If you weren't one of millions of Americans who got their holiday shopping taken care of on Black Friday, don't worry. Despite what the insistent presence of Christmas carols suggests, the holiday is still a ways off.
"Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" will be difficult to part with if you intend to pass it on as a gift. The novel by Jonathan Safran Foer is as devastating as it is comical.
Oskar Schell is the bewitching narrator, an exceptional nine-year- old whose father is killed in the attacks on the World Trade Center.
Foer's novel is populated with characters who are just left of the norm. Oskar meets many of them in his search for a lock that will fit with the key he discovers in his father's closet. Interspersed with Oskar's perceptive narrative are segments of his grandparents' writings. A significant portion of the story is about the search for connection between generations and the inarticulate nature of grief. Foer is an inventive author, and he incorporates into his pages an assortment of media which complements the notion of an author as an artist.
Oskar's relationship to the immensity of the world and the reality of loss is a combination of sensitivity and stoicism, it is enough to give anyone "heavy boots." Foer's decision to bring the reality of 9/11's repercussions into focus through the eyes of a child makes the devastation of the event particularly poignant and inescapable.
On a slightly different note regarding children, "Tales from the Teacher's Lounge" will speak to both prospective teachers and those already a part of the system. Robert Wilder reveals the pleasures and pains of preparing America's youth for the world beyond the predictability of 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. school hours.
Wilder's "Tales" come primarily from a lounge at Santa Fe Preparatory and also dips into the standard defiance of Antioch College students and the diverse mélange of substitute teachers that shows up from time to time. Puns and raunchy metaphors abound in Wilder's second collection of short stories. His anecdotes will make one cringe and chuckle as he helps the reader relive the distress and minor disappointments of time spent in high school hallways. However, if the reader is not prepared to be hit in the face by a fully loaded diaper, as Augusten Burrough's put it in his praise for "Daddy Needs a Drink" (Wilder's first book) you might be the recipient of a few disgruntled thank you notes.
Moving from childhood to adolescence, I'll continue with the trend and conclude with a collection of stories about people who have experienced a bit more of life. William Trevor is the Irish author of a number of superb collections of short stories as well as the odd novel. "Cheating At Canasta" is in keeping with the tone and subdued disturbance of the day-to-day life that Trevor frequently evokes.
In this collection, more than others, the pervasive quality of emotion is loneliness. It is not tragic or heartbreaking isolation that the author taps into, however. Usually the solitude is merely circumstantial or even accidental, and resonates as an intrinsic quality of life. Many of Trevor's aged men discover they have simply let life pass them by. This realization does not lead to an upheaval of routine, the reader is merely privy to a moment or two of these protagonists' lives. There is the expectation that matters will continue on as before.
A sense of desolation might seem inevitable under these circumstances, but somehow the effect is not melancholic. His stories are strangely comforting companions, especially under gray skies in front of the fire. Trevor is a master of gradations of emotion and he has not lost his touch.