Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

Hamish Hamilton, £14,99
Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

What about a teakettle? What about little microphones? What about writing the same book again and seeing if anyone notices?

I'm nine years old and I'm an inventor, computer consultant, astronomer, historian, lepidopterist, and I write to Stephen Hawking. I'm no ordinary boy, but the creation of a writer who's trying too hard. That's why you'll find doodles, photographs, pages with just a few words on them, blank pages and very small print littered throughout the text.

Dad got killed on 9/11. We used to look for mistakes in the New York Times together. I picked up the messages he sent from the World Trade Centre before he died, but I never told Mum. She spends most of her time with Ron.

Why I'm not where you are - 5/21/63. I've lost the power of speech, I can only communicate in writing. Then you came along, you whose eyesight was failing and asked me to marry you.

I can feel my prose dazzling from within. I find a key on the bottom of my dad's vase. This is the key to his life. I see the word "black" printed beside it and decide to visit every person called Black in the telephone directory. I will travel the five boroughs on foot and find the entrance to the mystical sixth.

My feelings - Dear Oskar, This is hard to write. Your grandfather could not speak and I could barely see, but we joined our lives in a place of Nothing and Something. He left when I was pregnant with your father. Love, Grandma.

In the evenings, I've been playing Yorick in Hamlet, but Mum only came once because she was out with Ron. In the day I've been walking the streets with a 103-year-old man.

Why I'm not where you are - I lost my love and punctuation in the firestorm of Dresden your grandma was her sister when she got pregnant I had to leave rather than love I wrote to my son everyday but never sent the letters I came back! to New York when I discovered he had died and went to live with your grandma again but you only know me as the Renter what is the sum of my life 466389028364859690707 464532537

The key belongs to someone else. It has no catharsis; in its place there is only sentimentality. My mum loves me after all. My grandpa and I dig up my dad's empty coffin and we place his letters inside. I rewind the pictures of 9/11 and my dad returns to me.

The digested read ... digested

Extremely annoying and incredibly pretentious

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