Review of the film "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" from PROFE7OR. Review of the script “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Contents: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
The famous American writer Jonathan Safran Foer wrote his second book completely by accident. As the author himself says, the idea for the book came while working on another work, during the creation of which Foer experienced some difficulties. Having postponed the founded project, the writer began to devote more and more time to new history. As a result, he created an entire novel, published in 2005.
The book “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” was awarded several prestigious awards and prizes. The novel immediately attracted the interest of representatives of the film industry. The copyright for the film was acquired by two companies: Warner Bros. and Paramount. The result collaboration became a film of the same name.
At the center of the story is a nine-year-old boy, Oscar Schell. His father, Thomas Schell, died during tragic events in New York on September 11, 2001. The events occurred before the start of the story and are not covered in any way in the novel. While going through his father's things, Oscar discovered a key enclosed in an envelope with the inscription "Black", which probably meant someone's last name. Oscar sets himself the goal of finding who this key belongs to. There are a lot of Blacks in New York, but little Shell doesn't mind.
After learning about her son's activities, Mrs. Schell called everyone he was going to visit. The mother does not want Oscar to bother anyone, but at the same time she cannot stop the child from looking. The boy recently lost his father and is taking the loss very hard. He needs to occupy himself with something and somehow take his mind off sad thoughts.
During his search, Oscar encounters a huge number of similar friends on other people. The boy met a lonely old man who had lost the meaning of life after the death of his wife. In addition, Schell met spouses who were on the verge of divorce, and mother of many children. The strangest and most touching things for the boy were the husband and wife, so in love with each other that each of them created an entire museum dedicated to the partner.
At the very beginning of his search, Oscar met a woman named Abby Black, who lived in the house across the street. Abby and Oscar quickly became friends. Soon the boy met an elderly man renting a room in his grandmother’s apartment. Subsequently it turned out that Old man was his grandfather.
A few months after meeting Oscar, Abby decides to admit that she knew from the very beginning who the mysterious key belonged to. Abby invites the boy to talk to her ex-husband William. From Mr. Black, Shell learns that his father once bought the vase containing the key from William. Black's father left him the key to the safe, which was kept in a vase. Without knowing this, William sold the vase to Thomas Schell.
Characteristics
Oscar Schell
The main character of the book is distinguished by curiosity and a thirst for discovery. His level of development is high beyond his years. The boy has difficulty surviving his first serious tragedy. However, having lost one of his parents, he seems to strive to take his place and take responsibility for his mother.
Development of the main character's character
Personal tragedy did not become a reason for Oscar to withdraw into himself. Having found the key, the boy receives a new purpose in life. The main character was forced to grow up too early. However, being in still enough at a young age, he cannot accomplish a more serious feat. Finding the owner of an unfamiliar object becomes his first adult independent decision, the first difficult task that he wants to solve without outside interference.
The search results upset and disappointed Oscar. But the experience gained during the work done cannot be called wasted time. Small man, who has not yet had time to adapt to the world of adults, discovers their lives every day. Oscar learns that there is oppressive loneliness on this planet, and the need to fight for one’s existence, and great love, and lost illusions. Adults will no longer seem perfect and omnipotent to Oscar. There is a lot in their lives more problems and sorrows than in the lives of children.
The behavior of a child in most cases reflects his upbringing, and therefore the characters of his parents. Oscar's father does not participate in the story, but his silent voice is constantly heard by readers. Thomas Schell managed to teach his son a lot, despite the fact that they were together for a relatively short time. Every time Oscar has doubts or questions, he remembers his father and everything he taught him. Dad said that having set a goal, you need to go to the end, not retreat and not give up. After all, it is persistence and firmness that distinguish the real man that Shell Jr. is to become. The father always encouraged his son's ingenuity and his desire to learn more. Own experience- man's best teacher. No book can convey such knowledge.
