EL&IC Post #1

I noticed that some of my posts didn't post, so I am re-posting them and posting some new ones that I had forgotten to post.

Post #1

Though I am enjoying the story itself, my favorite part of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is the use of photographs, pictures and imagery. Some imagery, such as birds and doorknobs, is repeated throughout the book. The author Jonathan Safran Foer uses it as a device not only to show us pictures, but to experience what the characters are experiencing the moment they experience it.

Oskar has a book called Things That Happened to Me. This book is a diary of sorts; it shows us his inner thoughts and explains visually the moments that are the most important to him. We may not remember the conversation about the world being flat, but Oskar does.

            “Then a woman in the back of the room raised her hand and said, ‘What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.’ So the scientist asked her what the tortoise was standing on. And she say, ‘But it’s turtles all the way down!’ (Safran Foer, 11)”

            For some reason, this quote and story stands out to me more than the other sections of the book have. It was, somehow, important to Oskar, too, based upon the use of imagery in his “Things That Happened to Me” book. This seemed important to him because, to him it “shows how ignorant people can be” (Safran Foer 11).

Truth

The journey of finding the key is now over for Oskar. “I didn’t know what to say. I found it and now I can stop looking,” gives the reader a sense that Oskar doesn’t know what to do now that he has found the key. Now that he knows where the key goes, he has no reason to keep searching for it, nothing to look forward to or to hope and fanaticize over. (Foer 302 found it and it had nothing to do with Dad? I found it and now I’ll wear heavy boots for the rest of my life,” shows that Oskar is disappointed that the key did not have anything to do with his father other than the fact that he bought a vase which unknowingly held the key. (Foer 302) I believe that Oskar was looking for the key and had hopes to indeed find something that led to his dad. The readers also felt the same because Oskar takes us on this journey of discovery that the reader also comes along with as well. So when I found out that the key had no emotional connection to his father, I was a bit disappointed to because the readers, like Oskar were hoping for something personal. Both the reader and Oskar were let down. I believe that Oskar will “wear heavy boots” for the rest of his life because he now has to carry the burden of disappointment from now knowing where the key goes. Oskar got to meet new people and help them along the way. Perhaps he enjoyed this because he could think of his dad and hope that his dad had left something special for him after he passed on maybe like a secret message. He says,” I wish I hadn’t found it,” because now he cannot dream about what is in it because knowledge has taken all of his hope away. (Foer 302) If he hadn’t found it, he could still fanaticize about it. Everything is over so now there is nothing for him to do. It’s like reading a book with an impactful ending; you don’t know really what to do with yourself now that it is over so you have to contemplate the ending. In a conversation between Oskar and his grandfather Oskar says “I found it and now I can’t look for it.’ I could tell he didn’t understand me. ‘looking for it let me stay close to him for a little while longer,’” shows that by Oskar looking for the key, it was like his father was there watching over him and memories of his father were alive.  (Foer 304) His grandfather goes on to say “’But won’t you always be close to him?’ I knew the truth. ‘No,’” meaning that Oskar knows that as time goes on, as he gets older, he will drift away from his father becoming nonexistent in his life. (Foer 304) no doubt Oskar wants to still be connected with him. Anybody who has ever lost a loved one knows that over time, that person will become only a faded memory and so you have to keep strong and go on with your life because time does move on. 

     After finishing Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close and reviewing it, it seems like the book largely works to illustrate the elaborate distractions made to avoid reflecting on the ways we fail to communicate internal human emotions, which, I think, kind of works as a trauma in itself. It made me think a lot about Heidegger's Being and Time, and how we are constantly dealing with idle chatter (things to distract/desensitize us from the idea that everyone will die one day), and living life inauthentically. Grandfather Thomas marries Oskar's grandmother to avoid dealing with the death of Anna and their unborn child, Oskar's grandmother spends a major portion of her life creating rules, and typing blank pages, and Oskar spends his time in his head, inventing and bruising himself. In the book, Oskar's grandmother says, "I regret that it takes a life to learn how to live, Oskar. Because if I were able to live my life again, I would do things differently. I would change my life." This is really a sad thought. If proper language existed to communicate our feelings, we wouldn't have to create so many harmful distractions.

Living Backwards

Wow.

What an amazing book. How captivating, sad, and unreal it all is. Many books, articles and stories about “the worst day” (Foer) are riddled with facts, figures, sadness and politics. This is one of those truly heartwrenching stories that gets to the truth of trauma; not just as experienced during 9/11, but as experienced in all the tragedies in all the world from many different perspectives.

