Extremely loud and incredibly GOOD

Feature about jonathan safran foer.. make him your hero today.


There is nothing that society loves more than a young and fresh talent. Our attitude towards age has become synonymous with that of the fruit we buy. Youth is unblemished, sprightly and full of juice, whereas an aged fruit, or an aged person, is unsightly, unsavoury, and usually covered with mould.

Our magazines and televisions are brimming with actors freshly picked from the garden of adolescence, artists on the cusp of graduation storming galleries and bands speeding their way from secondary school to fame. Regardless of this arrival of youngsters within the media, there was one medium that was thought to be safe - with which age and experience was the key to success, and wherein no one cared if you were wrinkly and emitted a peculiar odour. This so called net of security was the field of literature.

However this safety net has officially been torn open with the arrival of Jonathan Safran Foer, who is younger than your mum, probably younger than you, and armed with more articulate words than a thesaurus. Foer's debut novel 'Everything Is Illuminated' was written when he was a mere 22 years old and sold more than 250,000 copies in America alone, and by 2005 it had been translated to film by director Liev Schreiber. His follow up novel, 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' received a one million dollar advance, an astonishing sum for an author of such little age and experience. With this it was concluded that he was most likely the highest-earning novelist in America under the age of 30. He has also written a libretto for the German national opera in Berlin, named 'Seven Attempted Escapes From Silence'. Quite the collection of achievements for a man who claims to be a collector himself, acquiring family history, blank pieces of paper belonging to famous writers and second hand trinkets - not to mention his weighty assortment of critics and admirers.

Jonathan's journey within the world of literature begun in the exact same manner as the main protagonist in 'Everything is illuminated'. He travelled to Ukraine as curious 19 year-old Jew to research his family history, in particular the history of his Grandfather, who fled to America during the Second World War to escape the Nazis. The trip was evidently so memorable that it became the foundation for his debut novel, and the story so self-reflective that he named the main character after himself. The book provoked a tidal wave of both praise and criticism, rendering his critics damp and exasperated and his fans thirsty for more. An incredible and unexpected reception from an author who claimed, when the novel first emerged, that he didn't even like writing.

Born in 1977, Foer hails from a small Jewish family in Washington DC and now lives in Brooklyn, New York with his wife, fellow novelist Nicole Krauss, and their son Sasha. Foer studied Philosophy and Literature at Princeton University, where he was tutored and encouraged by celebrated American author Joyce Carol Oates. His second book, 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close', was written from the perspective of a nine year-old school boy, who alike the protagonist in the debut novel, conducts a reckless search for family information after his father is killed in the 9/11 terrorist attack. The book, much like 'Everything Is Illuminated', has been labelled both a heartbreaking masterpiece and a pretentious hack.

Foer has been described by many that have interviewed him as reserved, knowledgeable and exceptionally polite. The photograph in the sleeve of his novels reveals him as handsome, with dark eyes, thick dark hair and a shy, self-aware smile. Despite his progressing fame, however, he is not one for the celebrity lifestyle. He likes to remain in the shadows, and has repeatedly told interviewers that he likes to be in bed by nine o'clock, and nine-thirty at the latest. Perhaps the key to this writer's success is that beneath is youth flushed cheeks and pearly white teeth, he has the soul of the oldest man in the world.

Foer has referred to himself somewhat as a collector of eccentric things, much like his books, which are collections of fanciful mock-history, extravagant plots and scrapbook-esque images. One of the main reasons for the perpetual criticism of 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close' was his use of images within the text, which blurred the boundaries of the layout of a traditional novel. The images included pictures of keyholes, cats and hands, and the book ended with a 12 page image of a man falling, or jumping, from the burning building of the World Trade Centre. An image that has become synonymous with the events of 9/11, it showed the man retract from the air and back into the disintegrating building when flicked through from the first of the 12 pages to the last.

When it comes to his own collections, Foer is just as experimental as he is with his books. He has collected over 60 pieces of blank writing paper from famous authors, which he has framed and on display in his home. Using his endearingly polite manner, he would phone assistants of the writer in question and courteously ask for the next blank piece of paper that they were planning to write on. The most prestigious of his collection include Sigmund Freud, Arthur Miller and Haruki Murakami. It is of no surprise that such a renowned young author is the owner of such a vibrant imagination, and it is of great comfort to know that the future of literature is safely in the hands of at least one brilliant mind.

Perhaps Jonathan Safran Foer is what literature has needed, a burst of youth to dream it to life again. With an incredible ability to captivate the masses, provoke reaction and blur the boundaries of old and new, it would seem that Foer is taking the book off of its dreary, traditional shelf and giving it a thoroughly modern dusting off.