Mrs. Shell is in complete agreement with her late husband on parenting issues. The mother does not allow herself to rudely interfere in her son’s life. Oscar will have to grow up without a father. If he gets used to the fact that all problems in the house are solved exclusively by a woman, he will never be able to grow up to be a real man. Mrs. Shell allows the boy to be independent. She suppresses her fear for her son's safety by letting him go on a journey through big city, which recently came under terrorist attack. Despite her worries, Mrs. Schell realizes that she cannot always keep her child with her. Oscar will grow up and perhaps want to live separately from his mother, somewhere in another city. You need to come to terms with this now and give him the opportunity to learn independence.
The main idea of the novel
Anxiety for your child should not make him a recluse, a hostage of parental love. Mom and Dad won't be around sooner or later. The task of parents is not to protect their child from life, but to teach him to live without a mother and father.
Analysis of the work
Jonathan Safran Foer was the first to dare mention the tragedy of September 11th in work of art. For this he was criticized by some literary figures. Of course, Oscar's father could have died under the wheels of a car, at the hands of a bandit, or from incurable disease. The novel is dedicated to a separate episode from the life of a little New Yorker, and it was completely unnecessary to mention the national tragedy.
Nevertheless, knowing that many people lost their loved ones that day, the author makes his hero from among these people. Thus, Oscar becomes close to a huge number of city residents. The boy experienced everything that they themselves had once gone through. His story, similar to thousands of others, cannot help but touch and touch the heartstrings.
Foer chose a nine-year-old child as the main character in order to look at the world through his eyes and to give the same opportunity to readers, each of whom was once the same age as main character books. Having looked at themselves through the eyes of little Shell, many adults will probably begin to be more critical of themselves and reconsider their lifestyle and relationships with others.
I've seen a lot
And I've seen a lot
But this is beyond creepy
When, such close relatives
Disappears under the rubble, walls and bricks. (Author)
Films based on such polemics are generally always relevant and occupy highest ratings and receive a lot of prizes at various festivals. Showing us the severity of life, the tragedy of human existence and the drama of all events, with one key or another, open to eternity.
The film is based on an adapted script by Eric Roth, based on the acclaimed book by writer Jonathan Safran Foer, and director Stephen Daldry took up the film adaptation of the work of the same name.
The plot, like the book, is built on key points. Which you understand and accept with all your heart, becoming a heavy perception and censure of the indignation that is being born in the events taking place. Terrorist attacks in the USA. Explosions and death of people in the "Twin Towers" of the World shopping center, mental anguish and mental trauma. Life as it is, with all the injuries and illnesses. The value and joy of every day, the attitude of your neighbor.
All this runs like a bold line through the entire outline of the book narrative, which never materialized in this film. More on this below, but for now a few words of relevant statistics.
This film work was crushed by almost all critics' organizations. In addition, the American film press itself, leaving no stone unturned in the quality and approach of this film product. Based on the main criteria, an argument was put forward for the manipulation of human values, which played a great role in the adaptation, which resulted in such a weak script. And failed director's work, without any dynamics, showing the worthless lethargy of the director. This is despite the fact that his early works were not only at their best, but also acquired the status of imperishable modern classics.
Suffice it to recall such film masterpieces as “The Reader,” “The Hours,” and the early, rather powerful “Billy Elliot,” so beloved by the author of this critical article (review). They are very deservedly appreciated by all adherents and masters of this direction.
Nevertheless, either for its humanity and political correctness, or for its previous merits, or for its tearful approach and manipulation of family and life tragedies, the film is nominated for “Best Film of the Year” by the American Film Academy. Which brings complete bewilderment among critics and journalists. In defense, I can only put forward a hypothesis about the director’s affairs. That it was a special order, as if the “party” said: It’s necessary! The director answered: yes.
The director himself said the opposite, that he was already working on a film adaptation of the novel for a long time. This is what came out of it.
The roles of Oscar's father and mother were from the very beginning prescribed for Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock, those Oscar-winning mummies of live-action cinema. Tom Hanks - a win-win all ideas and investments. Sandra Bullock, the universal favorite of ordinary Americans. On main role a beginner, unknown to anyone, a twelve-year-old boy, Thomas Horn, was approved. John Goodman and Jeffrey Wright joined the cast of the film in supporting roles. Apparently in Hollywood, unemployment has had such an effect that more talented actors do not have enough bread, or it’s still the same pursuit of the “golden boy named Oscar.”
