Not-so-empty Spaces

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is filled with spaces; those spaces are filled with meaning.  It permeates the very fiber of the book.  Space as a conceptual framework of the novel functions similarly to a particular definition of “space:” as the expanse in which all things are located and all events occur.[1]  Foer fills his spaces with parts of the narrative not communicated through the words on the page.  There are literal spaces between the words and even spaces in many of the photographs.  Then there are figurative spaces in between the characters and even within the characters, as they distance themselves with emotions and intimacy. 

To illustrate just how much Foer has infused this framework of space into the novel and how it functions as a theme as well as a mode of narrative, let’s look at two pertinent examples. 

1. The “Falling Man” photograph.

The functionality of the flip-book effect at the end of the novel depends on the space between the pages.  Presented any other way,—even with words—the ending couldn’t achieve the same effect.  The picture is also divided almost in half, with one of the towers of the WTC taking up the left half and the right half being filled with mostly negative space, at least in the first photograph.  As the reader flips the pages, that space is gradually filled with its subject, the falling man, except in this iteration he isn’t falling, but flying upwards.  The final photo in the series shows the lefthand side completely empty—but is it?  In the context of the other photos, we learn that the space is actually full to bursting with meaning in a reversal of the normal conception of how space works.  You may be able to reverse the action of the photograph, but you can never reverse the action of history.  Notice also that the reader has the power to flip the pages in the opposite way, the action of which actually reflects reality.  This would require a reversal of the conception of how books themselves take up space: we think of them as progressing from left to right.  I think Foer places most of what he has created as the theme of space in this one photograph and what he does with it. 

2.  The tower of black text (284).

In what might be the most formally innovative chapter in the novel, Oskar’s grandfather uses multiple techniques of communication that move away from the use of words.  The chapter culminates with a tower of jumbled text that forms as the words themselves move closer and closer together.  This is a significant image in the novel, indicating that spaces are required between words for there to be any meaning at all, not just on a typographical level but also a psychological and linguistic level.  Still, meaning is dependent on the order of words set in the space of the page.  They follow from left to right with a set amount of space in between.  This tower (perhaps a significant image in its own right, without considering its deeper-level implications) eschews that normative conception of space to show that we, as readers, need space in order to read at all.  So if readers need space to understand, so too do the characters need space to “read” each other.  Even with its distancing quality, if the characters come too close together, such as Oskar and Abby Black in a significant passage, then physical features along with emotional features are obscured. 

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[1] Source: dictionary.com

I Want an Infinitely Long Blank Book and the Rest of Time

   

In many ways, Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is a book of parallels, with comparisons between fathers and sons, the bombing of Dresden and the terrorist attacks of 9/11, and the methods of communication employed by numerous characters. Letter writing as a form in particular is privileged throughout the novel, though the use of images where words fail is also very prevalent. A visual parallel which caught my eye was of the two images above, the first of Oskar’s grandfather’s overlapped writing in his last letter to his son and the second of the night sky on the night he and Oskar unburied Thomas Schell’s empty coffin and filled it with all the letters his father had written him but never sent.

The first image is representative of how Oskar’s grandfather has too much to say to “his unborn child”. As he says in an earlier letter, he has “so much to tell…the problem isn’t that [he’s] running out of time, [he’s] running out of room…there couldn’t be enough pages” (132). Because he becomes mute, there is a special limitation on how much he can say, and so in general Oskar’s grandfather resorts to recycling what he’s already said or simplifying his answers to “yes” or “no”. In the case of his last letter however, he simply cannot be concise and so he “[needs] more room, [he has] things [he needs] to say, [his] words are pushing at the walls of the paper’s edge” (277) and become more and more cramped together until they overlap and become incomprehensible.

The second image is signifies how there are no words sufficient enough to express what Oskar is feeling as he and his grandfather unbury his father’s empty coffin. “Because it was so dark, [they] had to follow the beam of [Oskar’s] flashlight” (317) in order to be able to find Thomas Schell’s grave. When “the batteries in the flashlight ran out, and [they] couldn’t see [their] hands in front of [them]” (319) then only the night sky remains, just as unintelligible as the overlapped writing.

With both images though nothing precise can be discerned from them, the emotion of them, the overwhelming blackness as well as the miniscule white space, is clear. There is pain but there is also hope, bleeding through despite the pitch darkness. In my opinion, that is the point of everything Foer is trying to say in his brilliant novel.

