Word: oskar
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...truth, though, is that Oskar Schell, the nine-year-old New Yorker, is ultimately too affecting to remain annoying...
...example, the contemplation of how Oskar might train his anus to speak instead of fart is just one of a multitude of Oskar’s fantasized inventions. Another is a birdseed shirt, so that when wingless humans need to “make a quick escape,” birds, pecking at the seed, can lift the wearer away from danger. A third is an elevator which stays in the same place while the skyscraper it serves moves up and down so that “if you’re on the ninety-fifth floor, and a plane...
...hand, Oskar’s post-Sept. 11 life centers around trying to make sense of what has happened: imagining fantastic life-saving devices, taking days off from school, meeting with a psychiatrist, and scouring New York City for traces of his father. And Oskar is not unique in focusing on the tragedy; realities, such as the gaping hole where the towers once stood and the huge number of people personally affected, enforce its claim to universality...
...contextualize Sept. 11, and what saves Extremely Loud from being a kind of ode to its earth-shattering enormity is his presentation of other tragedies as predecessors. In addition to stories about the American destruction of Dresden, there is a transcript of an interview with a Hiroshima survivor, which Oskar plays for a school project, also reporting on the scientific dimensions of the atom bomb...
Instead of emerging from the plot’s pivotal events, the incredible poignancy of Extremely Loud derives from passing thoughts or quick exchanges that reveal the sadness, struggles, and strength of the novel’s characters. That Oskar would invent a birdseed shirt reads more touchingly than his sudden decision to dig up the coffin...