Category: Reflections

I can’t help but feel that in its own way The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is a magical realist novel. I hadn’t heard the term used before we talked about it in reference to Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, but having read several of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s novels, I think I understand well… Continue reading Magical Realism?

I seem to be having trouble thinking of an even slightly cohesive topic for this week’s blog post.  As I seem to be really into Walter Benjamin lately, I keep going back to that “constellation” thing we discussed in class.  On second thought, since I’m using Benjamin extensively in my final paper, I don’t want… Continue reading Genres

remember when we were reading The Road and we had a discussion on the iconic coca-cola? Here is a picture of the bottles coca-cola has used from 1899 to 1986. Just wanted to share because it went along with what we were saying at the time: the permeance and the symbolism of this well loved… Continue reading just a thought

It seems like, from various blog posts and class discussion the past couple wks, that we all generally can agree that EL & IC is a difficult book to discuss for some reason. However, our reasons for that seem to be different. From my perspective, I find Foer’s work to be difficult in analyzing, not… Continue reading EL&IC final thoughts

Last week I was unable to write a blog post about Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close because I honestly felt like all of the important things about it were talked about in class. Granted, there were things that I didn’t understand about the book, and questions that have gone unanswered, but I feel like this… Continue reading Talk about having nothing to say….

When I first started this book I absolutely hated it. Hated it, hated it, hated it. It was to the point that I was pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to make myself read anything further. I gave it a second try, and to my shock, I am absolutely insane about it. I love it… Continue reading extremely loud and incredibly close- bonus blog!

Well, I have to say that I was surprised at how much I absolutely loved this book. Not only was it my favorite book that we have read in the class, but I would go so far as to say that it has probably become my favorite book of all time. Unfortunately, however, I am… Continue reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Mysteries

This has been my favorite book this semester. I like the ending, although I think finding the closure is optional to the reader: and if optional, then stretch for it. On the last page, 326, I noted this word to be key: backward. Within the series of everything going backwards:  Backward to the subway, backward… Continue reading Optional/Make up : EL & IC

The book that EL&IC reminds me of from the list of books we have read for Disaster Fiction is White Noise.  It has the same informal tone and wording, and it is humorous and lacking a conventional structure of a novel.  When I first started reading this book, it brought back echoes of another novel… Continue reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

I’m not sure I understand how EL&IC works as a a whole. The various bits and pieces, such as the images scattered throughout and the pages of other people’s letters and notebooks, while referenced in the various bits of narrative, feel like puzzles to me. I constantly pore over the pictures, the red-circled edits, the… Continue reading frustration

Reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly, I was reminded of a class I took last year spring semester, Bookish Beasts, a special topics creative writing course taught by Professor Tichy. It was a daunting class, I admit I had no idea it was going be so demanding for imagination and creativity, but I learned that book… Continue reading Bookish Beasts, Erasure, and Red Ink

One of the most intriguing and impressive elements of Foer’s writing style in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is the way he utilizes segmentation to more dynamically hook the audience. Though EL&IC is different from anything I’ve watched by Tarantino for obvious reasons, Foer’s segmentation strongly reminds me of the way Tarantino sets up his screenplay. They both refuse to be… Continue reading Segmentation in EL&IC

One of my favorite aspects of this book is the fact that for his age Oskar is so developed. He is extremely mature, eccentric and creative, far above what is expected of normal 9-year-olds.  I feel that this may affect readers opinions of the book because they may question how believable the plot is. While… Continue reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

*Project Realism: This post is indebted to Sara who introduced the idea that Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is a work of psychological realism. I was inspired by her re-naming. Is the peculiarity of the novel a matter of language? I propose that it can be understood as a work of poetic realism. In addition… Continue reading Poetic Realism