از خوندنش لذت بردم. از عکس‌ها، خلاقیت‌ها، شیوه روایت، جزئیات، ویرگول‌ها، صفحه‌ها، از سکوت‌ها و کلمه‌ها. تماماً برام دلنشین بود.

پرسید: «می‌ترسی؟»
«از چی؟»
گفت: «زندگی کردن از مرگ سخت‌تر است.»

«چی می‌شد اگر آبی که از دوش سرازیر می‌شد مثل ماده‌ای شیمیایی عمل می‌کرد و به ترکیب چیزها واکنش نشان می‌داد، مثل تپش قلب و دمای بدن و امواج مغزی، برای همین پوست بر اساس تغییر حال و هوا تغییر رنگ می‌داد؟ اگر آدم خیلی هیجان‌زده می‌شد، رنگ پوست سبز می‌شد و اگر عصبانی می‌شد، رنگ پوست قرمز می‌شد. طبیعتاً، اگر حس گه‌گوله‌ای بهش دست می‌داد، رنگش قهوه‌ای می‌شد و اگر غصه‌ می‌خورد، رنگش آبی می‌شد.
همه خبر داشتند آن دیگری چه حسی دارد و می‌توانستند نسبت به هم محتاط‌تر باشند. چون آدم دیگر اینجوری هیچوقت به کسی که پوستش کبود شده بود، نمی‌گفت چون دیر آمده، از دستش عصبانی است، اینطوری می‌زدی پشت آدمی که صورتی شده و به‌اش می‌گفتی: «مبارک باشد.»
دلیل دیگری واسه اینکه می‌توانست اختراع خوبی باشد این بود که خیلی وقت‌ها آدم‌ها حس‌های متفاوتی دارند، اما نمی‌دانند چه‌شان شده است. خسته شده‌ام؟ یا شاید فقط دست‌پاچه‌ام؟ این گیجی‌ها حال و هوای آدم را عوض می‌کند و خودش می‌شود حال و هوای شما و آدم گیج می‌شود، اما با این آب ویژه می‌توانید به دست‌های نارنجی‌تان نگاه کنید و فکر کنید؛ من خوشحالم! تمام این مدت من درواقع خوشحال بوده‌ام! آخیش!»

I really enjoyed this movie. It was well done and touching, so I picked up the book. It is a powerful story told, but I think this is an instance the movie is better than the book.

I didn't like the narration of the grandmother and grandfather running throughout the book. I felt the point of view worthy of our time was o Oskar Schell. I wanted the other parts to hurry up and be over. It was strange and didn't seem to have that much import on the story really.

I did like the book. There were some touching parts and there were some funny parts and there were uncomfortable parts. Oskar is 9 years old and he wants to kiss this 40 year old woman.

I do like the idea of this little kid connecting all these different people with a last name of black. Many of them were very lonely and he was able to make them feel not so lonely. I like that idea.

The destruction of the Twin towers is part of the plot in this novel. He goes into thinking what could have happened to those people and he discusses footage that the news did not show of people jumping out of the windows. It is fairly intense. Oskar lost his dad in the attack.

It is a unique little story and I'm glad I read this. It took me a while to finish it, but I'm glad I did. I went back and forth on how many stars. I could give it 3 stars and I could give it 4 stars so I went with this is unique and not like much else out there, so I gave it 4 stars.

There must be something wrong with me. I’m not as smart as my goodreader friends. I lack empathy. My humor is deficient. I have no compassion. And I suck at life.

Of the 40 of you “friends” who read this, this is how you rated it:

5-stars: 18 people
4-stars: 13 people
3-stars: 7 people
2-stars: 2 people
1-star: 0 people

Something wrong with me indeed.

(Or something wrong with all of you.)

No. I didn’t finish it. I value opportunity and freedom too much for that. I listened to it. People tell me if I had read it instead of listening to it I would have liked it more. I now tell them that I don’t care.

I have returned this grouping of compact discs to my local library. They are now safely out of my hands. Its twelve separate discs no longer have to worry about me yelling obscenities at them extremely loudly. They need not be concerned that they get thrown again at the passenger side door, incredibly closely.

