Extremely Loud, p1 - p107

We began reading "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" this week. The story is told from at least three alternating first person perspectives, though the primary voice is that of nine year old Oskar Schell, a boy who has lost his father in the attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11.

Because the book shifts between Oskar and his paternal grandparents to tell it's story, there is a rather jarring shift in tone and semantics when the narrator changes, in part because of the age difference between Oskar and his grandparents, and also because of their circumstances (his grandfather appears to be mute) and the as yet vagueness of their stories relative to Oskar's. Reading between each narrative at the moment feels like reading two different stories, connected only by the relation between the characters, though there is a sense that the themes of the grandparent's letters will become more relavent to Oskar's search for understanding.

Oskar literally looks for the lock that fits a key his father (maybe) left behind for him before he died, though he is truly searching for a clear and understandable reason why his father is gone.

The book employs pictures to heighten the story-- they appear almost randomly, and seem in some instances to be completely unrelated to the text, though there are patterns (multiples of items, keys, locks, and a repeating image of "The Falling Man"). The images serve as a sort of visual snapshot of Oskar's subconscious. These are the things seen and catalogued, even unknowingly, by the over-stimulated mind of this nine year old boy.

The picture of "The Falling Man", which is shown on page 59, and then close up on page 62 is a very famous photograph taken on September 11th of an unknown man who jumped from the roof of the Trade Center building to escape the fires that were consuming it. If these images ARE Oskar's thoughts, or representations of them, then it is not altogether surprising that he should keep thinking of this unknown man, not only because of his direct and obvious tie to Oskar's father's death, but because as so much is unknown and unfinished to Oskar regarding the death of his father, so too is the identity of this man.

The image itself is stark in it's simplicity- it is divided vertically, the left half a darkly textured wall, save for the middle of the frame, where the lighter teeth of the tower break the textured skin of the surrounding building. The right side of the frame is entirely empty of everything except the man, his body twisted and angled as he falls. The image is more powerful in what it lacks than in what it shows-- the elements have been reduced and halved until there are only three left. The building, what it was and what it stood for, the man, his tragic and untimely death, and the empty expanse that will soon swallow the entirety of the frame.