reading a book.

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.

"The Only Animal" (Christina Koenig)

In the chapter titled “The Only Animal,” Oskar discusses some minute details about elephants with Abby Black in order to endear himself to her. Most of the information he relates focuses on elephants’ survival and communication techniques – their ESP-like ability to sense friends and danger from far away and their incredible memory of the voices of dead family members. Unknowingly, Oskar was reaching out to this woman, not just by impressing her with his seemingly limitless knowledge of elephant behavior, but by subconsciously sharing part of his own story, his own personal tragedy, with her. Until Oskar starts explaining about the elephants’ memory of other elephant voices, Abby had not really seemed genuinely interested in his lecture, making only courteous remarks (like “I don’t know” and “sure”) in order to keep the conversation going. But as soon as he mentions how fascinated he is by their ability to recall the voice of a lost loved one, she begins to sense that this ability is somehow very important to this precocious, odd little boy. So she begins to prompt him for more information with more relevant questions: “I wonder what they were feeling…was it with love that they approached the jeep? Or fear? Or anger?...Did they charge?...Did they cry?” Interestingly, Oskar claims not to remember what the article stated about her questions (interesting that such a brilliant mind should forget something that would be so important in such a study…I think Oskar feigned ignorance because he wasn’t ready to discuss something so emotionally wounding with a stranger – just like he avoided talking to Aaron Black earlier). Instead, he latches on to her last query and explains that “only humans can cry tears,” only to be surprised by the photo of the “crying” elephant (which I found quite disturbing, to tell the truth). This revelation that perhaps humans are not the only animals capable of shedding tears parallels his realization that this woman is also in some sort of emotional pain, just like he is. This revelation about what unites people and his later statement about what separates humans from other animals – blushing, laughing, religion, war, and kissing – forces him to rethink his relative significance (the theme introduced some fourteen pages earlier). Although we have seen already that Oskar is very sensitive to the needs and sorrows of others (as exhibited in many of his life-saving inventions and his list of sadness which gets him out of school), it is in this chapter that he begins to understand and be so absorbed in the details of others’ lives that he, for a few moments, “[forgets] the whole reason [he] was there,” and so begins to heal his wounds by realizing and interesting himself in the shared experiences of humanity.

Many Things to Talk About (By: Sarah Wirth)

I'd first like to start out by mentioning how uncomfortable it is for me to read this novel. In relation to media studies, regarding classical Hollywood style of cinema, film viewers are accustomed to a sense of "seamlessness" when watching a movie. Things seem to fit together neatly and follow a linear progression of time. When a film does not fit this expectation, it creates a sense of pleasure with toil. Likewise, reading a novel that does not fit this anticipation of a seamless reading experience tends to have a similar effect on a reader. This concept leads me to wonder what work Foer is trying to do by utilizing such unconventional style: jumbled conversations that lack paragraph breaks between speakers, strings of ideas lending little rhyme or reason to their order, extra spacing between sentences, flash backs composed by Oskar's grandparents. All of these things are doing something, I simply can't put my finger on what that something might be, specifically. I would think them to be symbolic, but of what specifically, I am having a hard time pin-pointing.

Concerning Thursday's reading, this idea of a play on style most notably takes place in the "MY FEELINGS" chapter. I immediately found myself greeted with a sense of discomfort at the outset of this section. The unusual breaks between sentences followed by the censored text in Oskar's grandmother's letter had me re-reading the first page of the chapter before semi-comfortably moving on. What do these breaks mean? Are they simply symbolic of a break in thought, or do they represent a lapse of memory, or holes in his grandmother's story that need filling: places to insert your imagination, giving her story a chance to breath while the reader's mind fills in the blanks with images of who these people are, how they looked, how they felt... These breaks do not occur, though, when the grandmother is quoting a letter someone else has written her. I have also considered what she says on page 83 to be a clue as to what these breaks may represent. She says, in relation to Oskar's grandfather, "His attention filled the hole in the middle of me." Maybe these breaks are now holes from the loss of her son.

I am eager to bring this up in class and see what other people's thoughts are on this. I have yet to come up with a comfortable conclusion to satisfy my curiosity. 

Another thing I couldn't help but notice in this chapter are the parallels between the grandmother's tale of being a curious child and Oskar's. As Oskar searches for clues to find the lock to his father's key, his grandmother searched for an answer as to whom composed the letters from jail many years prior. As Oskar received an oversized white jacket from his grandmother, she received an oversized bracelet from her grandfather because "Its size was supposed to be a symbol of his love" (79). 

Finally, as many odds and ends are on my mind regarding this text, I'd like to bring attention to the recurring theme of flying and birds. In keeps with the "MY FEELINGS" chapter, such references jump up often. "I thought about birds.   Could they fly if there wasn't someone, somewhere, laughing" (78)? "She (Oskar's great-great-grandmother) asked her father for a dove.   Instead he bought her a scarf.   So she thought of the scarf as a dove.   She even convinced herself that it contained flight..." (79). "She (grandmother's sister, Anna) laughed enough to migrate en entire flock of birds" (80). "Birds sang in the other room" (83).  Could all of these references allude to the idea of the plane crashing into the trade center (flying like a bird), or people jumping from the building (flying like birds). I especially think of this allusion from the first quote I listed from page 78, "Could they fly if there wasn't someone, somewhere, laughing?" Or, were these people simply falling to their death?

