In this book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, there seems to be two different story lines. But are they connected?
The first story line is the clearer one. This one is about a boy named Oskar Schell, whose father died in the 9/11 attacks. Osakar finds an envelope that was in his fathers possession. The envelope is labeled with the word "black" and contains a key. Oskar's mission is to find which lock the key can open. The second story line is a little bit more vague. It is about a man who can't speak, and has a mysterious and troubled relationship with his wife.
There are a few clues that these story lines are somewhat related. For example, the man's wife in storyline two is intent on writing her life story. When Oskar asks (in story line one) his family to write letters to people, his grandmother hands him her life story. Also, on pages 208-216 there is a letter relating to story line two in which many words and phrases are circled. One of the phrases that were circled at least twice was "black water". This could possibly relate back to the "black" on Oskar's father's envelope. Coincidence? I think not. :)
There are also some things that counter that argument though. Referring back to the letter on pages 208-216, a lot of other things are circled besides the "black water". Also, the man writes another letter that he signs "love, your father" which doesn't make any sense since it is obvious that Oskar's father is not the man in the second story line, since he's dead. This means that the man was not writing his letter to Oskar, but to someone else (though it is possible that the man was Oskar's grandfather and he was writing the letter to Oskar's father because he didn't know that his son was dead. Even though that may seem implausible, it's possible).
Even after all this though, I still think these stories are related. After all, these stories might be related in ways that I never dreamed of. But I haven't finished the book yet, so I guess I'll just have to wait and see.
No comments:
Post a Comment