None of my pets know their own names, what kind of person am I?

Page 32 reads, in its entirety: "Please marry me."

"Anyone who believes that a second is faster than a decade did not live my life."

And so I start my review to gush over the greatness that is "Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close", the latest gift given us from the notable author Jonathan Safran Foer. I was wary of this read because it's conflict is concerned with the September 11th catastrophie, but Foer weaves the event (what could be so easily overdone and dramatized) subtely, so that at times we, the reader, are so concerned with the current conflict (real time, New York, and our narrarator- the young and unforgettable Oskar) that we aren't overwhelmed with a sense of pity, or dramatic irony, or blatant patriotism or political unrest over the events of 9-11.

"And also, there are so many times when you need to make a quick escape, but humans don't have their own wings, or not yet, anyway, so what about a birdseed shirt?"

The story isn't a convenient coming of age. It isn't a mere acceptance of death. It is an observation of the living. Foer introduces a great many characters in this novel. At first it seems too many to mention, but Oskar's organization, his sense of priority make convenient our characters. I've never read so strong a character before and I found myself taking on the characteristics of young Oskar at any and all times. He is developed to an exhausting degree. This works in context because Foer feeds us bits of characters, seemingly prominent that we yearn to know more of. Only do we fully understand them through Oskar. He is the middle of the venn diagram. Foer takes great risk in developing him as such an essential and dominant character. Thankfully, Foer is maybe one of the best writer's of our day and produces a character we, the reader feel so attached to, that if he weren't the cornerstone of the novel in every sentence and nearly every word, we'd feel cheated and abandonned and let down.

Foer takes liberties in his novelization. He integrates pictures and edited text. I've never been a fan of mixed media in literature. I feel as though the words should hold their own, but Foer establishes a format unlike any I've yet read. Dave Eggers is the closest I've come to actively incorporating variant media in a novel- but Foer does so through the care and concern of his narrarator. Without these added pictures or edited pages (circled with red pen) I wouldn't have such an understanding of Oskar. And while it worked, I'm certain that anymore would have spoiled the text. It seems Foer has a good understanding of when he's outdone himself, as at the end of the read Oskar was becmoing slightly irritating.

"When I was your age, my grandfather bought me a ruby bracelet. It was too big for me and would slide up and down my arm. It was almost a necklace. He later told me that he had asked the jeweler to make it that way. Its size was supposed to be a symbol of his love. More rubies, more love. But I could not wear it comfortably. I could not wear it at all. So here is the point of everything I have been trying to say. If I were to give a bracelet to you, I would measure your wrist twice."

Regardless, this book supplied some of the greatest quotable lines of all time, and I'd argue one of the best methods of characterization I've yet read.

"In bed that night I invented a special drain that would be underneath every pillow in New York, and would connect to the reservoir. Whenever people cried themselves to sleep, the tears would all go to the same place, and in the morning the weatherman could report if the water level of the reservoir of Tears had gone up or down, and you could know if New York was in heavy boots. And when something really terrible happened- like a nuclear bomb, or at least a biological weapons attack- an extremely loud siren would go off, telling everyone to get to Central Park to put sandbags around the reservoir."

4 of 4 Hula hoops. It's a dance party around here.

"What does a woman think about while she attaches a button?"

"I did not bathe or shave or brush my teeth, because love taught me too late that you groom yourself for someone, you dress and perfume yourself for someone, and I'd never had anyone to do that for."

Filthy in the most beautiful sense of the word. "Memories of My Melancholy Whores" is Gabriel Garcia Marquez's debut novel in over a decade of selfish hibernation. I've never felt more privileged to have read a story in all my years of reading. Marquez's words are like an invite. He draws in the reader in such a way as to suggest that the story is a product of the reader's own making, that that Marquez is just a guide in our own fight for self discovery.

In this modern day Lollita (although to call it that, or even make so absurd a suggestion is to do it a great injustice) Marquez crafts our narrarator, a ninety year old writer who lives with the health and effectiveness of a 7o year old. However, it isn't until he falls in love for the first time that he begins to exhibit the vivaciousness and restored agility of said 70 year old. He finds love in one Delgadina, who he prefers to speak silently, and in this we see age as something other than the sum of time. Marquez doesn't fall prey to convenient recollection or remorse or regret. He also doesn't herald old age as a glass half full proposition. Instead he narrates life for what it is. Here. Now. This moment in June. Our character dances blindly and gropes cowardly. I feel throughout everything that Marquez simply allows the character to be instead of basing the character in bias. In the end the reader is unsure of the outcome but certain of the income. The prose is so perfectly positioned. With sparse dialogue, and enriching self reflection on the part of the narrarator, Marquez dazzles the reader with his delicate diction and assured prose.

"I always had understood that dying of love was mere poetic license. That afternoon, back home again without the cat and without her, I proved that it was not only possible but that I myself, an old man without anyone, was dying of love. But I also realized that the contrary was true as well: I would not have traded the delights of my suffering for anything in the world. I had spent more than fifteen years trying to translate the poems of Leopardi, and only on that afternoon did I have a profound sense of them: Ah, me, if this is love, then how it torments."

This novel restored my belief in love.

4 out of 4 Hula hoops. I'm dizzy from all the ecstatic spinning.