Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Oskar recalls when he read the first chapter of A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking and became downtrodden at the thought of being insignificant in comparison to the vastness of space and time. His father had pointed out that if a person moves one grain of sand in the Sahara Desert, it may be a small act, but it still changes the universe and the course of history. Oskar compares that idea to his decision to meet all the people in New York named Black—it’s probably something small in the grand scheme of things, but it’s something, nevertheless.

To begin his expedition, which he plans to undertake in alphabetical order, Oskar packs a bag filled with things he might need (including a map of New York, iodine pills in case of a nuclear attack, some snacks, and a few other things) and tells his mother he’s going “out.” He tells himself he will be brave and won’t lie unless absolutely necessary. The doorman of the apartment, Stan, comments on how much Oskar is lugging around, but Oskar has business to attend to and doesn’t stop to converse. Oskar walks through various neighborhoods all the way to Queens to meet the first person on his list, Aaron Black. He reaches the apartment building and buzzes several times before an irritated voice finally answers. Oskar explains that he is searching for a lock and that his father has died, and the man becomes more sympathetic. He invites Oskar up so he can look at the key (he is too sick to come down), but Oskar fears going up to higher levels of buildings and declines. He leaves feeling guilty for leaving the man there wondering what just happened.

Next, Oskar makes his way to Greenwich Village to meet Abby Black. She’s a woman in her mid-40s, and Oskar immediately finds her beautiful and tells her so. She reluctantly lets him in after he lies and says he’s diabetic and needs something to drink. Oskar gets the feeling that Abby knows something and isn’t saying so, and he presses her about the envelope and key, but Abby repeatedly replies that she knows nothing. Oskar notices a photograph of an elephant on Abby’s wall and tells her about elephants’ extraordinary powers of memory, and Abby becomes emotional, but Oskar is unsure why. He takes a photograph of the elephant and one of the back of Abby’s head. Caught up in the moment, he asks Abby if he can kiss her, but she declines, noting their vast age difference.

Oskar returns home and decides to go see his grandmother, who seems to be upset but won’t let on about it. Oskar remembers how she took care of him when he was little, and how he once played a trick on her by pretending to be lost. The experience upset her deeply, and Oskar continues to feel guilty about it. He remembers how much time he spent with his grandmother after his father died, something that has not changed since. Oskar recalls the stamp collection his grandmother started for him. He wonders how, after spending so much time with his grandmother, he still knows so little about her past. That night, Oskar goes to bed thinking about the day he and his mother went to visit his dad’s storage locker after 9/11. The storage locker was full of old toys and other items that Oskar’s father had been saving for when he had kids someday, including the walkie-talkies that he now uses with his grandmother. He tries to occupy himself by designing jewelry (what his father did for a living), but it eventually hits him that perhaps the name on the envelope was the name of the storage facility. He goes to wake his mother, who tells him that the name was “Store-a-Lot” (107). Oskar feels like his search has been nothing but a disappointment so far.

In another letter, Oskar’s grandfather tells his son (Oskar’s father) of all the endless rules that he and his wife (Oskar’s grandmother) had in their marriage. At first, the rules were about minor things, like who would do which chores and when, but they slowly became something much deeper and more sinister. Thomas Sr. started spending more and more time away from home, usually at the airport, where he could watch people reunite with loved ones they had missed. He brought home newspapers and magazines for his wife to read, as she wanted to know English so well that it was “like she never came from anywhere else” (108). Thomas and his wife never looked at each other while undressing, and soon they started designating various areas of the house as “Nothing Places” (110) where they could pretend not to exist in the eyes of the other. The apartment slowly became a labyrinth of “Somethings” and “Nothings,” until the boundaries were impossible to distinguish. Thomas knew that if their relationship never became anything more than nothing, it was not worth keeping. He laments the fact that he still misses Anna and recalls how they met when he was 15 and she was 17. Their fathers had been friends, and during their first meeting, they had a lengthy conversation in which Thomas became enamored with her. He returned to her house for the next six days in the hopes of seeing her, but she was never there, and he grew increasingly disappointed. On the seventh day, he ran into Anna while walking to her house, and she admitted that she had been visiting his house every day as well, wondering where he was. Thomas, realizing he had found something special, asked Anna, “Do you like me?” (117).

Thomas reveals that, as he is writing the letter, he is preparing to leave his wife forever. Some years before leaving, he gifted her a typewriter and told her to write her life story. She expressed reluctance, claiming that she could not write or see well enough to do so, but she was willing to try. When she was done, she proudly announced that she had written down her life up to the present moment. Thomas confusedly shuffled through the papers to find all the significant moments, and when he looked for the pages about her first love, they were blank. In fact all of the pages were blank, and Thomas realized that he had taken the ink band out of the typewriter years before; his wife, nearly blind, did not know she was writing blank pages. He thinks back over their relationship and wonders if she has always had such poor eyesight, and if she had ever read any of the words he wrote to her at all. Thomas feels as though he has failed his wife and doesn’t tell her about the mistake. He spends weeks pretending to read and react to the story and encouraging his wife to write more. Thomas wonders if it is all just a test of his love for her.

Thomas describes the first time he made love to Anna. It was the first time for them both, and they made love outside of a small shack Anna’s father had fashioned out of stacks of books. On the inside, Anna’s father and his friend could be heard discussing the endlessness of war and the degradation of the world. On the outside, Thomas and Anna felt something that Thomas describes as an innate and eternal experience.

Thomas ends his last letter to his son by describing his parting from his wife. It was as if she knew what was going on, but nothing about it was said between them. She warned Thomas to take extra care of himself, and told him she loved him, but he could not return the sentiment. Although he would have stayed with her if he had two chances at life, because he did care about her and the loneliness she would soon feel, he knew he could not spend his only life with her and could never love her. He left with the knowledge that he would be leaving his son behind, and apologized for that, but stated, “I can’t live, I’ve tried and I can’t” (135). He left for the airport for the last time and purchased a ticket to Dresden, where he had met and fallen in love with Anna.