Just after his father's death, Oskar decides to start writing letters to people who he admires. Rather than seeing the letters that he writes, we instead see the responses that he receives. There is one such letter, that of Stephen Hawking, which appears more than once: it is the...

  In one of the first chapters of the novel, we read how Oskar's grandfather starts to lose his ability to speak. The loss of Anna has caused him such trauma that he has become physically unable to pronounce her name. Gradually, this handicap grows to the point where he cannot utter a sound....

  In the first chapter of the book, Gerald Thomson, the limousine driver who takes Oskar and his family to his father's grave, gives Oskar his business card. Later, Oskar gives Abby Black his own business card that he has made, in which he presents himself as being an inventor, a jewelry...

  When we read novels, we usually don't come across colours, unless they are in encyclopedias or comics. However, we do find colour in Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close. I remember a friend of mine leafing through the book and looking angrily at me, saying: "Did you write on the pages with...

  In Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close it is quite common to stumble upon words in italics or even words that are crossed out. But that's not all, we also frequently find different font sizes and varied spacing in between letters. Elements of punctuation are also omitted in dialogues....

  On the first three pages of this novel, even before the title and the copyright page, we find three photographs. These images are of a lock, a flock of birds and the façade of a building. At first they don't have much sense. It is not until we read further into the story that their...