1.2.2 The Background of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

The most apparent reason why Foer creates his novel is the 9/11 incident. As a New Yorker, though he was not in New York when the terrible incident happened, it still exerted a deep influence on his life. He didn’t accept the explanation of the 9/11 incident given by the local government. Instead, he turned to writing this story. He said, “ I think it’s a greater risk not to write about it. If you are in my position-a New Yorker who felt the event deeply and a writer who wants to write about the thing he feels deeply about-I think it’s risky to avoid what’s right in front of you”( “Jonathan”, 2005).

But many people do not know that the 9/11 incident is not the only reason which leads him to write this book. The other idea for his book must be related to his personal experience and his family. When he was eight years old, he was injured by a chemical explosion in a classroom, which left him with severe burns in his hands and face. It resulted in “something like a nervous breakdown drawn out over about three years,” during which “he wanted nothing, except to be outside his skin.” He was afraid that his skin would peel off, and repeatedly asked his friends the same question every day. Therefore, in the book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, there are descriptions of skin peeling from the body in the bombing. In addition, Foer’s maternal grandmother is a survivor of the Holocaust. Foer has a great interest in the Holocaust, which may be one of the reasons why he writes Dresden bombing in his novel.

1.2.3 Relative Researches Home and Abroad

After its initial release, the novel has received polarizing reviews in English-speaking countries. On the one hand, some critics think it is too soon to write something about that catastrophic event before Americans could understand it. Many writers choose to say nothing about the event after the 9/11 incident, as Richard Gray says, “if there was one thing writers agreed about in response to 9/11, it was the failure of language.” (2001). Though writers wish to write something, at that time, they think language has lost the ability to describe it. On the other hand, some critics appreciate Foer’s courage to choose such a sensitive topic at that time. What is more, they reach a consensus on Foer’s natural gift, for his distinctive voice is sharp enough to be heard by people. In Munson’s view, this novel makes sense of and provides a way of moving on from the grief of the specific catastrophic event. He also says, “few works of literature have succeeded in drawing last meaning, whole or fragmentary, from modernity’s string of catastrophic events, but Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is one of them, providing a tool to create the understanding of grief and loss”( Munson, 2005).

In the book, Foer uses many writing techniques, especially, visual devices, which also arouse the fiercest debates. Many of critics criticize that visual narrative shows Foer’s incapability of using language to express his ideas. However, others realize the significance of visual narrative, for it is a perfect way to express the inability of articulating traumatic memory, which is often frozen and wordless. What is more, it is also close to the nature of trauma.

Beside these polarizing criticisms, some critics also show great interests in comparing it with other books, especially in English-speaking countries. While in China, most of the Chinese scholars prefer to analyze the novel from the perspective of trauma and its visual devices. Though there are many relative researches on the book at home and abroad, critics and scholars pay less attention to the other techniques that Foer uses in writing the novel. So there is still a long way to go on the in-depth analysis of the book.