Black people are welcome everywhere. To show the close-knit, racial family and national identity, Viola Davis saluted for all South America. The shine in her teeth hurts the eyes from the screen and says a lot. For example, about a good life.
Filming began in the spring in New York and ended in the summer of that year. Roughly speaking, three months to meet the tenth anniversary of the black date of September 11th. Really, what’s there to film, run around the city, ride on a chain swing and say two hundred million times how much we all love each other. Then let the famous Terence Malick (a teacher for directors) shoot his films for a long time, some from five to fifteen years. And it will do for us.
And on such a tearful note, a tragedy on a global scale, Hollywood wants to show a memorial service, teach a lesson and go to heaven. Everything is somehow bad, ugly. To chant at people's grief, at the same time to be exposed. This creates a negative impression, and conclusions suggest themselves. Perhaps they haven’t raked in all the gold from the awards and collected all the money, or perhaps “Schindler’s List” haunts us.
Now on to the film.
Narrator in "Extremely Loud...", 10-year-old Oscar, in highest degree an inventive, restless and neurasthenic child. But the boy does not want to feel adequate and better, and, of course, to make new friends. He talks about weird kids who are smarter than (normal) kids. Tom Hanks as Dad teaches and plays with him. Every now and then, remembering Scorsese's historical beginning - here it is a street, and here it is a district. But, alas, after a nice little family-children's film, with the loss and funeral of his father, everything comes down to endless conversations about death.
And so it began! You see, when he dies (Oscar, son), put him in a mausoleum. And of course, it is very touching and symbolic to bury empty coffin. And so the boy Oscar, out of worry, engages in masochism, torturing his body, and harmfully pinches himself all around and everywhere. Adding to this a monologue to the departed grandfather in a pig's voice. Guys, this doesn’t happen in life. Or you need to be treated for lonely “muttering”. Dreams and fantasies are also quite strange.
Well, the whole film is whiny to say - I love you. This is already prohibitively low in the desire to put pressure on feelings that are not present in the film. And there is a dirty similarity to the Mexican-Brazilian serial soap. The hugging scene is absolutely “over the top.” Moreover, with the comedic-melodramatic Sandra Bullock in a surrogately serious film, it immediately makes you laugh.
Then, having gathered at home, they immediately talk about the memories of their father and husband, who was not found in the dust of the wreckage of skyscrapers, after all, on September 11th. Immediately the son says to his mother, “It would be better if you died, mother, and not he.” Saying something that in itself is already “pleasant”, immediately switches to verbal, a great tactic of adaptation, pressing on a false tear - “Mom, I don’t tell you enough that I love you.” Well, what kind woman's heart will not “float” from this. Oh, what a false passion. For tears, please provide buckets, gentlemen. And the last for such touching places with “soup”! “Mom, I don’t mind if you fall in love with someone.” (“Thank you, son!” - This is on my own behalf, sorry, I couldn’t resist, apparently there weren’t enough scarves and tears). Yes, fall in love and get married, well, what else is left in life. I hope the reader understands the sarcasm of the above.
In which, all the absurdities of this, in every sense, difficult film, with its heroes. The actions of these characters are further supported big amount clumsy dialogues that greatly spoil the already best experience about the film itself. Where they praised to the skies the performance of the “newly made” boy Oscar, who looks like illegitimate son Daniel Craig. An evil character with impudent habits, a gloomy face and an omnipresent false heroism.
Because America needs such “heroes,” and the very famous Swedish actor, who played a superb role in this largely flawed film, Max von Sydow, is not particularly needed. Because he is Swedish. And in his 84 years, he, like his late friend Marcello Mastroianni, have not earned a single Oscar. Having starred with the best directors in the world, starting again with his friend Ingmar Bergman, ending with Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese, one need not even mention Stephen Daldry. Having given (already) 64 years to big cinema and never been recognized by the American Academy, it becomes “terrible” for the Academy itself.
What else can be said for this failed film and its painful trail of aftertaste from what you watched.
