Foer’s “Extremely Loud” decent, but suffers sophomore slump

Diagnosing and analyzing the notion and execution of the "sophomore slump" is perhaps one of the most interesting parts of being an arts critic.

It's a tough concept to get a handle on at first. My first experience with the critical idea came with singer/songwriter Jon McLaughlin. His 2007 debut album "Indiana" spoke to my teenage angst in a way that other music at the time just couldn't and my parents could never understand! But objectively it was good pop/rock music: sensible, well-written, notable for its piano-centric melodies. Then McLaughlin released "OK Now" a year later and I was left with the question I still have, "What is this shit?" The lyrics read like mad-libs and the sensible and delicate piano was replaced by a soulless game of "pick the synth chord."

"This is a sophomore slump," someone explained to me. But how does a once mindful and intelligent artist all of a sudden become a boring, hapless one? Well, it's easy. He spends the time he would have spent creating his next piece of art touring, explaining and promoting its predecessor. The artist also only has 12 or 18 months for the second effort. He or she might have been working on the debut his/her entire life. Plus, there are now expectations in place. The audience is no longer working from a blank slate so far as their reception is concerned.

Now Jonathan Safron Foer's "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" isn't generally considered a sophomore slump. Los Angeles Times, Washington Post Book World and Chicago Tribune Best Books of the Year seldom are. But the critical reception of the novel (which paled notably relative to "Everything Is Illuminated") worked with the same progression of receivership.

Did Foer build on his strengths and expel his weaknesses? Is the follow-up too different from the original? Because then he's not developing as a writer. Is it too different? Because then he's inconsistent. Basically, critics can sniff a sophomore slump out of a black hole, so long as they're looking at a "sophomore."

Consistent between the Foer's first and second novels is his mastery of characterization through his contortion of language. In the same way that Alex (the Ukrainian translator) becomes an unforgettable character in "Everything Is Illuminated" because of his humorously unique problems speaking English ("Many girls want to be carnal with me because I am such a premium dancer"), Oskar (the nine-year-old protagonist of "Extremely Loud") is captivating for his word play. With trademark expressions, like "it made my boots lighter/heavier,"  Oskar comes off as a child, who while wildly intelligent because of his father's lessons and first-rate education, can never shake the naivety of being, well, a child.

And once again, Foer writes in multiple story lines, sharing some of the life narratives of Oskar's paternal grandparents, in addition to that of the first-person narration of Oskar. Once again, I wished that Foer would have just stuck to the one. Everything else felt a bit like complication for its own sake.

If you don't know the central plot, Oskar Schell's father, a fastidious and imaginative jewelry store owner, was killed during the World Trade Center 9/11 attacks. A year after his passing, Oskar (in a continuing spell of child-like, mesmerized focus) discovers a key tucked in an envelope tucked in his fathers closet. "BLACK" is scrawled on the envelope, a single word or name that sets Oskar off on a journey to all five boroughs in search of the answers to what he feels was his father's last playful puzzle for his young son.

Ultimately, I think "Everything Is Illuminated" is better. It felt ground-breaking. It felt like I was reading a novel that fiction writers in the last ten years have gone to great lengths to emulate. "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" doesn't break ground, but the emotional impact tied to Oskar's repressed grief and his gradual healing cannot be overlooked. And, c'mon, how many times does a writer break ground in one lifetime, much less two novels?

As for claiming that Foer somehow shouldn't have been allowed to write about a child's emotional fallout from 9/11 because he was paid for writing the book (which some members of the literary press railed on him for), that seems unfair in my view.

If we are, as an American culture, to think and behave and theorize in a "post-9/11 world" and yet we don't expect the event and the emotional side effects of the event to appear in our art, we're being short-sighted. Yes, Foer was well-compensated for his New York Times best-selling novel. But A-list writers make money when they write books that people like. It's presumptuous and pretty, well, mean to accuse him of having written "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" only for the sake of the money.

So I'm defending this novel. It's pretty good - certainly well-written.

As for the film adaptation, I'm sure Larry Crowne gives a stirring performance.

Chance Solem-Pfeifer is a junior English major. Reach him at chancesolem-pfeifer@dailynebraskan.com.