Nothing to Say

In class today we were discussing how Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a beautiful, experimental novel that can’t be easily articulated. I believe I’ve found at least one “smart” thing to say about it, which is the subtlety of loss the prose expresses. One passage in particular highlights this delicacy:

“Even though Dad’s coffin was empty, his closet was full. And even after more than a year, it still smelled like shaving. I touched all of his white T-shirts. I touched his fancy watch that he never wore and the extra laces for his sneakers that would never run around the reservoir again. I put my hands into the pockets of all his jackets (I found a receipt for a cab, a wrapper from a miniature Krackle, and the business card for a diamond supplier). I put my feet into his slippers. I looked at myself in his metal shoehorn. The average person falls asleep in seven minutes, but I couldn’t sleep, not for hours, and it made my boots lighter to be around his things, and to touch stuff that he had touched and to make the hangers hang a little straighter, even though I knew it didn’t matter.” (36-37)

The most notable aspect is that it took over a year for this child to bring himself to get close to his father’s possessions. There’s a certain… not fear, but anxiousness that comes with getting close to a dead person’s things. It’s not easy to do, but it is a coping mechanism to rifle through his things. It helps the boy to deal with the fact that his dad isn’t there anymore and won’t use that stuff.

I also like how persistent he is in describing everything as belonging to his father. Even though he’s dead and can’t possess any material object anymore, everything that’s in the closet is still his. He doesn’t say the white T-shirts or the metal shoehorn, but it’s all the dad’s. That stuff could stay in that closet for fifty years, and it will still be his. It could all go to a charity organization, but it’ll still be his. Previous ownership takes on a new level of significance because that stuff can only belong to the dad, because it belonged to him when he died.

The random objects in the pockets of the jackets confirm the dad’s life. They speak to the fact that he had taken a cab ride, that he had existed on the earth and met other people, and now he’s not there to. It’s the evidence of a person without the person. The phrase “to touch stuff he had touched” also emphasizes the notion that he was there to use the things in the closet, but now he’s not. It’s uncomfortable to touch a dead person’s things, because you feel somehow morbid, as if you’re violating something or crossing a line that shouldn’t be crossed. But it’s also exciting because you feel closer to the object now that the person it belonged to isn’t there. It transforms to represent that person.

The attempt of organization or fixing things is compulsive and contradictory because it makes you feel better to know you helped out, you made things a little less cluttered, you put a sense of order into life, but it’s doesn’t matter because the person isn’t there to experience that orderliness.

There is a lot more in this passage that I could write about but I think I’ve covered all the main points well enough. With the content of the rest of the novel, including how Oskar interacts with others and the comedy that ensues, undermines this delicate sense of loss. I think that it’s more obvious to people who have lost someone close to them, and this passage alludes to so many feelings and complications that can’t really be explicated easily, well, or concisely. Foer somehow eloquently and effortlessly puts all these emotions into these simple sentences that are so intimate but easy to overlook. Perhaps that’s why nothing can be said about this novel, because moments like this are, honestly, forgettable.