So go away Jonathan Safran Foer. Don’t cry for me Argentina. It’s your birthday, don’t cry if you want to. Stop your sobbing. I was crying just to get you, now I'm dying cause I let you -- do what you do down on me. Or not. Okay, please don’t. Seriously, I’ve had enough. You are cheesy and you annoy me. I’m done. So take your forced cuteness and your vegan cupcakes and go home.

Wenn man selbst schon Menschen verloren hat, die einem sehr nahe standen, dann weiß man, was für ein Trauer-Typ ist. Eher still oder laut, alleine oder unter Menschen, klagend oder deprimiert. Die wenigsten von uns werden aber in ihrer Trauer extrem laut sein und versuchen, unheimliche nahe bei Menschen zu sein. Ich bin auf jeden Fall nicht so ein Typ im Gegensatz zum Protagonisten des Buchs. Oskar ist mit seinen 11 Jahren so ein Junge, der wie ein Borderliner seine Trauer auslebt, nachdem sein geliebter Vater im WTC bei 9/11 umkam. Oft liegt er unter seinem Bett und verkriecht sich vor der Welt. Doch dann findet er eine Aufgabe, die er mit großer Akribie nachgeht. Er findet einen unbekannten Schlüssel im Schrank seinen Vaters im Umschlag, auf dem der Name Black steht. Jetzt muss er die über 400 Blacks in New York abklappern, um das Rätsel zu lösen, das ihm sein Vater hinterlassen haben könnte. Die Nadel im Heuhaufen. Und so wird aus dem Jungen mit der Tendenz zum Asperger ein Sucher und Kämpfer, während seine Mutter und seine Oma eher die stillen Trauernden sind.

Die Geschichte wirkt sehr konstruiert, fast schon so unglaublich wie ein Märchen vom Jungen mit dem Schlüssel. Oskars Erzählungen und Rückblicke werden immer wieder von Berichten der Großmutter und anderen Briefen von fremdem Menschen unterbrochen, die in Kriegszeiten Traumata erlebten. Ich hatte etwas Probleme, in die Geschichte hineinzufinden. Zudem ist sie sprachlich sehr einfach erzählt und äußerst amerikanisch in den vielen Redewendungen. What the..? Aber die Konstruktion ist erstaunlich geschickt und so wird auf ganz leichte Art und Weise klar, wie unterschiedlich die Menschen mit Verlust umgehen. Oskar kann sehr anstrengend und verletzend sein, aber am Ende will man den Kleinen einfach nur in den Arm nehmen und ihm wünschen, dass er sein Vater zwar nie vergisst, aber auch Frieden mit dem schlimmsten Tag und seinen verbliebenen Angehörigen findet. Das Buch hat mich am Ende tief berührt, es man sich lange noch beschäftigt und es mich gut unterhalten. Was kann man von Literatur mehr erwarten. Es ist ein ganz besonderes Buch, bei dem sprachliche Finessen keine Rolle spielen. Also Kopf ausgeschaltet und vom ganzen Herzen 5 Sterne.

Nine year old Oskar Schell finds a key among his dead father's things and embarks on a quest to find the lock it fits. Will Oskar Schell's quest give him the answers he's looking for?

Quite some time ago, I watched a fragment of the movie based on this book on a rainy day before deciding I wanted to read the book. Now that I've read it, I'm not sure it was the right choice.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is the story of Oskar Schell, a nine year old possible genius with issues whose father died in the World Trade Center collapse. After discovering a mysterious key, he wanders New York's five boroughs, meeting people and drawing closer to the end of his quest.

I loved the Oskar Schell character, a smart boy who has trouble fitting in, and I loved the idea of a boy on quest. Oskar's relationship with his deceased father was very well done, as was his anger with his mother. However, I found the book to be on the gimmicky side with all the photographs and typographical razzmatazz. Also, I found the elder Thomas Schell to be an unsympathetic character. He ran out on his family. Why is Foer so bent on making us feel sorry for him?

As much as I loved the idea of a nine year old attempting to solve the mysteries behind his father's death, I found the execution far=fetched, but not as far-fetched as the ending. The ending denied the book an entire star for me.

Even so, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was not without its charm. It was an engaging read and had some poignant moments. Three out of five stars.

