Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

By: Jonathan Safran Foer

Narrated by: Jeff Woodman, Barbara Caruso, Richard Ferrone

Length: 10 hrs and 57 mins

Publisher's summary

Jonathan Safran Foer's best-selling debut novel, Everything Is Illuminated, wowed critics on its way to winning several literary prizes, including Book of the Year honors from the Los Angeles Times. It has been published in 24 countries and will soon be a major motion picture. Foer's talent continues to shine in this sometimes hilarious and always heartfelt follow-up.

Nine-year-old Oskar Schell is a precocious Francophile who idolizes Stephen Hawking and plays the tambourine extremely well. He's also a boy struggling to come to terms with his father's death in the World Trade Center attacks. As he searches New York City for the lock that fits a mysterious key his father left behind, Oskar discovers much more than he could have imagined.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is a masterfully imagined novel from an author Time hails as "a certified wunderkind".

©2005 Jonathan Safran Foer (P)2005 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

• 2005 Audie Award Nominee, Multi-Voiced Performance

"Piercing and so funny." (The Bookseller)
"[Oskar's] first-person narration of his journey is arrestingly beautiful, and readers won't soon forget him." (Booklist)
"Jonathan Safran Foer's second novel is everything one hoped it would be: ambitious, pyrotechnic, riddling, and above all...extremely moving. An exceptional achievement." (Salman Rushdie)
"Brilliant....Unafraid to show his traumatized characters' constant groping for emotional catharsis, Foer demonstrates once again that he is one of the few contemporary writers willing to risk sentimentalism in order to address great questions of truth, love, and beauty." (Publishers Weekly)

Almost unbearably touching...

I have heavy, heavy boots from the story ending, but many $100 smiles in my heart.

Strange look into a unique mind.

This book had humor, and a good story about a boy with an unusual mind. Easy listening, and light enough to enjoy. I would recommend this book to most people who are interested in other humans. I may even listen to it again.

Expected sentimentality, but pleasantly surprised

The first thing I thought when I heard the premise of this story -- boy loses dad in 9/11 -- was that it would be another story capitalizing on the extreme emotions of that day. While we all remember emotional reactions, looks back at the subject tend to be schmaltzy and overdone, showing the tears and fear but somehow missing the "thing," the reality of the event, exchanged for melodrama.

Luckily, this story was not one of "those" stories. Instead, it's a story of a boy, coping, who in a quest to learn something about his father meets people all across New York. The community he finds -- a gathering of also-lonely people -- reveals that even within the often-isolated nature of a big city, people are willing to connect.

I was less thrilled with the subplot. His grandmother's story of love and abandonment, of avoidance and loss of language, seemed directly contrary to her grandson's ability to reach out and connect. Perhaps that was the point, but her story just made me depressed.

Still, the book is worthwhile. Well read by a small cast, the audiobook tells the true story of tragedy: what comes after. Now I just need to see the movie and see how it compares.

Sad and depressing story...great performance!

I'm not sorry I listened to the book but it made me very sad during the days I listened. At times it just seemed downright weird. But the characters were well developed and the book was well written. The narrators were excellent.

Heartfelt review of a heartfelt look

It’s like, it’s like it completes the mourning in me that I needed to do for the souls of 9/11 even though I wasn’t there and didn’t have anyone I Love die there. But being human, my soul connects with all other souls, and because of the great pain that so many experienced on that horrific day and many days thereafter, there’s an amount of grieving I needed to do with them. I didn’t cry, but I experienced, albeit secondhand. I felt. And I feel like, with this book, I traveled with heavy boots all the way through the grieving process until, as the story ended, I was wrapped up with all humanity, warm and snuggled up with my heroes, with all of everyone’s heroes, reading all of our favorite books about places that float away and children who dream dreams, tucked in, looking up at the plastic stars, back in a safe place again.

Great Story

What made the experience of listening to Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close the most enjoyable?

The story took me back to the events of 9/11 and the horrific imaging. To listen to the events from a child's perspective was gripping.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

It started a little slow, but definitely picked up.

Incredibly good book club material!

For me, this was a completely new take on 9/11 from the eyes of three very damaged people. At times sad and at times funny, the book gave insight into ways 9/11 and, to a lesser extent, WWII, impacted people. So much good material to discuss in a book club! This recording will not disappoint.

Astoundingly creative!

Would you listen to Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close again? Why?

Maybe. I don't usually listen to the same book twice.

What does the narrators bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

3 narrators are very realistic without being overly dramatic.

If you could take any character from Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Oscar

A book to remember

This book is the kind that makes you think. The book is about one family that lost someone in 9-11 and also about the effects of the Dresden firebombing to that same family's grandparents It is about as sad a subject that anyone could ever write about but Jonathan Safran Foer is such a talented writer that he knows how to pepper the book with tenderness and laughter. I will most likely remember this book for a long long time because it is so well done and it makes one think but it is not for everyone.
Loved the narrators.

Superb, heartwarming, and about more than 9-11-01

What made the experience of listening to Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close the most enjoyable?

Excellent story telling, excellent narration. I can see why a first-person narration such as this one would make a better book (and especially a better audiobook) than a film. The story is in the characters' voices.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Oscar -- the voice of this boy will be with me for a long time.

Which scene was your favorite?

Mr. Black vs. Tree ... when he says