In Extremely Loud and Incredibly close we follow nine-year-old Oskar Schell as he seeks to live on after his dad's sudden death.
Thoughts...
theme: the power of the brain to develop strategies to cope with the emotional overpowering events.
character development: the first thing we experience about Oskar is his mind. Throughout the entire book, we continue to be impressed by his intellect.
Written in such a way that you don't read the book--you live it. It becomes part of you.
Haunting quotes:
'Even though I knew that there were 161, 999, 999 locks in New York it didn't open, I still felt like it opened everything.' (p. 200)
'She said, "I know about this building because I love this building."...
"What is it about this building?" Mr. Black asked.
She said. "If I had an answer, it wouldn't really be love, would it?" '
Impression: I cried on page 291. Did you? Will you?
Final thoughts: Some readers have been upset with the writing style--lack of traditional paragraph structure, etc. However, I think that this treatment is appropriate. It shouldn't be easy to read this book because it wasn't easy for the narrator to tell his tale.
