Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close: A Novel of 9/11

The book ‘Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close’ features the story of Oskar Schell, a 9 years old clever and precocious boy whose father died in the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center. Before the death, Schell’s father left voicemails for his family although the boy hid them for some reasons. He is further determined to reveal the secrets behind a mysterious key that he connects with the father. A profound analysis of the novel reveals that it explores the grief that engulfed the horrific terrorist attack. Characters in the book collect items memories and people in an effort to divert the attention of the reader from the harsh realities of the event and keep a record of the attack’s memories.

    The novel utilizes a collection of visual devices that are disruptive and thus cushion the readers from the traumatic experiences of the attack. The reader is also exposed to a collection of other of other devastating events such as the Hiroshima and the Dresden bombing which plays the role of creating multiple layers that are epistemological in nature to bring about a constructive meaning. Diverting the attention clears the mind from the images created on planes flying into buildings, tall towers collapsing and people falling with excruciating pain. It is, therefore, true to argue that Foer used the images to deconstruct the national trauma and at the same time construct a form of collective memory upon which the events of the phenomenon will be remembered by the generations to come.

    Oskar, the protagonist in the novel would collect graphic images of various types in order to documents the daily experiences. The tactic was crucial to express the emotions and feelings that could not be put into words. The collection enables the reader to imagine what is going on in Oskar’s mind because the choice of items was in congruence with the mental imperatives. The images utilized include photographs, drawings, paper plane designs, and a leaf of fingerprints. Although the collection of images does not make much meaning to the reader in the first encounters, it is evident that as the events unfold, they are of utmost importance in the understanding of the protagonist’s verbal narrative. The paper plane design reminds Oskar about their joint effort with the late father to make such an aircraft. Stephen Hawking’s photograph serves as an inspiration to the main character because the great ideas in his lifetime work such as ‘A Brief History of Time’.

    A closer look at the collection of images reveals there is a separation of the visual and the verbal representations. The break serves an important purpose disrupt the unity of the narrative and reduce the tension as the readers try to reestablish the connections between the events and make a meaning from the images. The collection of images further creates flashbacks and foreshadowing in order to profoundly understand the operations of the memory. The interplay of the various media requires a non-linear association, a tactic that was well thought out to achieve the intended purposes.

    The collection of images is also an important technique guaranteeing a realistic form of narration. Analogous photographs are vital signs with a good cause and effect referent’s association. Through the photographs, an attentive reader is capable of realizing that Buckminster is represented as the cat in the Fifth-Ninth Street Bridge. Oskar was guilty of not picking up the father’s phone. To create a connection with the father, he is obsessed with collecting objects he could relate to his father. The novel’s copyright pages acknowledge the different photographers who developed the images for different purposes in various contexts. Putting together the collection ensures that the novel embraced realistic approach in narration proving that photographs can be indexed to support the ideas of a fiction story through triggering vivid and easy to relate to memories.

    The event’s in 9/11 as portrayed in the novel through the collection of images helps to create a collective anger in the readers’ minds. They are capable of realizing the evil nature of extremist and radical groups. “We go on killing each other to no purpose!  A war waged by humanity against each other"(Foer, 128). The position was supported by President Bush’s Axis of Evil speech, which identified the enemies of peace in the world. The theme of collection is therefore prevalent in the novel and required a keen attention in order to identify the intended purposes. Jonathan Safran Foer’s high degree of creativity has made the novel remain important in learning about the devastating effects on families that were affected by the terrorist attack.

Work Cited

Foer, Jonathan Safran. Extremely loud and incredibly, close a novel. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt,         2013.