In addition to Max von Sydow, the episodic and supporting roles, the actors without dialogue listed at the beginning, played relatively well. Tom Hanks himself is clearly not proud of such a small manifestation. Sandra Balok is a good character from another opera, so her dramatic performance was more like a living statue.
The camera work, although it was excellent, is lost in the actions and in the speech conclusions staged according to the script; you no longer appreciate it so much. And you don’t notice things like editing, the artist, etc. at all.
The only good thing White spot This is music worthy of all praise. Composer Alexandre Desplat did a great job. And I think after the Oscars, there will be even more demand. There were, however, a couple of good episodes in this ointment. For example, with a swing and a note. When Oscar, my son writes a letter to everyone with the last name Blake. And some reactions from those who receive letters. And all this, unfortunately, at the end of the film, where until the end of the screening there will be three people left in the cinema halls. Two did not have time to get dressed, and one dozed off.
And the verdict of a difficult case is a boring, drawn-out, depressing movie.
Notes
It happens much better when everything is clear without words!
The book (novel) has nothing in common in terms of feelings and perceptions with this failed film adaptation. As well as with another one - “Atlas Shrugged”, which is even more complex in conveying its essence. A person is not initially endowed with so many emotions that this book story squeezes out of him.
The author of the review is not a fan of comparing literature and cinema. But in in this case, if the book itself plunges you into sadness, sadness and despondency, then it is not always possible to make a movie strong for a verified adaptation. And speaking simple truths in the language of feelings, from which it becomes difficult and a certain hopelessness sucks you into the void, after reading and emerging from which you experience catharsis, light and joy, then after watching the film, you do not find this, despite the accuracy of the events.
P.S. A very unusual work, the book is worth reading, but not watching the movie.
I don't dream that my son will adore me to the point of insanity. On the contrary, I want him to love his mother more of his two parents. Plus, I will never expect idolatry and total submission from him. I want him to be simply interested in me. So that he wants to listen to what I say, and not involuntarily hear the words coming to him. So that he would want to make discoveries and talk about them with me, and I would share my feelings that I once experienced when I was in his place. If you want to find an embodiment of this type of relationship, then the film by director Stephen Daldry “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” will come in handy.
About the film
Remember, 70% of the most best films based on literary works. Another 19% based on real events, 5% simultaneously based on literary work And real events, 5% are remakes, and only 1% are created completely from scratch. The film being presented is based on the novel of the same name by Jonathan Safran Foer. Moreover, even before Natasha and I watched it, I found reviews on Kinopoisk, according to which book lovers once again declare that the book is 100,000 times better than the movie. Always, when I see such reviews, I want to involuntarily ask: “Does anyone really think that 2 different people can they look at the same story in the same way? And even more so to display it.” When a director makes a film based on a book, this is a fact of its recognition, the admiration it aroused, a source of inspiration for the work. And he displays it exactly as he perceived it. A million people can read this book and the result will be a million different opinions, some of which will be similar in general, but the details will still differ. Therefore, if you have the opportunity to watch this film, you should not deprive yourself of this opportunity based on negative feedback book lover. Although I cannot help but note that now I want to read this book myself.
Overall, both the film and the book are worth studying in more detail for anyone who is a fan of touching dramas. And for parents and especially fathers – ‘must see’. The work will help you look at relationships in the family from the child’s perspective. And the more interesting it is to watch his reaction and behavior, the more the situation becomes tense, the more dramatic the development of events becomes. In general, the plot is simple, many situations are read directly while watching the film, but this does not make the picture any less pleasant, kind and touching. And fans of the works of Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock should not leave this film unwatched. By the way, Sandra Bullock’s performance quite surprised me, because in my opinion this is an actress of a slightly different type. But in “Extremely Loud...” she revealed herself to me in a new way. I had similar feelings after watching the film “The Number 23” and a role unusual for Jim Carrey.
A little about the plot
When I share interesting film, I try not to focus too much attention on the plot itself. It's wrong to give spoilers. If you want a spoiler, go to Kinopoisk or Wikipedia. But I still want to intrigue you somehow.
