Last But Not Least

In our literary circles on Tuesday, January 12, we finally were able to discuss the book as a whole. We finished the novel and had so much to talk about. First off, we all loved the book. We were a little disappointed in the ending because we believed that Oskar deserved to learn more about his father's death than he did. The key ended up belonging to Peter Black who sold his dead father's blue vase at a garage sale to Oskar's father and the key happened to be stored inside. The only thing he was able to learn about his father was how nice and friendly he was to Peter Black at the garage sale.
The end of the novel allowed us to further connect certain concepts to Kurt Vonnegut's, Slaughter-House Five. We all recognized that the style Vonnegut uses, reversing past destructive events to end peacefully, was presented numerous times in Foer's, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. The book ended with Oskar's father coming home from work, brushing his teeth, going to bed and waking up at night to be reading Oskar a book to help him fall asleep. This also correlates with the concept of 'just war' in that it may be necessary to have war in order to obtain peace. The reversal of actions shows that even though we all want peace and not war, we must go through war- forwards or backwards- to create peace.
We were all frusturated that Oskar never truly found out that 'the renter' was his grandfather, even though Foer makes it clear that they had a special bond and Oskar instantly trust him. We felt that Foer left a lot up to the reader to decide what happened and what certain symbols mean, which is what makes this novel so interesting.
Another key point that was brought up in this discussion was our feelings towards Oskar's mother. Throughout the entire novel, Foer makes you feel as if his mother is ignoring his bruises, allowing him to travel around New York by himself and leaving the house at late hours. We finally see that she had planned his journey out to make him safe. She ended up calling all the 'Blacks' Oskar was planning on visiting that day, which explains why they were all so friendly and welcoming.
Although the ending of this novel stirred up some disappointment as we didn't expect certain events to happen, the novel was exceptionally well written, illustrated and in portraying the events of families after the attack of 9/11.

The Renter and The Child- Scribe

This meeting, I was appointed the scribe, and I recorded the progress and effectiveness of our discussion. We had ample amounts to talk about since this time our reading assignment was extra long due to the extensive winter break we had. We all were able to answer many of the questions that we had from the beginning of the novel in this discussion. We began by allowing each of us to express our opinions on the assigned reading and the interesting elements we found within it. Tara started with discussing Oskar's personality. She brought up many good points about how he may have a possible disability as he states that he is in a class with other students who are mostly ADD. Tara also recognized the "dark" aspects of Oskar's mind as he scorns at his mother and talks about the gruesome events of Hiroshima to the rest of his classmates. Tara is also very interested in finding out more about the waitress in the Windows of the World and why Oskar doesn't seem to be intrigued by her even when she is one of the closest "Blacks" that has somewhat of a connection to his father.
After Tara discussed her topics of interest, Kiki shared her ideas and thoughts on the reading assignment. Kiki took the initiative to figure out the deeper meanings of many of the symbols. For example, she brought to our attention that birds, which was repeated numerously in previous chapters, came up again when Abe Black took off his hearing aid and he could finally hear the world. During this significant moment, Foer includes that as he takes his hearing aids off birds fly by the window. Kiki also came to conclusion that animals, both in Foer's and Vonnegut's novels, have a greater significance to the novel as a whole. Kiki also wants to know what will happen next as Oskar stirs up the question, "what about digging up dad's empty coffin?" Kiki also brought to the groups attention that the French Astronaut illustrated in the begininng of the novel was explained in this reading assignment. She also found significance out of the date (9-11-03) that Oskar and his grandfather finally met.
Allison also shared many important ideas. She further expands on Tara's discussion on Oskar's strange personality and horrific attitude towards both his peers and his mother. She also raised the question as to, after Oskar and her get into a fight and she tucks him into bed, why she doesn't say anything about Oskar's bruises. She also recognized the symbolism of key holes as the grandfather looks through a key hole when Oskar comes into his grandmother's apartment so he can see him. This corresponds with the many pictures that Foer includes of key holes in the novel.
I contributed to the discussion by sharing my opinions on the reading assignment. I think the most important symbol we must analyze at the end of the novel is the bird seed shirt and his usage of white clothing only. I also discussed Oskar's harmful behavior towards others and his unusual personality. I further expanded on Tara's ideas on the event of Oskar's sharing the interview of Hiroshima with the rest of his classmates. I also recognized the very first time Foer truly gets into Oskar's twisted mind as he imagines smashing Jimmy Snyder's head. I also thought this reading assignment gave us a better outlook on Oskar's grandfather's perspective on the story of his marriage and of Anna because throughout the whole novel we have only seen Oskar's and the grandmother's perspective.
We had so much to talk about in this very short class period and it was hard to fit every topic in. As we finish the novel, all of our unanswered questions should be fully answered and we can get a clearer and better understanding of the novel and then finally relate it to Vonnegut's, Slaughter House Five. We are all extremely intrigued with this book and incredibly excited to learn what will happen in the end.

