Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Salsa and air conditioning do not go well together. Now I have a cold with sore throat, runny nose, light headache and feel tired even after a two-hour nap. No active enjoyment of these sunny Easter days for me. I do have plenty of time and a good excuse to read, though.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. This book has been on my bedside table for more than a year and I’ve been meaning to read it, but somehow missed the right mood to start. No I’ve started and I know Jonathan will not disappoint me. I was so impressed by Everything is Illuminated! Even if he never wrote any other book anymore, he still would have been a great writer. I think the fact that it all happens in Ukraine and my Jewish roots play a great role. But even if you don’t have that background – read that book! But back to Extremely Loud. I have only read 15 pages so far and it reminds me of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (a book I highly recommend too) by Mark Haddon. Probably because the story is told by a boy. So far 15 pages are full of jewels like this: “[…] the fascinating thing was that I read in National Geographic that there are more people alive now than have died in all of human history. In other words, if everyone wanted to play Hamlet at once, they couldn’t, because there aren’t enough skulls!”

A friend of mine surprised me today. He said he liked this song:

Well, maybe today’s youth is not completely lost yet? Or maybe he is not a typical example…

Trivia: I read novels in three languages: Russian, English and Dutch.