Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close Analysis

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer.

The novel begins sometimes after the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York City. Here we meet Oskar Schell, a nine year old boy, who lost his father in the terrorist attack on the twin towers. He fells a great loss towards his father. They had a very close relationship.

“Dad?” “Yeah?” “Could you tell me a story?” “Sure.” “A good one?” “As opposed to all the boring ones I tell.” “Right.” I tucked my body incredibly close into his, so my nose pushed into his armpit.

He longs for his father, which the following passage will illustrate. Oskar goes into his father’s closet because it smells of him, he misses him. He can’t talk to his mother about it, because he thinks she doesn’t feel sorrow anymore:

“Even though Dad’s coffin was empty, his closet was full. And even after more than a year, it still smelled like shaving. I touched all his white t-shirts. I touched his fancy watch that he never wore and the extra laces for his sneakers that would never run around the reservoir again. I put my hand into the pockets of
I used to talk and talk and talk, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut, the silence overtook me like a cancer….I tried to tell the waiter, The way you just handed me the knife, that reminds me of ---“ but I couldn’t finish the sentence, her name wouldn’t come, she was locked inside me, how strange, I thought, how frustrating, how pathetic, how sad, … “And” was the next word I lost, probably because it was so close to her name, what a simple word to say , what a profound word to lose…”Want” was a word I lost early on-which is not to say that I stopped wanting things-I wanted things more- I just stopped being able to express the want….I lost “come”…I lost “fine”…I lost “shame”…I lost “carry”, I lost the things I carried, ”daybook”, “pencil”, “pocket change”, “wallet”-I even lost “loss”…and then I lost “I” and my silence was complete. (Page 16