Do you know what time it is?

Once again our discussion was extremely productive. We were able to begin forming answers to some of our question and identify some of the larger meanings to symbols. This reading assignment, although very short, gave us a better outlook on Oskar's grandmother and grandfather's past. We were able to further recognize Oskar's grandmother's inability to effectively communicate. I shared the evidence I found of Oskar's grandmother's family death in which his grandmother creates her own inventions- the markings of "Nothings" and "Somethings" around the house. The "Nothing" markings are placed in areas of the house in which are difficult to escape and the "Something" markings create an easy escaped, such as the hallway. We realized that just as Oskar creates inventions to protect people because of his father's death, so does his grandmother to protect Thomas from what Anna and her family have gone through- perishing in a house fire from the bombings of Dresden.

Allison brought to our attention that the two pictures illustrated in this chapter are a locked door with no key, in the beginning, and an unlocked door with a key, at the end of the chapter. We all concluded that this illustration has to do with Oskar's grandfather's escape and freedom from his wife. He had clearly only stayed with her to feel closer to Anna and now he wants to go live his life and at the end of this chapter, that is exactly what he does. Also, I brought to my groups attention that just as Vonnegut does in Slaughter House Five, Foer, in this novel, draws pictures when words fail him or his characters. This is an excellent way to metaphorically illustrate the effects of death on people and their inability to effectively communicate and use words to describe their emotions.

Effects of war are also portrayed as Oskar's grandfather transitions his life story using, "Do you know what time it is?". The significance was fuzzy to analyze at this point in the novel but we discussed it more literally and conluded that this transition, having been between his life with Anna and his marriage with Oskar's grandmother, is showing Thomas's confusion for time and essentially confusion for his life and what he has done with it.

Another big topic of our discussion was the significance of the interaction between Anna and Thomas and Mr. Goldberg's indirect interruptions about war on page 127. Anna and Thomas are making love as they overhear Mr.Goldberg comment on war and destruction. We concluded that these disturbing comments interrupting their love making foreshadows what will destroy their love in the end. Their world will intertwine with the outside world of violence and destruction. Kiki led us on that conclusion.

All together our discussion was helpful and productive but due to the length of our assignment, it was difficult to find ample amounts to discuss this time. Next time, we should have much more to discuss.

Oskar's Complex Relationships (p.75-107)