What Will Oskar Find On His Search? (Allison McDermid)

 

**First of all, I want to say when I started reading this novel, and the point of view changed from Oskar to the grandfather, I generally thought it was the same narrator- just in a different time.  This being said, I am wondering how the grandfather will be brought back into the story, since he was never even a part of Oskar’s life.  Will he just appear within the grandmother’s memory?  Perhaps he will return unexpectedly.  How do his notes get compiled with Oskar’s and the grandmother’s?**

 

After our class discussion of the events of 9/11, I tried to imagine what it would be like to actually be a family member of one of the victims.  Even harder for me to imagine:  being one of the victims.  If I were a victim who jumped out of a window at the World Trade Center, I would jump upon the basis that it was MY decision.  It would be ME taking MY own life and not a terrorist threat to the nation.  After thinking about this, all the people that were lost, and lives that were destroyed, it was difficult for me to put myself in Oskar’s shoes.

 

Oskar seems like a sarcastic teenager, not a nine year old.  He reminds me of a young Dave Eggers, dark and omniscient.  Although he is only a child, he has had to grow up fast with the events of his father’s death.  He holds the tapes that share his father’s last few minutes, however, he chooses to hide these from everyone.  Oskar says his favorite person, besides his father, is his grandmother.   Oskar’s grandmother shares a private scene with Oskar through a letter in the chapter, “My Feelings.”

 

In this letter, Oskar’s grandmother describes how she met his grandfather and how they ended up, eventually, married.  There is a twist with her story, because Thomas, Oskar’s grandfather, was originally in love with her sister, Anna.  They do not discuss the past or Anna, although Thomas is clearly still in love with her.  I think that some of the significance of Oskar’s search lies within these chapters not narrated by him.  I think that if he tries to find where the key belongs, Oskar will either be disappointed completely, or he will find something out about his grandfather, not his father like he thought.  Though Oskar is the protagonist, the real story is not about him, or even the tragedy of 9/11.  The real story lies between the grandparents—or else the other chapters would be from the point of view of the father.  

Oskar as Post-9/11 America

The most interesting part of Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close so far, and specifically this most recently assigned passage, are the parallels between precocious little Oskar and post-9/11 America:
The fictional nine year old Oskar Schell lost his father in the largest attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor, leaving him feeling lost and alone. After finding a key his father had left hidden, and with the word “Black” written on the envelope the key was found in as his only clue, he begins on an investigation throughout the five boroughs of New York City for the mysterious “Black”. Oskar’s task seems overwhelmingly daunting: to knock on the door of everyone with the name “Black” in New York City. And, seeing as how is unsure as to whether the “Black” written on the envelope is even a name, he realizes that I may all lead to nothing. But “even if it was relatively insignificant… [he] needed to do something.” Similarly to Oskar, in the days and months following September 11, 2001, Americans were left frightened, some may even say paranoid. And so there was little questioning done in 2003 when President Bush announced that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was also possibly harboring terrorists, making him a threat to the United States. The planners of 9/11 were yet to be found and the threat of another terrorist attack on American soil was still fresh in their minds. Despite the fact that many were not sure if Iraq had anything to do with 9/11 (weren’t we already in Afghanistan?), many Americans at the time did not ask questions. Because standing by and hoping that the terrorists were found before they found their next target was not an option. Appearing weak and vulnerable was not an option. American foreign policy has been all over the board in the last century, leaving modern Americans unsure of their countries role in the world. As supposedly the world’s only superpower, is it not America’s duty to aid others? And if so, how far does it go? Should the U.S. put its own troops, its own people at risk? But suddenly the United States was attacked and suddenly Americans no longer felt invincible. The days months and years after September 11 have and will continue to be a journey of self-exploration for the United States of America. Much like Oskar’s.

Grandma and Oskar- The resemblance

I found some interesting parallels between the grandma and Oskar. Looking back the grandmas past, she took a letter from the mail which left her with the desire to find answers. She said, “I never told my father or mother about it. For weeks I was awake all night wondering” (76). The man in the letter was in a labor camp and she wanted to find out how he knew her family and why they receieved this letter 15 years later. “I had a letter from everyone I knew. I laid them out on my bedroom floor, and organized them by what they shared. One hundred letters. I was always moving them around, trying to make connections. I wanted to understand” (79).

I am not exactly sure if this connection will be important for the rest of the novel, but the grandma’s experience sound similar to her grandson, Oskar. He has the same motivation and curiosity his mother had. He exemplifies her characteristics with his determination to find the owner of the key as he believes that will give him answers somehow.

The grandma and Oskar rely on each other for everything now. He often slept with the walkie talkie right by him. “She hollered, which woke me up, obviously, so my sleep depended on her sleep, and when I told her, no bad dreams, I was talking to her”(104). It is interesting that Oskar says, “What were we spending so much time doing if not getting to know eachother (105).” I think Oskar feels as though they simply spend a lot of time together, but doesn’t see the true character that lies within both of them.

Two last parts I have questions about are Abby Black and Anna.

I feel as I continue to read the importance arrive having to do with Oskar’s visit with Abby black. What does the desperate man, her husband, represent? Something having to do with tragedy, perhaps.

Last, I understand the connection between Anna, her sister, and Thomas—but what happened to Anna? I am curious to see if their relationship turns into a deeper love or if it simply based off the need for each other.