The ending of the book is beautiful. I thought I would feel cheated when the book ended because I never found out what was in the box that the key opened. I felt cheated that it wasn’t Thomas Schell’s key at all; it was merely an accident the key ever ended up in Oskar’s hand.  The whole book was, on the surface, about a child searching for a lock that this key would open, but even though we never find out what is inside the box that the key opens, I still feel satisfied and I feel that the book resolved itself completely.

The last few paragraphs of the book, where Oskar was “inventing” that everything could go backwards, were the most heartbreaking of them all. Every one of us has wished that, just once, we could go back to before someone close to us has died. We could tell them we loved them. We could tell them they meant everything to us. We could live differently; even tell them not to do the thing that will kill them the next day. The man would fall back up into the towers. The planes would fly away as smoke gets sucked back in. Everyone would be safe. Everyone would be loved.

We all have felt this need. It is a trauma victim’s path to always re-live their encounter, and even live the days or moments just before the event began. Oskar is a deeply traumatized boy – and his grandmother is traumatized, his grandfather, his mother – and he is surrounded by much sadness and grief. How can a child even begin to understand those things around him?

The most poignant moment for me is, after reading the backwards passage, I saw those pictures. Almost like a flip-book, each picture had the man falling back up into the tower. Oskar hoping it was his father. Oskar is trying to reverse time; to bring his father home. “Where we would be safe” (Foer 326).

Annie Kominek

Artavius Veasey Post #13 EXTRA CREDIT: I don't believe in God...

I must say reading this book from Foer was one of my favorite this semester. I love the illustrations through the book and especially the flip book at the end with the man falling from the building in reverse, very touching on how Oskar wish he could turn back time and have his farther back home. But coming to he end of the book Oskar finally seems like he get closure from his fathers death;

“I don’t believe in God, 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. In my only life, she was my mom, and I was her son.” (Foer, 324)

When Oskar expresses his appreciation for his mother here, the reader understands that his emotional journey has been successful. The quest was never about the key; it was about making peace with his father's memory, learning to accept that emotional intangibles have an influence on his life. In many ways, Oskar chooses to take this final Reconnaissance Expedition (for the lock) because it allows him to pursue a tangible goal rather than face the more "complicated" emotional reality represented by his Mom, who still lives and who reminds him of his grief. The contradiction he expresses in this quote show that he has realized what his father always wanted him to: life is made of both scientific fact and emotional reality. There are no easy answers to anything important. Ultimately, what matters is how we see the world, whether we allow ourselves to be optimistic, to believe in love and happiness, or pessimistic. Oskar finally chooses the former, feeling comfortable with the straight-forwardness of his love for his mother. That is more important than the lack of clarity to a "complicated" situation like the tragedy of 09/11 and his father's death.

corrections

Although we it was apart of last class’s reading, and we already discussed it some over class, I wanted to take this last blog to talk about the red, correctional markings in Thomas’s letter “WHY I’M NOT WHERE YOU ARE 4/12/78”.   Originally, I had no idea why these corrections were made, and dismissed it as just another layer of the story line that might reveal itself later on.  Then I wondered why only this later letter, and not the others? Considering the content of this letter, I realized it dealt mostly with Thomas’s relationship with Anna.  As the letter goes on, the corrections become more and more often and red ink begins to cover the pages.  The last few pages, marked in red the most, are of the story of Thomas leaving Anna for the last time.  I think that as Thomas retells this story, he see’s all of the mistakes that were made and wishes he could go back and correct them, so he does so in his writing.  The last line of this letter is of Thomas signing out, “I love you, Your father” and it is circled as if it is to be corrected, a mistake...  I feel as though Thomas see’s the life he lived without Anna as a mistake as a whole, including the false love towards his wife and unborn son.

when looking back

This book has not been a easy read for me, the way i wen t through 9/11 was not the same as someone from new york did. However reading this has made me go through the loss people felt through different traumas and through out reading this book I thought it was good just something i would never read again. I don't like to be sad and this book made me sad really all the books have done that however as I read the final chapter in the book I couldn't help but smile at the ending because oskar get the closer he needs because he is finally done searching and is now talking with his mother about the day his father died. He was finally able to cry and let it all out, that doesn't  mean the trauma of his fathers death will be gone it just means that it will be a little less hard. the line "I'll be happy and normal." means that he knows he is not like everyone else but he is willing to try hard to be happy and active in life. That is a amazing thing because "normal" people don't even make that effort sometimes they are not willing to accept anything different then from what they are. which i find very very sad.