On top of the already devastating wreckage left from the September eleventh attacks, Foer describes a bittersweet form of intergenerational pain. (It eventually became an unpopular albeit Oscar-nominated film [which days later I watched & was disappointed with]) this is a huge deviation from his true masterwork (for I suppose that one is more universally great and, unlike this one, less personally divisive:) Everything Is Illuminated. It is so radically different and almost as complex and perfect as his first work. (Speaking of which, where & when will we see Foer's 3rd!?!?) Radical because in this one the reader flips through pages in a suspect fervor to navigate a, lets say it, mixed media novel. Will it succeed?

The infinitely creative, but mega precious child's voice is filled with its share of Truth and Whimsy. In this fictional world, suddenly everyone is unrude and all denizens of New York City are complex in a positive way. (...though there is a reason.) Oscar Schell, perhaps the biggest problem I see in the novel (The! Protagonist!), truly reflects a New York City post 9-11 that's probably all too sure of itself for its own good. Because it has to be.

کتاب را خواندم و سپس اقتباس سال ۲۰۱۱ استفن دالدری را دیدم که متاسفانه خوب نبود.
نمی‌دانم چرا و به چه دلیل بعضی از قسمت‌های کتاب سانسور شده بود، مثلا همان پاراگراف اول کتاب که از انتهایش این خطوط سانسور شده‌اند:
Another good thing is that I could train my anus to talk when I farted. If I wanted to be extremely hilarious, I'd train it to say, "Wasn't me!" every time I made an incredibly bad fart. And if I ever made an incredibly bad fart in the Hall of Mirrors, which is in Versailles, which is outside of Paris, which is in France, obviously, my anus would say, "Ce n'étais pas moi!"
*********************************************************************
بی‌خبری سعادت است، نمی‌دانم، اما فکر کردن رنج داشت و به من بگو فکر کردن چی نصیبم کرده بود، فکر کردن من را به چه جای بزرگی رسانده بود؟ من فکر می‌کنم و فکر می‌کنم و فکر می‌کنم، میلیون‌ها بار با این فکرها شادی را از وجودم بیرون کردم و یک‌ بار هم نشد که با این فکر کردن‌ها شاد بشوم. صفحه ۳۶ کتاب
امیدوارم روزی همین تجربه را داشته باشی و برای کسی که دوستش داری کاری انجام دهی، بدون آنکه از کاری که انجام می‌دهی سر در بیاوری. صفحه‌ ۹۹ کتاب
انسان‌ها تنها موجوداتی هستند که سرخ می‌شوند، می‌خندند، مذهب دارند، آتش جنگ را شعله‌ور می‌کنند و با لب‌ها می‌بوسند. بنابراین، این‌جوری نگاه کنیم، هر چه بیشتر ببوسی، انسان‌تری. صفحه ۱۲۷ کتاب
برای اولین‌ بار در زندگی‌ام به این فکر کردم، که آیا زندگی ارزش همه‌ی این کارها را برای زندگی کردن دارد. دقیقاً چه چیزی ارزشمندش می‌کند؟ این که آدم برای همیشه بمیرد و چیزی را حس نکند و رؤیایی نبافد، چه چیزش وحشتناک است؟ چه چیز رؤیا بافتن و حس کردن این‌ قدر خوب است؟ صفحه‌ی ۱۸۱ کتاب
یک عالم آدم وارد زندگی‌ات می‌شوند و می‌روند! صدها هزار آدم! مجبوری در را باز نگه داری که بتوانند وارد شوند! اما معناش این است که باید هم بگذاری بروند! صفحه ۱۹۱ کتاب
اگه خورشید منفجر شه تا هشت دقیقه هیچ‌ کس متوجه ماجرا نمی‌شه چون هشت دقیقه طول می‌کشه تا نور به ما برسه، تا هشت دقیقه زمین همچنان روشن می‌مونه و گرما شو حفظ می‌کنه. یک‌ سال از فوت بابام گذشته بود، احساس می‌کردم اون هشت دقیقه داره کم‌کم تموم می‌شه. فیلم اقتباسی ۲۰۱۱، دقیقه ۱۲.
If the sun were to explode, you wouldn't even know about it for 8 minutes because thats how long it takes for light to travel to us.
For eight minutes the world would still be bright and it would still feel warm.
It was a year since my dad died and I could feel my eight minutes with him... were running out.

