Product Description

Jonathan Safran Foer emerged as one of the most original writers of his generation with his best-selling debut novel, Everything Is Illuminated. Now, with humor, tenderness, and awe, he confronts the traumas of our recent history.

Nine-year-old Oskar Schell has embarked on an urgent, secret mission that will take him through the five boroughs of New York. His goal is to find the lock that matches a mysterious key that belonged to his father, who died in the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11. This seemingly impossible task will bring Oskar into contact with survivors of all sorts on an exhilarating, affecting, often hilarious, and ultimately healing journey.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #744 in Books
• Published on: 2006-04-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

From Publishers Weekly
In this excellent recording of Foer's second novel, Woodman artfully captures the voice of nine-year-old Oskar Schell, the precocious amateur physicist who is trying to uncover clues about his father's death on September 11. Oskar—a self-proclaimed pacifist, tambourine player and Steven Hawking fanatic—is the perfect blend of smart-aleck maturity and youthful innocence. Articulating the large words slowly and carefully with only a hint of childishness, Woodman endearingly conveys the voice of a young child who is trying desperately to sound like an adult. The parallel story lines, beautifully narrated by Ferrone and Caruso, add variety to the imaginative and captivating plot, but they do not translate quite as seamlessly into audio format. Ferrone's wistful growl is perfect for the voice of a man who can no longer speak, but since the listener actually gets to hear the words that the character can only convey by writing on a notepad, his frustrating silence is not as profound. Caruso's brilliant performance as an adoring grandmother is also noteworthy, but the meandering stream-of-consciousness style of her and Ferrone's sections are sometimes hard to follow on audio. Although it is Oskar's poignant, laugh-out-loud narration that make this audio production indispensable.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal
Adult/High School-Oskar Schell is not your average nine-year-old. A budding inventor, he spends his time imagining wonderful creations. He also collects random photographs for his scrapbook and sends letters to scientists. When his father dies in the World Trade Center collapse, Oskar shifts his boundless energy to a quest for answers. He finds a key hidden in his father's things that doesn't fit any lock in their New York City apartment; its container is labeled "Black." Using flawless kid logic, Oskar sets out to speak to everyone in New York City with the last name of Black. A retired journalist who keeps a card catalog with entries for everyone he's ever met is just one of the colorful characters the boy meets. As in Everything Is Illuminated (Houghton, 2002), Foer takes a dark subject and works in offbeat humor with puns and wordplay. But Extremely Loud pushes further with the inclusion of photographs, illustrations, and mild experiments in typography reminiscent of Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions (Dell, 1973). The humor works as a deceptive, glitzy cover for a fairly serious tale about loss and recovery. For balance, Foer includes the subplot of Oskar's grandfather, who survived the World War II bombing of Dresden. Although this story is not quite as evocative as Oskar's, it does carry forward and connect firmly to the rest of the novel. The two stories finally intersect in a powerful conclusion that will make even the most jaded hearts fall.-Matthew L. Moffett, Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Bookmarks Magazine
After his spellbinding first novel Everything is Illuminated (***1/2 Summer 2002), Jonathan Safran Foer seems "trapped in [Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close] by the very tics that made his first one a success" (Chicago Sun Times). The plot structure—quirky boy embarking on a quest for information about a loved one—mirrors that of his debut. And while Foer still displays a "seemingly inexhaustible supply of verbal ingenuity," this time around there is an uneasy balance between the prose and the subject matter (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel). This is, after all, a book about tragedy and loss. Some see Oskar’s oddball evasion of his emotions as affecting and heartbreaking; others see it as evasive and, what’s worse, manipulative. Maybe the wounds of 9/11 are still too fresh.

Technical issues are more cut and dried. Oskar’s voice, for all of its precocity, overall fails to draw the reader in. Instead of portraying the world through Oskar’s eyes, Foer spins the reader around in the boy’s head, a claustrophobic world of lists and fears. The inclusion of photos makes the dearth of visual writing that much more glaring. This flatness extends to other characters as well. This can be forgiven in a book with such a large cast (there are 262 Blacks in the New York City phone book). But many grumble that the caricatures include two main characters, the Schell grandparents.

It is easy to aim critics’ complaints about Oskar’s precocity at Foer himself; all recognize this young author’s great talent. Many admire Foer’s reach for something grand, even as they acknowledge that he hasn’t fully accomplished his task in this novel.

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Buy 10 Copies
Buy this book. Then buy nine extra copies. Give them to your friends and family. They'll thank you for it. I loved this book. It's smart and funny and touching without being sappy.

Great title + great cover = AMAZING book
One of the best books I've read in a very, very long time. I picked it up because the cover looked interesting, and I'm so glad I did. It's heartbreaking, uplifting, encouraging and devestating all in one, sometimes in the same sentence even.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who has recently lost a loved one, and/or is searching for a way to grieve. It's unspeakably amazing and wonderful, with enough heart to put a broken one back together.

LOVED this book
It takes a lot for a book to make me laugh - and I was laughing already during the first paragraph. This book also made me sob.

The story is so well told and the characters are so human that you can't help but become invested in them - you feel their emotions.

As a 20-something female, I loved the use of the narrators voice in this story. You hear the story through the point of view of a child and a grandparent - which seemed very unique to this book.