The story of young Oscar describes to the viewer a very curious boy with an inquisitive mind. His favorite hobby was playing with his father logic riddles and local adventures within New York City. A subtle psychological trick on the part of the father forced his son to overcome his fears and obstacles step by step, preparing him for real life outside my father's house. And this preparation consisted of knowledge of the world. It should not be enough for parents that they consider their child unique and special. It is important to make this clear to the children themselves, because each of them is exclusive and came to this earth for something great. Even if it is something great within the confines of one yard, one house.
The whole movie is big Adventure Oscar, who is trying to solve his father's last mystery. But in fact, this journey through New York is the boy’s attempt to extinguish the terrible pain in his soul associated with the death of his father. It’s even more painful to watch the mother, who began to move further and further away from her son, who became fixated on the common grief.
The picture really looks with great interest and keeps you in some tension. It could easily bring tears to someone’s eyes, but for Natasha and I personally, it wasn’t enough. Just when you realize that in just a moment, the stingy male one will break through, when the action immediately changes, and it lets go a little. But overall I highly recommend watching it.
Extremely Loud and Incredible Close
Eric Roth based on the book of the same name by Jonathan Safran Foer
Genre: drama
Synopsis: A ten-year-old boy embarks on a journey throughout New York City trying to find answers to how his father died on September 11, 2001.
Status: post-production
Volume: 137 pages
Version: dated March 17, 2010
NY. A few days after September 11, 2001. Funeral of Oscar Schell's father, who was in the Twin Towers at the time of the terrorist attack. The body (remains of the body) was never found. The coffin is empty. Oscar is sure: until there is a body, or there is no exact information about how his father died, he cannot be considered dead. Oscar is not as close to his mother as he was with his father, and mainly communicates with his grandmother, who lives in the building opposite.
After almost a year in the apartment, Oscar accidentally breaks a vase with an envelope inside. On the envelope there is the inscription “Black”, inside there is a key. When Oscar's dad was alive, they loved to play a game: his father would give a map and a few clues, and Oscar, solving them and finding new ones, would find the “treasure.” The boy believes that the envelope and the key will help him find out about his father's death. According to the telephone directory, there are 472 people with the last name Black in New York City and 216 different addresses. Oscar estimates it will take him about a year and a half to find each of them; find out if they knew his father; and unravel the mystery of the mysterious key. Some time later, a certain Tenant joins the search for Oscar, renting one room in his grandmother's apartment. And together they go on a journey throughout New York, in which each of them quickly realizes that he is looking for much more than answers to questions about the death of Oscar's father.
Eric Roth's handwriting is instantly recognizable. The plot centers on an unusual protagonist. Oscar is strange, to say the least. He has no friends. Best friend was his father. He spends hours watching videos of people jumping out of windows, trying to identify his father. His mother takes him to a psychiatrist: his son’s suicidal tendencies are too noticeable after the September events. At school he is the butt of indecent jokes. After 9/11, he is afraid to be in crowded places. His first line in the script is: “What if I could teach my anus to talk?” He's not like everyone else. But the viewer loves to sympathize with just such characters.
Oscar is ten years old, but he thinks like a man who has lived at least one life and seen a lot of things in it. Eric Roth again chooses to tell the story through the thoughts of the main character, using generous amounts of voiceover. Through narration, Roth manages to convince us that we have known Oscar for many years. And very quickly Eric makes us care about this hero, completely transporting us into the world of Oscar. But that's not all: Oscar has a very developed imagination. Remember how “Forrest...” there were small sketches about the lives of minor characters? "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" suggests something similar. The script contains many sequences that offer the cinematographer, director and special effects team a chance to demonstrate their skills. We are waiting for islands drifting along the Hudson, “melting” cities, helicopters throwing a giant blanket over the burning twin towers... And this is only a small part of Oscar’s fantasy. Each of these scenes can be turned into a visual feast.
When Oscar goes on his quest, Roth does an interesting thing with the script: first, the story turns into a kind of road movie in which the main characters meet many different and different people. Secondly, the story also takes on a detective element. What is this key? Will Oscar find what he's looking for? And what exactly is he looking for? What awaits Oscar at the end of his journey?