According to E. Wilson 'No two persons ever read the same book.' I love an author that allows a story to just unfold; that leaves me to draw my own conclusions. I love that it wasn’t just about 9-11 but also war torn Dresden and Hiroshima. Well my spin is this is probably the most powerful anti-war book I’ve ever read.
The stream of consciousness writing style is the perfect choice. It’s lyrical and appropriate, just go with it. It’s not depressing; in fact parts of it are really funny. Then again, I’d be lying if I didn’t warn you - it will punch you in the gut. Oskar is such a little charmer (particularly with the ladies), a heartbreaking combination of pure innocence & genius; a compulsive inventor gifted with that enviable ability to think outside the box. He dreams up everything from portable pockets and birdseed shirts to biodegradable cars & skyscrapers with roots; yet never imagines any kind of weapon, never fantasizes revenge. He loses the most wonderful father during 9-11 yet somehow remains himself. A survivor that emerges wounded but not shattered, perhaps by choosing to transfer all that bottled up love for his lost father to others.
It’s not the perfect novel, what is? I’ll nit-pick, I got lost with the 1st person narrative switching - the grandparents were over-the-top bizarre. Trivial complaints, if it bugs you just skim over those parts, there’s plenty of magic.

It’s strange but I finished this book feeling cautiously hopeful. I like to imagine 9-11 could have spawned an Oskar. A free-thinking genius bound & determined to invent a world without war – heavy boots and all.

memorable quotes:
"She laughed enough to migrate an entire flock of birds. That was how she said yes”
“I knew him, Horatio; a jerk of infinite stupidity, a most excellent masturbator in the second-floor boys’ bathroom – I have proof.”

كل منا يبحث عن شيء ما
و لكن هل خطر في بالك ان كلنا نحلم باسكات الصوت المدوي لتلك اللحظة المخزية؟
لحظة قرار اخذناه في لحظة غباء و صار مستحيل تغيير تبعاته؛قد لا يعرف به احد؛ َلكن يظل صوت الخزي و الندم مدوي و قريب جدا
أوسكار طفل في التاسعة لامع الذكاء يعاني من متلازمة  اسبرجر التوحدية؛ يفوز بأفضل أب من الممكن أن نحلم به جميعا

اب يستثمر اعراض مرضه في تنمية ذكاءه؛ يصنع منه مستكشفا عبفريا و بالطبع العالم لن يترك له مثل هذا الاب و يموت بشكل مأساوي في انهيار البرجين في ٢٠٠١.
فهل يترك رسالة او مهمة استكشافية اخيرة لاوسكار ؟

لا تيأس، فعادة ما يكون آخر مفتاح في مجموعة...هو المناسب لفتح الباب
ينطلق أوسكار بعد عام من حداده المصدوم: بمفتاح باحثا في رحلته عن باب يفتحه به
يقابل بشر وراء أبواب تخفي أحمال يرزحون تحتها
يقابل الوحدة َ و الضياع و الصمت و الخوف و الأهم: انعدام الأمان

الفيلم أجمل بكثير من الرواية التي لم تترجم بعد
بابطال مختارين بعناية لن تتكرر

توم هانكس بأداء اسطوري للأب الذي لن ينسى َ
ساندرا بولوك بصمتها الصاخب
و الجد ماكس فون سايدو بسكوته المفزوع ويديه المعبرتين

و اخيرا الطفل توماس هورن بلغته الغير نمطية َ؛عيناه التي تحكي الكثير.. والذي اختفى في شبابه و خسرته السينما

قد افلح السينارست إريك روث في كشف غموض الرواية بصفحاتها الممتدة بدون فواصل و تحتوي بعضها على أرقام لصفحات متتالية مثل هذه لتوضيح النمط التكراري للمتوحدين

او عشرين صورة متكررة تكّون فيلم متحرك مثل هذه

ليؤكد لنا أوسكار..ان فاقد الشيء؛ من الممكن أن يكون أفضل من يعطيه
و يقنعنا بان نكف عن إيجاد سبب و معنى في عالم يخّيرك بين  الأمان و العدل

One of the most wonderful and thought provoking legacy of 9-11 books that I've read. The book starts not long after 9-11, when/where the father of the 9 year old narrator Oskar was killed. Events come to pass in which he finds a key, a key that sets him off on an investigation all over New York, with the aid of several other individuals that cross his path, seeking answers about himself and his 9-11 trauma.