Gertrude Stein in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

    At two separate times over the length of the novel, Safran Foer appears to directly allude to Gertrude Stein's famous proclamation, "A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose." It comes first in "My Feelings" on page 76 where the grandmother says "The words were very simple. Bread means only bread. Mail is mail. Great hopes are great hopes are great hopes. I was left with the handwriting" (76). It comes again later when Oskar is talking with Mr. Black from 6A, Mr. Black says "A rose is not a rose is not a rose" (156) among other things.
   As I understand it, the goal of Stein's famous utterance was to separate the word "rose" from all of its various associations, heaped on by writers like Shakespeare for instance, to things such as love and beauty. She was getting at the idea that all the ideas we convey through language and that we think language actually is capable of containing are in reality is ascribed. Language is fundamentally arbitrary; there's no reason why the word "rose" is required to refer to a certain type of flower.
    So, then, I'm sort of curious as to why Safran Foer seems to be so consciously both courting this idea, and potentially disagreeing with it (I say disagree because of Mr. Black's very blatant inversion of it later int the novel). This novel is obviously very concerned with form, but I think it's also concerned with language itself (it seems like a lot/most post-modern novels are at some level concerned with the idea of language itself).
    What I think Foer might be getting at grows out of something I was thinking today during class when we were discussing Extremely Loud in the context of many other post-modern novels. I would say that Safran Foer's novel is significantly less cynical than something like The Crying of Lot 49, in part because instead of making light of the basic problems of communication in the way a lot of post-modern writing does, it tries to outline the ways we get around those problems. I think this is illustrated most clearly in a contrast between Foer and Pynchon treat the space between dialectics. At several times over the length of The Crying of Lot 49 we are presented with binaries, the "yes" and "no" hands for instance. However, at the end of the novel, when Oskar is talking to William Black, Black says that "highs and lows" are "easy" and that finding a balance between the two of them, being "reliable" and "good" is what is both hardest and what is actually to be desired. The place in between binaries is where he, and I would say Foer as well, thinks we should try to exist. On the other hand, at the end of his novel, Pynchon refers to this very same space (or at least a very similar space) as "bad shit," something to be generally avoided.
    So, this all comes back to the "rose is (not) a rose" discussion in this way: Safran Foer possibly wants to reject that words are in fact totally arbitrary (or at least that they can be separated out from their context) and that, as a result, that communication is impossible. He wants to find a sort of middle path through which we might actually find connection with other human beings, and he proposes to do this by simultaneously acknowledging the difficulties of communication (by courting the arbitrary nature of signs, playing around with form in the ways that he does) and constantly trying to circumvent them (by denying the arbitrary nature of signs, by asking us to focus on the "handwriting" and the larger emotional thrust behind acts of communication).

Something from Nothing

Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, both format-wise and plot-wise, explores the meanings of empty spaces and nothingness extensively.  Whether it is the loss of certain physical senses following a tragedy, such as Thomas’ loss of speech; the creation of Nothing Spaces by the grandparents to gain a sense of privacy; or the literal spaces in much of the novel's dialogue; it seems as if the spaces within the novel hold just as much, if not more meaning than the content on either side of the space.  This nothingness is used most often as a sort of coping mechanism; characters use it as an escape, something that allows them to either hide from their grief or hide from fully processing it.  In Thomas’ case, instead of dealing with the loss of Anna, he loses the ability to talk about his feelings or the tragedy at all.  His life with Oskar’s grandmother is heavily structured and built out of rules, what is something and what is nothing.  Eventually, what was something and what was nothing became muddled and confused, “The longer your mother and I lived together, the more we took each other’s assumptions for granted, the less was said, the more misunderstood, I’d often remember having designated a space as Nothing when she was sure we had agreed that it was Something” (111).  After enough time, it is impossible for Nothing Spaces to be truly neutral; they hold immense meaning merely because they are different from Something Spaces. 

Through Oskar’s narrative the reader sees the alienation that can be felt after a loss or tragedy; many times Oskar expresses anger when someone else is upset, or when someone else is not upset enough.  Perhaps it is his immaturity coming into play, but he is extremely egocentric in his feelings of grief, contrasting with the feelings of overwhelming patriotism and unity that was felt in much of the United States following September 11^th.  Through Oskar’s isolation, he creates one huge Nothing Space for himself.  This Nothing Space is made up of the quest on which his father sends him.  By feeling alone in his quest and in his grief, Oskar is unable to process his grief and to truly cope.  By the end of the novel, Oskar has realized that he was not alone in his quest; everyone he met with had anticipated his arrival, and his mother was aware of the quest the whole time.  Once he discovered that his isolation was self-imposed, he was able to develop a more empathetic outlook on the grief of others and begin processing his own feelings.  Though the loss of senses and use of Nothing Spaces seemingly draws the characters away from coming to terms with loss and tragedy, it is through these coping mechanisms that grief can be processed.  Foer sets up these nothing spaces as an alternative to the deindividuation of unification and patriotism after a tragedy.

Jonathan Foer: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Communication is key, a phrase made evident in the character relationships in Jonathan Foer's "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close." Throughout the novel, several characters fail to share their secrets, thoughts, or emotions that lead to a breakdown in communication. Foer includes three different narrative perspectives that allow the reader to see the intimate workings of those characters and how they overall effect one another.

