extremely loud and incredibly close

whoever knows me, knows that i'm constantly in the middle of a novel. i live outside of Toronto so my average one way commute takes about 75 minutes, and since i read fairly quickly i've managed to read A LOT of books over the years. this is one reason why i don't mind traveling long distances - because then i have an excuse to get lost in a new story.

if i didn't love making things so much i know that i'd try to be a writer. i love how art can articulate indescribable ideas but i greatly admire when a writer/poet/lyricist can find a way to describe a situation perfectly, evocatively, or poetically. and i always LOVE finding new metaphors.

i had heard about Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close years ago, but my to be read pile is fairly long, and gets longer all the time. from the first few pages i was hooked and completely fell in love with Jonathan Safran Foer's writing style. the story was wonderful.  Foer artistically described a coming of age - solitude, the struggle to understand yourself and difficult situations, the process of loss and levels of acceptance, the different kinds of love and bonds we have towards one another, as well as the often forgotten importance of  family history and memories.

 some of my favourite quotations from the book:

"'Is anything wrong?'

I wanted to say 'Is anything right?'

I wanted to pull the thread

unravel the scarf of my silence 

and start from the beginning."

"I left behind a thousand tons of marble, 

I could have released sculptures, 

I could have released myself 

from the marble of myself."

"My life story was spaces."

"I couldn't speak the language of his feelings."

"What am I going to do? 

I   n e e d  m o r e   r o o m.

I have things I need to say

my words are pushing at the walls
of the papers edge."

"I regret that it takes a life to learn how to live."

"Sometimes I can hear my bones straining 

under the weight of all the lives I'm not living."

"She saw through the shell of me into the center of me." 

"‘That’s not true,’ I said, 

not knowing what the next words out of my mouth would be, but
wanting them to be mine

wanting

more than I’d ever wanted anything

to express the center of me and be understood."

just beautiful. you should all get your hands on this book. next up - his first novel: Everything is Illuminated.