It’s Nothing Serious!
Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
My hackles rise when I open a novel and find it filled with pictures. Not just any pictures, not illustrations or maps, but narrative pictures\xe2\x80″images that, rather than complementing the story, become an actual link in it. To say that narrative pictures have no place in the specialized world of novel writing might be an old-fashioned position in this multimedia age, but where else does the art of the novel lie than in composing a world entirely out of words? No matter how lovely, narrative pictures quickly start to seem like easy ways out. As a reader, one loses some imaginative capacity to the distraction of clever graphic design, and starts to wonder whether the author mistrusts his own powers of language.
Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer’s new novel, is pockmarked with pictures, typefaces, and expressive page layouts. Foer is a voluble and playful writer, capable of striking metaphor and moderately inspired whimsy. He should trust himself a little more–like EL&IC’s protagonist, 9-year old Oskar Schell, Foer always seems unable to stop himself from trying one more trick to get his audience to think he’s hilarious.
The underlying goal of much of Foer’s work seems to be a perhaps trite attempt to make peace with the past and, in the wake of 9/11, to make grand observations about life and tragedy. EL&IC doesn’t have to rely on its many gimmicks or try so hard. Foer’s very readable narrative explores urban mysteries, filial quests, family history, and disaster through the central story of Oskar\xe2\x80″tambourinist, jewelery designer, and aspiring scientific sidekick, precocious and geeky to the point of caricature\xe2\x80″and the memories of his grandparents. In the aftermath of losing his idolized father when Windows On The World came down, Oskar embarks on a somewhat contrived quest to find the secret of a key he discovered in his father’s closet; he treks through most of New York City on foot, cadging coffee and making a lovable nuisance of himself. Providing a counterpoint to his story is the strange tale of Oskar’s grandparents, survivors of the bombing of Dresden whose fragile marriage was born when they re-encountered one another in New York years later. The novel is formally structured, overlapping first-person accounts from Oskar and autobiographical letters from his grandparents, jumping back and forth in time to lead the somewhat thin plot to its d\xc3\xa9nouement.
These techniques\xe2\x80″backward storytelling, graphic design, and the use of multiple voices\xe2\x80″are obviously dear to the author and were the subject of much discussion following the release of his first novel, Everything Is Illuminated. Everything Is Illuminated features less graphic design but an even more formal delineation of two narrators; one appears only as described by the other and in the segments of the novel he is writing. When queried by Robert Birnbaum of IdentityTheory.com, Foer explained his choices on the grounds that he is “from a generation that was raised with the Internet.” He continued: “I was raised with a different kind of television and music\xe2\x80\xa6that depends very much on borrowing from different traditions, sampling pieces of other music and overlaying different rhythms and melodies\xe2\x80\xa6and I think that is reflected in my writing. It was not an attempt to reflect something about the culture\xe2\x80\xa6but it’s what I know.” Implied though, is the irksome assumption that Foer’s writing style is somehow self-justified by the fact that he didn’t design it. Switching voices, at its best, can allow each narrative to provide a counterpoint to the other’s relentless whimsy. At worst, his insistence on reflecting a messy culture makes for a messy book. These stylistic elements are symptomatic of a larger problem: Foer’s preoccupation with gimmick over depth.
And unfortunately, the techniques that worked so well for Everything is Illuminated are also simply less effective in EL&IC: the narrative voices and the very types of narrative are too alike, the time-lapses too confusing. Foer’s “more is more” attitude has, this time, backfired on him by diluting each story rather than amplifying it.
Even as they struggle to support one another, the stories Foer tells are memorable; even when his plots suffer, he has a gift for documenting inner life. Oskar is driven to insomnia by invention ideas, nearly all of which–from ambulances that flash “It’s nothing serious!” to wedding rings that pulse with the loved one’s heartbeat–are designed to ease emergencies and anxieties. The most grandiose is his plan to save the 10,000 birds who crash windows around the world each year. To do this, he would equip every building with sensors that, upon winged approach, would trigger loud raptor calls from neighboring buildings, causing life-saving distraction. The plan, outlined as he stands on the Empire State Building’s observation deck, silently gestures to the 757’s that crashed into New York. This crisis of metaphor, mercifully fleeting, is what Foer can do when not trying so desperately hard.
Of Anti-Semitism, Self-Absorption, and Sheep
Sam Apple’s Schlepping Through the Alps
“If you’re traveling the Alps with a Yiddish folksinger who also happens to be the last wandering shepherd in Austria and he assigns you the task of walking behind his flock of 625 sheep, you’ll discover that the little lambs sometimes tire out and plop down for naps.” So Sam Apple begins his first book, Schlepping Through the Alps: My Search for Austria’s Jewish Past With Its Last Wandering Shepherd, an absorbing and seamlessly blended account of exactly what its lengthy title suggests. At its opening, Apple, a neurotic New Yorker, arrives in Austria to write about Hans Breuer, a wandering shepherd who moonlights as a Yiddish singer. But Apple’s trip is not driven by an affinity for livestock. Rather, he is fascinated with the fear of anti-Semitism that pervaded his childhood, with Breuer, and with Austria’s anti-Semitic legacy. Interwoven with Apple’s travels are the story of Breuer’s life and a discussion of the figure of the Wandering Jew.
This is a tall order for a short book, but Apple’s greatest triumph is his graceful blending of many disparate genres. Apple also has a talent for describing characters that defy expectations, and he avoids preciousness in favor of humor and complexity. He doesn’t romanticize Breuer’s way of life, highlighting the shepherd’s disintegrating marriage as much as his love of the land. Although Apple’s Viennese girlfriend is portrayed somewhat flawlessly, the interreligious romance between her and Apple is satisfyingly troubled.
Strangely enough, then, Schlepping Through the Alps’ only weakness lies in the character of Apple himself. Although it is tempting to commend him on his honesty about unflattering behavior (hypochondria, paranoia), his neuroses often feel overly self-styled\xe2\x80″in one vignette, almost literally masturbatory. Even so, Schlepping is highly enjoyable, ranging from hysteria-inducing passages to genuinely poignant moments. It is not always picturesque, but it is consistently engaging\xe2\x80″and never settles for following the herd.