There is also another story being told at the same time, using letters from Oskar's grandfather and grandmother to his father. It all ties in nicely, and is a pretty ingenious way for showing the reader an example of how trauma can be worked through. 8 out of 12.

2007 read

Dear Kim,
Thank you for making me read this, you book-pushing, carney-loving, skee ball fiend. You were right. I wish you lighter boots*, always.

Dear Everyone Else,
Let’s get this out of the way first: There are pictures. They’re intended to be clever and, at times, to clutch at your heart. It’s gimmicky. I don’t care.

Granted, I read this at a time when I may have been more vulnerable to schmaltz. My mother had recently passed away. I was on a journey, searching for the parts of her life that had been lost to me, filling in the blank pages of our relationship. Like Oskar, Jonathan Safran Foer’s nine-year old protagonist, searching the city for the lock to fit his father’s key. His father was lost on September 11th. I say lost because that’s what he was. Lost. Gone, missing, not found. Oskar is trying to make sense of his loss and, in the process, other things are found. The book is made up of letters from an absent father to the son he never knew, letters from a grandmother achingly desperate to be something to someone, and at the center is Oskar’s story. I mentioned his quest for the lock to fit his father’s key. Systematically, scientifically, he works to make his father’s key significant. He needs his father to have been something to someone. Necessary.

While it irks me an entire page has been wasted on a picture of a tennis player, it also makes a very clear point to me: Words are important. A picture is not worth a thousand words. Not that picture, anyway. We need the exchange of words with one another; communication. Loquaciousness, even. We need to hear them, read them, write them on our skin, speak them with our mouths, our hands, our eyes, our mouths again. We need the words.

Why didn’t he say goodbye?
I gave myself a bruise.
Why didn’t he say “I love you”?

…you didn’t sound like someone who was about to die, I wish we could have sat across a table and talked about nothing for hours, I wish we could have wasted time, I want an infinitely blank book and the rest of time…

Foer has a message I can’t afford to ignore. When someone is something to you, tell them. Tell them how your life is better because of them. Tell them how you are better with them. Tell them you love them.

There was never a right time to say it.
It was always unnecessary.
The books in my father’s shed were sighing.
The sheets were rising and falling around me with Anna’s breathing.
I thought about waking her.
But it was unnecessary.
There would be other nights.
And how can you say I love you to someone you love?
I rolled onto my side and fell asleep next to her.
Here is the point of everything I have been trying to tell you, Oskar.
It’s always necessary.

It's always necessary.




*Read the book and you'll know what we're talking about. Maybe.

I read the first chapter and stopped. I am pissed off. I have rarely felt so manipulated as a reader in my life, and I think the manipulation is more about the way it is written than what it is written about, although that is, in itself, fairly manipulative. If this is how Foer usually writes, I want no part of him or his work. Still, if this was a short story and I reached the point where the Dad is about to talk to his son before the towers collapse, I would be excited by the cleverness of the moment, would look forward to the conversation, and be pleased in anticipation of the genuine anguish that must be coming. But it's not a short story. It's the first chapter in what is a pretty long book, and I imagine all manner of excruciating crapness is to come. Couple that with a first person narrative in the voice of a "precocious" kid -- so precocious, in fact, that he sounds like a thirty-something man trapped in a kid's body rather than a genuinely precocious kid (I often suspect, when these impossibly precocious characters appear, that the author wants to write as a child but realizes he isn't good enough, so he makes them precocious so he can just write as themselves at their least disciplined and pretend it is a child) -- and I want to tear my eyeballs out after only twenty some-odd pages. Even worse, I didn't know this was about the WTC attack until I got this to the cash register. I just saw it on sale, knew it had good buzz, liked the cover and thought, "What the hell?!" I need to reexamine my impulse buying, apparently, because I would not have bought this book if I'd known what it was about before I did. I think, too, that if I keep reading this book it is going to be lucky to get one star, so it's probably best to leave it where it is for now: on my to-read shelf, buried under that copy of Shogun that's been there for a decade.