Oskar's first lie he ever tells begins when he starts his venture to visit all the people with 'Black' as a last name who reside in New York.  He believes he is protecting his mother by hiding his mysterious adventure as well as the answering machine with messages from his father on 9/11. While he is honest with those he encounters on his journey, he decides to be dishonest with his mother; failing to realize his mother knows more than she lets on.

Likewise, through the letters from Thomas Schell Sr. to his son and those written for Oskar by his grandmother the reader is given insight to an peculiar marriage, one built upon rules. Both fail to ever truly voice their feelings or thoughts, misleading the other often in the sake of "helping." While there is no blatant coming to terms like Oskar and his mother, this breakdown allows the reader to better understand the significance of their silence. An example of this is seen when the grandfather feels guilt over failing to realize how "crummy" the grandmother's eyes really are; being handed a stack of typed pages telling her life story that are merely blank. Meanwhile, the grandmother confesses to telling him her eyes were crummy because she longed for attention. This is the instance the reader begins to understand more deeply the actuality of the characters' situation, even though both individuals are unable to do so. This commenting on a larger theme of the effect of communication and perhaps the inability to effectively do so in such painful circumstances.

Foer weaves the the relationships throughout this novel beautifully, displaying the powerful effect people have on one another.  Oskar made assumptions, just as the grandparents did about one another.  These assumptions helped formulate their judgements, which could have been different if  they had communicated more effectively with each other. This aspect of the novel, proved to help create a realistic and relatable emotional understanding of each character.  Life is never simplistic-- being full of motives, reactions, and emotions.  However, the role of communication proves to be the pivotal foundation for understanding as seen through these characters.

The Post-9/11 America

                Our discussion today in class really got me thinking about the post-September 11 America. We spent the last two classes talking about the parallels between Oskar’s search for the key’s meaning and the United States’ search for meaning behind the tragedy.  The argument was made that we as a country never dealt with the “why” of the attacks and rather distracted ourselves with our hunt for the people who carried them out.

As I was working on today’s quiz it occurred to me that this parallel could be extended into Oskar’s relationship with his mother. The figure of “authority” throughout the novel, Oskar is under the impression that his mother is ignoring his grief and what he is going through. But he soon learned that she was helping to orchestrate the search for Oskar in or to aid in his grief and in his recovery. It was a distraction, sure, but there’s the sense that it was a necessary distraction, a way for Oskar to heal.

To me it feels like this could be a connection drawn between Mrs. Schell and the American government. After 9/11, American’s were sad, frustrated, confused, and scared – just like Oskar.  So maybe the hunt for Osama bin Laden and Weapons of Mass Destruction was a distraction from the bigger philosophical questions about why such tragedy had to happen, why these people hate us so terribly. But so what if it was? Putting Americans in opposition to such an easily designated evil “other” may have been reductive and misleading and even racist, but it was what it took for Americans to get through the tragedy, to deal with our grief. In the lifetime of our generation, was there another moment where this country was so together? Or could even manage to be on the same side about something, anything? We may not have been paying attention to the bigger picture, to the bigger problems, but it helped to get us through the tragedy and the grief.  

Backwards Dreams

One theme that runs throughout Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is the idea of time running backwards.  This can be seen more prominently at the end of the novel when Oskar imagines the man falling upward and his father coming home.  There are also smaller moments when Oskar asserts this idea.  One example can be seen when Oskar gets into a fight with his mom about whether they should save his father’s razor.  His mom thinks it is trash and Oskar insists that they save it.  He gets so frustrated that he yells, “So it will be OK if I throw away all of your things and forget about you after you die?”  Oskar feels bad about snapping at his mom and thinks “As it was coming out of my mouth, I wished it was going into my mouth.”  I think this recurring idea is significant because it is not just about him wishing something hadn’t happened.  Instead, Oskar literally imagines these things happening in reverse.  This response can be categorized as more active and imaginative than simple regret and I think it reveals more humanity in Oskar.  The emphasis on wishing that something could be reversed is also important because it demonstrates an understanding that it can’t be reversed.  In spite of his difficulties dealing with grief, Oskar is not in denial which would prevent him from moving forward.  Instead, he lets himself feel his frustration and outwardly expresses it.  This is especially significant at the end of the novel after Oskar goes through a transformation process.  Oskar matures greatly by this point after he has connected with the owner of the key and confessed his secret about the answering machine.  He even opens up to Ron and comes to terms with his relationship with his mother.  Despite these changes, Oskar uses a similar coping mechanism to stay close to his father.  Once again, I think that Oskar’s desire to live time backwards is an acknowledgement of his inability to do so.  Oskar has made many new relationships and while his memories stand, he seems ready to face the future.  This does not erase the grief that he feels but it emerges as a coping mechanism for him to move forward.