Moreover, in the middle of the script, a mysterious Tenant enters the plot, old man, living in Oscar's grandmother's apartment. Until that moment, no one had seen this man except his grandmother. When Oscar asked when she could meet him, she only answered evasively that he was not at home right now, or he was too busy. Considering Oscar's imagination and his grandmother's advanced age, you wonder - is this hero real, or is this just another figment of Oscar's imagination? The tenant is an equally wonderful character. He knows five languages, but a long time ago he decided to shut up and talks to people using a notebook, writing down phrases in it and showing them to his interlocutor. For ease of communication, he has a tattoo with the word “Yes” on one palm, and “No” on the other. To the question: “What is he most afraid of?”, he answers: “To live.” In many ways, it is he who helps the boy overcome his fears. Could The Tenant be Oscar's inner voice come to life? Otherwise, why absolutely to a stranger help Oscar?
Meeting many people, Oscar notices that each of them has lost something or someone. And to survive the loss, you need the help of others. To Oscar's surprise, the search for his father begins to affect destinies. strangers, and they not only help Oscar come to terms with his loss, but also overcome his own difficulties.
Movies about 9/11 are associated with dark colors and drama, but the Oscar story is full of bright moments and there is a lot of humor in it. And this is a definite plus of the script. Oscar's take on the world is not only unusual, but also funny, giving us many opportunities to laugh at his comments. Of course, there was some drama. The script contains several very emotionally powerful scenes. For example, listening to messages on an answering machine: On September 11, Oscar returned home to find six messages from his father on his answering machine. We won't hear them right away. But the closer to the latter, the harder it will be. Or Oscar’s dialogue with the “last” Black, or Oscar’s notebook with “rewind”...
Eric Roth in "Extremely Loud..." used the same techniques as in "Forrest..." and "Button...". An unusual protagonist who has a clear and strong goal (to find out the truth about his father's death) and does everything to achieve it. Flashbacks to Oscar's past only enhance his purpose and emphasize the dramatic element. The narrative helps you feel sympathy for the hero. On paper, Oscar's monologues and comments are great, but in the film everything will depend on for whom this role will be his film debut. Let's wish him good luck. If Thomas copes with the role, we are in for a great movie.
The novel “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close” by Jonathan Foer, a young but already terribly famous and incredibly talented American writer, is not entirely new in our book distribution, but very symbolic, especially for today. Minus some logical and factual errors, this book was an elegant attempt to talk about serious topics in a sentimental-tragic way - and at the same time, an attempt wrapped in a fascinating, but frankly commercial form fiction.
Lives in New York, Manhattan, a boy named Oscar Schell. He teaches French, understands classical music, doesn’t get along with peers, doesn’t watch TV (and therefore doesn’t know who Hermione Granger is, but has already read “ Brief history time" by Stephen Hawking), plays the tambourine, uses a rare film camera. His father is the head jewelry company, a smart and inventive man, tells his son bedtime stories and urban legends, hides treasures for him in Central Park and, of course, is best dad in the world.
And then, on the eleventh day of autumn, seven-year-old Oscar returns home and finds five messages from his father’s cell phone on his answering machine. Last message comes at ten hours, twenty-two minutes, twenty-seven seconds: in a minute and twenty-seven seconds, the Twin Towers, crippled by explosions, will collapse, leaving the boy with an inescapable longing for the life that on September 11, 2001 changed forever.
Even after a year, I still find it terribly difficult to do some things, like take a shower (for some reason) and ride the elevator (of course). There are a whole bunch of things that annoy me, such as suspension bridges, germs, airplanes, fireworks, Arabs in the subway (even though I'm not a racist), Arabs in restaurants, cafes and others in public places, scaffolding, drain and subway grates, abandoned bags, shoes, people with mustaches, smoke, knots, tall buildings, turbans. I often feel like I'm in the middle of a huge black ocean or in outer space, but not like when I'm having fun. Everything just becomes incredibly distant. It's worst at night. I started inventing different things and then I couldn’t stop, like the beavers I know about. People think that beavers cut down trees to build dams, but in fact, due to the fact that their teeth grow throughout their lives, and if they did not constantly grind them down by cutting down trees, their teeth would gradually grow into their faces, and then the beavers would be finished. It was the same with my brain.
“Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” is a story about the irreversibility of time and those disgusting scabs that, under its influence, form on the scratched soul of a person, regardless of age. For Oscar, an intelligent and eccentric child with an exaggerated perception of the world, internal struggle grief does not begin with psychotherapy sessions to which his mother takes him; no - at the moment when he finds an envelope with the name “Black” in his father’s room. Inside the envelope is a key to one of New York's 162 million locks, a secret connecting him with his dead father.
In his travels through the destinies of the many Blacks who inhabit the city, Oscar does not gain any special wisdom or, even less, relief from heart weights, although each of his new acquaintances turns out to be a person worthy of a separate book. All these people are in one way or another crippled by their sense of the past: an old man who has been driving a nail into the headboard of his bed every day for many years since his wife’s death, and a woman who is making a museum out of her apartment in honor of her still living husband; the caretaker of the Empire State Building who did not leave the top of the skyscraper and the unknown man who burst into tears only because he heard another person’s greeting on the intercom... Oscar’s experiences will not be put to rest even after finding the mysterious castle - and it would be strange to put any end to life at all little boy, who just turned nine.
The only way to defeat the past is to ask God to reverse the history of the creation of the world. Oscar is a naive atheist and this option is not suitable for him, so he invents objects that can bring exceptional benefits to humanity: ambulances the length of the patient’s entrance to the hospital, life jackets made from birdseed, etc. He also pastes pictures into his album entitled “Things That Happened to Me.” Among others, there is a photograph printed frame by frame of a man falling from a roof, which you can quickly flip through in reverse side, in a safe and quiet Then. Surprisingly, this action that ends the book, which is neither a conclusion nor a solution, is enough for the composition of the novel to take on a very specific form - a ray directed to infinity from the point of no return.
The boy's story is intricately intertwined with a strange, even somewhat surreal story about his beloved grandmother and her husband, who left his wife before the birth of his son, and returned only after he learned of his death. There are many frankly pretentious details in this story - the grandfather carries with him a suitcase of letters that he never sent to his son (he will later put these letters in his empty coffin); he has “yes” and “no” tattooed on his arms because years ago he lost the ability to speak out loud; he has been living in his grandmother’s apartment for two years, but she forbids him to communicate with his grandson, who does not know about the existence of a relative. However, this pairing allows Foer to sharpen both the theme of love (incredibly illusory and terribly vague even for the author himself) and the theme of human violence, which is key to the novel: the elder Schells survived the merciless and senseless bombing of Dresden, which completely destroyed their former life.
There are countless such people all over the world, and each has its own weights on its heart, and its own scabs on its soul. If you are not satisfied with the final moral (which, as already mentioned, is not present at all in the finale), then the one voiced to Oscar by one of his new friends, a former war correspondent, is best suited for its role. This man, who wrote about all the military conflicts of the last century, tells the boy how he gave up his profession, returned to America and, first of all, cut down a tree in the park that his wife had once tripped over. From this wood he made a bed, which he and his wife shared for many years. I asked: “What was the name of your last war? He said: “My last war was with this tree!” I asked who won, which I thought was a good question because it allowed him to answer that he did and feel proud. He said: “The ax has won! He always wins!”
P. S. It’s worth mentioning two more things:
Firstly, although it is usually electronic format It’s more convenient, in the case of Foer’s book, it’s better to turn to the paper version of the novel, which is illustrated in such a way as to enhance the effect of individual parts of the text (there are photographs from Oscar’s album, and half-crazed letters from his grandfather, and even a piece in which words are replaced with numbers tone dialing).
Secondly, last year a film was released based on this novel, which was even nominated for an Oscar. I have not seen the film, but judging by the reviews, the plot and psychological accents are placed somewhat differently in it. So for those who have already seen the film, reading the book should be especially interesting.