As we move further into the novel, many concepts and characters begin to get more and more complex. In our literary circles, we attempted to analyze certain aspects of the character's and their experiences to get a better understanding of who they are and what is actually going on. I was very confused on who the speaker was in the beginning of our assigned reading and my group helped me figure it out and then the rest quickly made sense. We were able to productively discuss many topics but our main one was Oskar's relationship with others. We all agreed to Kiki's suggestion that Oskar has certain socially awkward aspects that resemble autism. I found a perfect example to represent this resembles on page 88 when Oskar arrives at Aaron Black's apartment and rudely holds down the buzzer so he can be let in. When Aaron scorns Oskar through the speaker, Oskar becomes very frusturated and states that he believes he had not done anything wrong. We can also see an awkwardness within his relationship with his grandmother whom he is claimed to be best friends with yet he states continuously that he doesn't know much about her. We also see awkwardness in communication with his mother who he seems to show much animosity towards due to her mixed signals.
At this point in the novel their are many unanswered questions so it is difficult to find a complete analytical meaning of certain symbols but the ones that our group found most important and repetitive is Oskar's decision to wear only white clothing, heavy boots and animals. Birds seem to be a very significant detail in the novel considering that it implies a path for escape or release as he also uses as one of his inventions of the 'birdseed shirt' to help people get down from tall buildings when then are stuck.
We have also come to conclusion that his relationship with his mother is very odd. She talks to him like a child yet leaves him with much responsibility and independence. We concluded that Oskar tries to challenge himself since his father is gone and can no longer challenge him to questions about existence.
Another important idea that our group discussed was Oskar's capability of counting everything. For example, he counted the many lies he told and the disappointments that came about in his experience through Queens.
We continue to realize Oskar's rare intelligence of knowing certain things such as epidemiology and his way through Queens though he has never been there.
Our group was unable to figure out exactly why Abby Black seemed to be so emotional and inviting towards Oskar. We are hoping that the novel will soon begin to complete our fragmented thoughts and give us some sort of clue to the significance of certain symbols. Overall our discussion was extremely beneficial and productive and helped me gain more confidence on my understanding of the novel.

Trying to Save The World

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Novel Excerpt: Teakettles, Microphones, and Bird Seed Shirts...

I too, was out of class for most of the period so I missed the analysis of the beginning of the novel. When I did arrive back to class, both Alex and Allison were giving me a lot of insight on what they had noted in the beginning of the novel.
The passage which came from the beginning of the novel, introduced us to the narrator, a young boy. While he didn’t outright give a physical description of himself, his level of language implied his age. He also uses comical language to convey his messages whether it is about farting or kicking his jujitsu master in the privates. Most sentences consisted of simplistic sentences and thoughts—and the thoughts were often scattered and unrelated to his previous comment. He constantly discusses different topics but after he says “Anyway.” he is able to discuss his jujitsu class for quite a while. When he says that his first and last jujitsu class was three-and-a-half months ago, it reaffirmed his young boy tendencies of not being able to stay committed to the task at hand.
After reading the excerpt we still were unsure of the significance of the chapter title, “What the?” and wonder how and why he speaks French? Not only does he speak French, but when he talks about farting in front of the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles, it shows that he either has a good understanding of France or he has visited there before. The narrator also talks about the teakettle, the microphone, and the birdseed shirt which all seems like things that he believes can keep people safe, but in reality it isn’t practical. Our group was unsure of why he was avoiding the topic of his father’s death. We knew about his death on 9/11 because we researched the book before reading it, but until now it hasn’t appeared yet in the text—the only mention of his father is when he says that he can read a teakettle in his father’s voice—perhaps as a way to remember him? When he says that “self-defense was something that I was extremely curious about, for obvious reasons…” does this have something to do with his father’s death?
Most of my analysis was done at home, but the group came up with similar concepts as a whole. I’m interested in learning more about the unanswered questions throughout the upcoming chapters.

Seriously...What the...?

I was not in class for most of the group discussion, but when I was involved in the discussion, it was very productive. The members of my group were especially helpful in sharing their thoughts with me and helping me to catch up.
While reading the excerpt from the first chapter, titled "What The?", I immediately noticed the pattern in the writing. Most of the sentences were simple, while some were run-on sentences. This lead us to believe that the narrator was writing the novel from the perspective of a child. Some of the content was also immature, especially when the narrator wrote about farting. Another theme that I recognized was the possible symbolism of the objects that the narrator mentioned. The narrator talked about teakettles, little microphones, birdseed shirts, and jujitsu. While all of these things may have seemed somewhat random at first, our group concluded that the objects all relate to the narrator protecting himself and his loved ones. I am curious to see how these symbols play out in the novel. I am also interested in the significance of the narrator's use of French periodically throughout the excerpt.