| Original Message |
Megan LeBoeuf (no login)
Posted Apr 3, 2007 11:35 PM
First of all, many thanks to Chris Cleave for joining us here. I was very disappointed that the author of our last novel didn't participate, and your comments so far have been a joy to read.
I must admit before I write my comments that I have not yet finished the book - in fact, I'm only maybe a third of the way through it. I'm not far past the graphic description of the terrorist attack, and before reading the posts on this forum, I had doubts as to whether I was going to finish it at all, as I'm incredibly sensitive about gore and was getting quite nauseous reading those descriptions. After reading what I've read here, I'll definitely have to finish it before class.
I have several friends who live in England, one of whom is a young woman who lives in a very rough part of Nottingham. When I started reading this book, all I could think of was her. The main character’s personality reminds me of my friend, as does her grammar and slang. There were a few differences (for example, the woman in the book actually spells out “isn’t it” instead of just writing “innit”), and I’m sure our narrator would have a bit of a different accent than my friend, but by and large, there were more similarities than differences. My friend is also conspicuously imperfect, with many emotional issues and abnormal relationships. While I haven’t yet met her in person, we have had many telephone and webcam conversations in addition to our online chats, and know each other very well.
In fact, these two people, the fictional character and my friend, have so very much in common that it was becoming uncomfortable and a little disturbing to read. I can imagine my friend, who is very devoted to her family despite their abnormal relationships, forcing her way into the football stadium as well, suffering post-traumatic stress syndrome, the whole nine yards. It’s not a pleasant image for me.
Nevertheless, I like the style in which the book is written. It is something entirely different, and that is my very favorite type of something. As much as I can be, at times, a bit of a stickler for proper grammar and punctuation, the realness of this character is really compelling. As others have said, her imperfections make her believable, as human beings are never the caricatures so often found in literature.
The unreliability of the narrator makes me think of American Psycho, where in the end, we are not sure at all that anything that has happened was real. Again, this is a deviation from the literary norm – we are taught to expect that the narrator is telling the truth. I enjoy first person narration when it is used in this way.
Finally, I would like to thank Chris Cleave specifically for his comments on the purpose of this book. In our last class we had a long discussion on what qualifies as “9/11 Literature” and what the real purpose of the novel was. It was my feeling that the novel (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) was more about human nature, dealing with grief, and our response to tragedy and loss than it was about 9/11 – that event certainly played a big role in the story, but I got the feeling that it was really focused on the other issues. Naturally, many of my classmates disagreed, as such determinations are entirely subjective. Unfortunately, the author was not available to offer his thoughts on it. I do think that this novel is very relevant to our 9/11 class, but I have gotten the feeling thus far that the main theme is more about humanity and emotions in various different ways. I have to admit to a little bit of schadenfreude at reading that the author agrees with me!
So this is what you get from literature majors: long, wordy posts! And I’ve only read a third of the book! I’ll stop now and try to save some space for my classmates. I truly look forward to finishing the book, and thanks to Chris Cleave not only for his participation, but for being so bold as to write something as strikingly different as this.
(As a totally unrelated side note, despite being American, I often refer to “soccer” as football, much to the confusion to those around me. It just seems to make sense to me that the game you play with your “feet” be called “football”…!)
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