Extremely Loud & Incredibly, Incredibly Close

Filed under living in new york is neat, narcissism, readin' and writin', stuff i like, there's a difference between films and movies

I got to Kamran’s apartment after work yesterday to find these signs taped in front of his building:

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close Filming

I know it really steps on a lot of people’s toes to say things like this, but I really feel like Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close means more to me than it does to anyone else.

Okay, maybe it means more to one other person. And maybe it means just as much to you. But it means a lot–a lot–to me.

I read it just after I started working at Barnes & Noble in December of 2005. I had lived here for just over five months and was, as I’ve previously embarrassingly admitted–crying all over the damned city. And of course the book is about walking all over the damned city. I missed my dead mom, and Oscar was trying to find a piece of his dead dad. I knew I was being manipulated by cutesy phrases like heavy boots, but I felt like my own boots were dragging me into the concrete, so I didn’t care.

My then-boyfriend kept asking me why I was reading this book that would make me cry two minutes after I sat down with it, but it was too beautiful to put aside. Ability to produce continual, pathetic tears or not, a well-written book still eases my mind. I haven’t been able to touch it since, and my copy sits on my bookshelf still tabbed with sticky notes on every other page to mark my favourite spots. And I’ll never forget the way the pages leading up to the end just fly by, building up to the climax so much that I felt like I could actually hear a trumpet fanfare in my head. Apparently this is something that happens to me with books I really, really love, because I remember it with my very favourite book, Dandelion Wine, and one of my other Top Fives, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.

So it seems really meaningful somehow that the movie version of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is taping right outside of Kamran’s apartment tomorrow. I feel like I should take off work to watch. I feel like I should have desperately tried to become an extra. I feel like I should rush the set and try to talk about the book with Tom Hanks.

But I doubt it means as much to him as it does to me.

In your FACE, Hanks.

23 Comments

  1. Jessica says:

    I started reading it… and then stopped. I can’t remember why, but I need to pick it up again. I have a couple of books that have moved me that way and I’ve read them so many times that they are crumbling on my shelves.

    • Was it because it was TOO HEARTBREAKINGLY BEAUTIFUL? No, I mean, I can actually understand anyone hating it. It’s melodramatic, the kid in it is annoyingly clever to the point of unbelievability, and you know, it’s about 9/11. Which is not to discourage you from picking it back up again!

      I’d love to hear more about these crumbling books of yours.

  2. Cassie says:

    I know what you mean about books that move you. However, I can’t stand extremely depressing books, ie: A Thousand Splendid Suns. It makes me feel like crying just thinking about it.

    Awesomely written, though.

    I know it sounds lame, but the books I read over and over are both the Stephanie Plum series by Janet Evanovich and autobiographies. One of my favorites being (lame) Nicholas Sparks’ Three Weeks with my Brother. Great book.

    However, I really loved reading Elizabeth Berg’s latest book called Open House.

    • Ironically, my Shelfari profile says, “I only like books that make me cry.” I like a little fluff (Twilight, the Harry Potters) now and then, but I’m really looking to be emotionally moved.

      Isn’t Nicholas Sparks sappy times ten thousand, though? I remember how wildly popular the Evanovich books were at B&N, but the Berg book looks more my stuff. And my library happened to have it in ebook form, so hopefully I’ll be reading it on my Kindle soon.

  3. He might be able to ACT like it means a lot to him, though.
    Maybe.
    Er…
    Yeah. Probably not.
    :)

    • DUDE!
      As soon as I posted this I kicked myself for not leaving a ‘Wilson’ comment. Lame, S.I.G. … lame.
      :)

      • Aww, I love Mr. Hanks. I seriously can’t name anything of his that I don’t like, and I’m even remembering Turner & Hooch here.

        Plus, my dad’s name is Wilson, so most of that movie was hilarious to me.

        • I always wondered why his character didn’t use that stop-watch, or locket (or whatever it was) and the sun to ‘make fire’. So… take that… stranded… guy… character.
          :)

  4. Cristy says:

    I really take your book opinions seriously. I put a few of those on my wish list on Shelfari. I think it’s interesting that I was really drawn to “Something Wicked This Way Comes” but think I’d not like “Dandelion Wine” at all – is that weird? Also, I wonder if there’s some psychological reason why some of your fav books have a boy as the main character? Maybe you relate more in some things? Interesting.

    Amazing that they’re filming there. Wow. Pls tell us if you’re able to peek!

    • Is it because you like the sci-fi aspect of Something Wicked? Dandelion Wine, for me, was sheer nostalgia, which is my favourite thing in the world, so it surprised me when I later learned that Bradbury’s not known for that at all.

      I’m not sure I’ve ever related to a book about a woman; I’m trying hard to think here. It’s interesting that you noticed that. I like guy-focused TV shows and movies, too, I guess. (All of my male co-workers thought I’d hate the show “The League” about fantasy football, and I thought it was one of the funniest in a long time.) The women I like, I really, really like, but too many of us come off as petty and shallow. I just want to get along with people and hate it when other women make me want to be catty with underhanded insults and really sad insecurity issues. Sorry, I could go on about that for days.

