Hey everyone,
It has been an entire year since I last saw you guys (I am hilarious, I know). I hope all of you guys had a good winter break and got lots of rest, because I sure did! It has also been a long time since I last posted something but I am definitely ready to get back to the groove of things.
Over the winter break and these past two weeks of school, I have been reading the novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by American writer Jonathan Safran Foer who is also the author of the famous novel Everything is Illuminated, both of which are now major motion pictures.
I would like to start off by saying that this is one of the most creative pieces of writing I have read in a while and I would definitely recommend this to anyone who enjoys a little mystery and suspense. This novel really draws in readers who are interested in the event of 9/11 that happened in New York, but not just 9/11 itself but everything else that surrounded this traumatic event, such as the phycological and emotional effects it had on the people. This includes nine-year-old protagonist Oskar Schell who had lost his father/best friend on that fateful day.
I decided to try something new and listened to the novel through an audiobook. I figured that by listening to the novel with a pair of headphones, I would “experience” the theme of personal loss through Oskar’s shoes and really live in the moment. I had the opportunity to listen to multiple voices and their tone which really evoked the way I experienced the novel and helped me understand how the characters really felt. There was a particular scene in the novel where I almost broke down into tears because of the way the narrator presented it. In the chapter “A SIMPLE SOLUTION TO AN IMPOSSIBLE PROBLEM” on page 301-302, Oskar’s father calls from the World Trade Center asking Oskar if he is present and repeats the words “Are you there?” multiple times hoping that he would be brave enough to pick up the phone. The voice of Oskar’s dad shot through the headphones and echoed into my ears. At this point, I was already tearing up. The phone call between Oskar and his father had cut off and the building had collapsed. I wanted to scream out loud and yell “YES, I AM HERE AND I LOVE YOU” at the top of my lungs (but my parents were asleep at that time so that would not have been the smartest decision). This part in the novel undoubtedly demonstrated how engaged and invested I was with the audiobook by my side. For a slight second, it really had felt like I was in Oskar’s shoes at that moment.
For now, I am going to leave it as that and I definitely recommend others to try out an audiobook for any other novel if you desire to live in the moment and become one with the novel by experiencing it “first hand”.
Martin
