‘Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close’ to being the best book you’ll ever read

Last summer, I saw the film “Everything is Illuminated,” starring Elijah Wood. I have seen it at least five times since and tell people it is my favorite movie. Its gorgeous imagery, quirky characters and freshness captivated me. I recently learned this movie was based on a book by Jonathan Safran Foer, who also wrote “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” – my new favorite book.\nThe story is about Oskar, a 9-year-old boy who has just lost his father in the collapse of the World Trade Center. He finds a key in a vase in his father’s closet with the name “Black” on the back of its envelope. He then sets out to find every person in the five boroughs of New York City who has the name. He meets a new person every weekend and gradually learns to cope with the loss of his father. On his way, he also finds his long-lost and enigmatically silent grandfather who lived through the bombings of Dresden during World War II.\nThe novel is genius and beautiful. The prose is strikingly original, and the insight into Oskar’s thoughts reveals the author’s depth. The boy is a prodigy, and in moments of agitation, he “invents” items such as wedding bands that would take the pulse of their wearers and send signals to cause a red light to blink on the other’s ring. Foer’s creativity is astounding.\nOskar also keeps a scrapbook of “things that have happened to me.” Foer includes actual illustrations from Oskar’s book. There is a delicious scene in the middle of the novel where, when one of the “Blacks” meets Oskar, he turns on his hearing aid for the first time in several years. The first thing Mr. Black hears is a flock of pigeons leaving his windowsill. The following page has a full-spread black-and-white print of birds taking flight. My own mental picture combined with the illustration was so evocative that it literally brought me to tears.\nI hope this book will be made into a movie, and I pray that Foer is not done with his writing career. The man is truly a master. I highly recommend this book. It is a quick read. I finished it in three hours because I was unable to set it down. “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” touches deep chords of human sorrow and compassion, and it may be one of the best books you will ever read. I know that I consider it as such.