I wish there would have been a One Community One Read program when I was a freshman at MSU. About as good as it got was nearly everyone on our floor in Abbott Hall was reading “Candy”. I doubt that the women in Mason, our sister dorm, were reading it, however. What an ice-breaker it would’ve been to ask, “What do you think about Candy?” It would’ve really helped the inter-personal relationships even in my dorm room if we’d all read the same book. But, then again, I kind of doubt that the Crown Prince of Kuwait would’ve been able to read “Candy” since he couldn’t read English. Later, after we spent hours with books like “Little Red Riding Hood” I noticed “Candy” on his desk. I’m pretty sure that violated some religious precept.
MSU college freshmen and community members will get a chance to talk with Jonathan Safran Foer as part of the One Community Read Program 7 p.m., Sunday September 25 at the Wharton Center.
Jonathan Safran Foer has a writing pedigree that can be traced back to his freshman year at Princeton University when his professor, the venerable Joyce Carol Oates, told him he could be a writer.
Foer took her advice and by the time he turned 25 had published his first novel, “Everything is Illuminated,” to critical acclaim. Oh, and one of his other professors just happened to be Pulitzer Prize winner Jeffrey Eugenides. Foer is following in their footsteps as a professor at New York University.
Foer is on campus as part of One Book, One Community program, which is celebrating its 10th year. His second book (and this year’s selection), “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close,” a fictional account of one person’s response to the events of Sept. 11, is likely to be different than any book the 7,000 incoming college freshmen have previously read — that is, unless they’ve delved into Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude,” or the work of Franz Kafka or Herman Hesse.
The book deserves its own Cliff Notes. If you want the inside scoop play with Google a little to learn why Safran Foer’s book are semi-autobiographical. Start by reading this article in the Guardian in 2005, but be sure to go looking for the 2010 article which Safran Foer authored about the science experiment gone awry.
During the first nine years of the community reading program, the book selections skewed to much safer and more traditional literary ventures, such as heartwarming memoirs represented by Steve Lopez’s “The Soloist” and Jeanette Walls’ “The Glass Castle.”
Foer should be ready for his mostly college-aged audience: He´ll be coming off another One Book, One Community program at the universities of North Carolina and Duke where the students were asked to read “Eating Animals,” Foer’s personal account of vegetarianism.
In “Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” the author follows the precocious 9-year-old Oskar, who is trying to make sense of his post 9-11 world after his father was killed in the attacks.
There are some incredible coincidences, for which the book was heartily criticized, as Oskar, who is just a little obsessive, goes in search of a lock that fits a key he found in his father’s belongings. His quest, mostly on foot since he is afraid of closed spaces and public transportation, takes him around New York’s five boroughs, where he meets some amazing people.
His journey parallels Oskar’s evolving relationships with his mother and his grandmother (she lives across the street), which by the end of the book will be severely challenged.
On a Facebook page created for the One Book program, students have posted some candid reactions to the book, which often include the word “confusing.”
There is no doubt the book is confusing, especially in the early pages, which set the stage for the quest and the ultimate discovery, which, like a good thriller or a fairy tale, has a switchback you won’t see coming. By the end, Foer wraps the book up in a nice package that may not make everyone happy. Along the way he includes cryptic photos, odd literary divergences and, finally, his own flip-book.
Oskar is one strange kid, working overtime to use his genius level skills and abilities. Certainly he is obsessive, spouting fact after fact about topics that don’t interest most 9-year-olds, such as how many birds die each year flying into the Empire State Building. He is a showoff, only wears white clothes and heavy black boots and is constantly inventing things, like “I could train my anus to talk when I farted.”
With lines like that it’s no wonder the book is popular with 18-year-olds.
Speaking from his home in Brooklyn, Safran Foer said that although people want to see Oskar as a real person, he only “exists in the book.”
“I don’t think about him as a real person,” he said.
Oskar may not be a real person, but he delves deeply into things real people care about. which in Foer’s case include “dreams never fulfilled.”
The book is filled with dreams unfulfilled, dreams delayed and dreams that will never come true.
Foer is adamant that his book is developed as he writes it, with the plot, characters and voice emerging as he goes.
Ginny Haas, director of community relations for MSU and a longtime One Book, One Community selection committee member, said that “Extremely” is a very different book, “but that is one reason students like the book.”
“The book, which often comes close to stream-of-consciousness, seems to be the way younger people think,” she said. “They are used to multitasking.” Of course, there are just enough “boob” and bodily function mentions to keep the guys interested.
She said Foer was recommended by Dave Eggers, last year’s One Book, One Community author.
This book seems to have something for everyone: long-lost relatives, clever writing, some slapstick, a fairy-tale world, dirty words and a perky 9-year-old who is never deterred from his mission. It gives readers a lot to talk about, and that’s what Haas said was the original goal of the program.
I loved this book, loved it!