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).