Read it in: less than a week (under pressure)

I wouldn’t have read this book, I don’t think, except for the fact that it was on my reading list for an English course.  I tend to avoid September 11 literature, only because it’s in abundance.  But I am exceedingly, exceedingly glad that I read this.

This book is one of complete contrasts.  I picked it up expecting sad and found funny, very funny.  I was sitting outside the cinemas waiting for a friend having just picked up this book from a bookstore around the corner and found myself sniggering so much I was being looked at.  Take this passage, I just love the kid narrator’s voice:

‘My first jujitsu class was three and a half months ago.  Self-defense was something that I was extremely curious about, for obvious reasons, and Mom thought it would be good for me to have a physical activity besides tambourining, so my first jujitsu class was three and a half months ago.  There were fourteen kids in the class, and we all had on neat white robes.  We practiced bowing, and then we were all sitting down Native American style, and then Sensei Mark asked me to go over to him.  “Kick my privates,” he told me.  That made me feel self-conscious.  “Excusez-moi?” I told him.  He spread his legs and told me, “I want you to kick me in the privares as hard as you can.”  He put his hands at his sides took a breath in, and closed his eyes, and that’s how I knew that he actually meant business.  “Jose,” I told him, and inside I was thinking, What the? He told me, “Go on, guy.  Destroy my privates.”

“Destroy your privates?” With his eyes still close he cracked up a lot and said, “You couldn’t destroy my privates if you tried.  That’s what’s going on here.  This is a demonstration of the well-trained body’s ability to absorb a direct blow.  Now destroy my privates.”  I told him, “I’m a pacifist,” and since most people my age don’t know what that means, I turned around and told the others, “I don’t think it’s right to destroy people’s privates.  Ever.” Sensei Mark said, “Can I ask you something?”  I turned back around and told him, “‘Can I ask you something?’ is asking me something.”  He said, “Do you have dreams of becoming a jujitsu master?”  “No,” I told him, even though I don’t have dreams of running the family jewellery business anymore.  He said, “Do you want to know how a jujitsu student becomes a jujitsu master?”  “I want to know everything,” I told him, but that isn’t true anymore either.  He told me, “A jujitsu student becomes a jujitsu master by destroying his master’s privates.”  I told him, “That’s fascinating.”  My last jujitsu class was three and a half months ago.’ (page 2)

So I was surprised, at first, but then I became more and more so as the story progressed.  If I thought it was just a story about September 11 and some cute little kid who lost his Dad, then I was very wrong.  It was so, so much more than that.  Not only was it funny in parts, it was desperately sad, confusing and altogether an emotional masterpiece that is definitely hard to forget.

The story is, in a very, very much simplified manner, that of Oskar whose father died in 9/11 who is attempting to find the owner of a key that he finds in a vase in the closet.  At the same time, the story compares the events of 9/11 to those of the Dresden bombings and of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima.  All three stories are told in different manners, the emotions of this young boy are shown in prolific detail, using not only words but pictures, photographs to help us understand.

I’ve never read something that employs such different techniques into writing.  I’ve never thought that a writer could use photographs or text in such a manner that enhances a story; I always thought words ought to be enough.  But Safran Foer is able to do this.

We aren’t just reading the st0ry, but we are being shown the story in a way that words simply cannot describe.  Take the birds picture – describing that moment in the same way that this two-page photographic spread does would have been impossible.  The narrative goes along, you read absorbed, and then suddenly you turn the page and birds fly into the air, you can hear them fly into the air and you don’t expect it and it works.  In the same way, in parts the text blackens and blackens until it’s unreadable, but you know that is simply because the story cannot go on being told the way it is, it just collapses into darkness, and the sort of darkness that cannot be explained by words alone.

I was always of the opinion that words only would suffice to explain things in a novel – that’s what novels were for – but now I can see that the incredible mix of words and pictures can really work.

Read it if you: enjoy something different, well written and interesting, are looking for something a bit sad, but entirely memorable, like an interesting narrating voice, don’t necessarily want answers and a straightforward ending to a novel.

While reading, listen to: The Sunken Cathedral Claude Debussy (is mentioned in the novel, so you should probably listen to it to have an idea of what Safran Foer is talking about), Symphony No. 1 (In Memoriam Dresden) Daniel Bukvich is also worth listening to, especially during the Dresden scene.