      • Cristy says:

        I do like sci-fi, but I think there’s more to it. It occurred to me after I wrote this that the age Dandelion Wine is about was one I most definitely do NOT feel nostalgic about. It’s like I don’t mind picking and choosing memories, but I don’t want them brought on by emotion or something. Sorry, that’s a bit deep for a blog comment, but I found it interesting. :)

        I know exactly what you mean about not wanting to relate to women in the stereotypical way. Bad enough we’re portrayed that way all the time, but slipping into it myself is so frustrating… and damn inconvenient when I try to argue I’m above all that. :)

  5. kinard says:

    Please take off work! Rush the set! Be an extra! Get Sandy’s autograph for me! Do everything short of being arrested!

    I love this book beyond words, and just ordered another hardcover copy on Amazon.

    You must watch this video: http://youtu.be/aNytcU70poM
    It’s Cary Ann Hearst, whom you as a J,LC junkie probably know, with her tune about the book called Dresden Snow. LOVE.

    • Oh, my gosh! Neat. I’ve never heard that one. I fell in love with her when she put out that four-song demo that Jump was pushing for a while. It had that kudzu song on it. Do you remember? I would probably kill a small dog to be able to find my copy.

      Hopefully something’s still going on today when I get home. Otherwise, I’ll just chalk it up on my long list of regrets.

  6. Dishy says:

    It is fitting and I do hope you have a serendipitous moment that involves filming, somehow, someway. It seems only karmic-ly fair.

    PS: I am waiting for YOUR book, then I will resume reading fiction.

    • Oh, um, maybe I haven’t bragged enough, because I was in Julie and Julia and two episodes of “Lipstick Jungle”, so I’m kind of already a superstar.

      Haha, but really, those filmings were soooooo much fun, even as just a dumb background person, and I really want to quit my job and do that every day. But it’s scary! You never know where you’ll be filming, and you never know when you’re going to get work. Maybe I need to save up my pennies and take a year off to do it, though.

      What are you reading now instead? Got anything to recommend?

      • Dishy says:

        TOO cool!

        These days reading cookbooks & nonfiction pretty much exclusively – right now Self Sufficiency for the 21st Century – too bad I’m not a trust fund hippie, I could really put this stuff into practice! Kinda hard living off the land when your mortgage alone eats half your income.. wah-wah-waaahh

  7. aaron says:

    i read that book because you said it was great, and it WAS GREAT. i’d be really skeptical of a film adaptation if stephen daldry wasn’t directing it and eric roth wasn’t writing it.

    although, um, tom hanks? nooooooooo. and sandra bullock was all down hill after while you were sleeping, which was actually my favourite movie when i was like 8.

    and yet my parents didn’t suspect anything.

    • I haven’t seen any of the Daldry films, but of course I’m aware of them and his style, so I’m pretty pumped.

      I love Tom Hanks, though! (Big, The ‘Burbs, Forrest Gump, Philadelphia? COME ON!) And I loved While You Were Sleeping, too! And also Crash! I think she can be good as a serious actor when she tries.

      Come to ‘merica so we can see it together!

  8. thickcrust says:

    I wanted to write this post in the voice of Oskar, but the mere thought of caused me to be overcome by a wave of nauseating sentimentality, so I am going to use my own voice: They are filming this movie in my neighborhood, too.

    • Did you read Everything is Illuminated? Not quite as good, in my opinion, but I understand it was more-beloved. I did love all of the wordplay in it, though. And by “wordplay”, I mean “misspellings”.

      This is great! Since you don’t have a real job like ME, you can sit outside all day and take pictures for me. Thx!

      • thickcrust says:

        No, I didn’t read that one, though I probably would have enjoyed it more than Extreme Loud & Incredibly Close. But as a direct result of your description of it as being “beloved” by people, it is forever banned from my bookshelf.

        Well, maybe not forever, but for the foreseeable future.

  9. Tracey says:

    I wouldn’t presume for a moment that the book meant more to me than it did to you. But this post is making me remember how you recommended it to me at a time in my life when I was crying about EVERYTHING, and everything felt so dramatic and significant. (What a HORRIBLE time for us to have to be apart from each other, right?! How did we ever make it?)

    Mine was a library copy, so I don’t have it sitting on my shelf full of notes, but I DO have a journal full of scrawled out passages that I copied word for word, feeling like they had been written just for me. Super emo quotes like: “My greatest regret is how much I believed in the future,” and “Sometimes I can hear my bones straining under the weight of all the lives I’m not living.” And, “She wants to know if I love her. That’s all anyone wants from anyone else, not love itself, but the knowledge that love is there, like new batteries in the flashlight in the emergency kit in the hall closet.”

  10. Should I read this? Or is it going to make me have feelings? Are they the kind of feelings I can drown in booze?

    You know how I hate all feelings except happiness and rage.