Unfathomable- A Nine-Eleven Post

          So after 2+ months, 368 pages, and a bathtub of tears, I finally finished reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. The thing about the ending, is that it isnt such a shocker. It is just a sum of the story. But the characters talk about something constantly: going backwards. 
          Oskar talks of the day his father dies, and how it happened. He talks of everything that happened that could have stopped him from being in the twin towers. He undos everything that has been done. Oskars grandmother talks of everything. This she knows but may not of experienced, being un-done. One thing she says that really stuck out to me is "at the end of my dream, Eve put the apple back on the branch. The tree went back into the ground and became a sapling, which became a seed. God brought together  the land and water, the sky and water, the water and the water, evening and morning, something and nothing. He said Let there be light. And there was darkness". 
        I will be completly honest, tears are streaming down my face as I write this. they are falling onto my key board and my fingers and dancing into the puddles, dragging salty tears across the keys. 
        Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is about Nine-Eleven. I'm sorry, but unless you are a new yorker, and lived in new york during that time,it doesn't hit you the same. I am not saying that peoples grief is worse or lesser, its just not the same. 
        It is a violation. Theres no other word for it. New York was violated. The US was violated. We were violated. Every word sounds wrong. There is no word, in any language, that anything could utter, that could sum up Nine-Eleven. Everything sound past, and gone. If I had to, I would call it "Backwards Motion". 
        That's the feeling. There is nothing more I wish, at this point, then to go back, and just undo everything. Everything. But I don't think Oskar wants to undo. I mean, he does, but what he really wants is his father back. The way he was. Oskar speaks of how it happened. But ends with his dad in bed with him, telling him the story of the six boroughs, the night before the worst night. That moment should be pure and beautiful. 
       It isn't. Its slandered with knowledge. Knowledge of what will happen the next day. That moment was pure, and it was violated. 
       I want you to know, I am still crying. This book is spectacular, and I do not deserve to try and fathom it in any way. This book has given me the "heaviest boots" I have ever had. Save for my first day of school. The Ninth of September. The worst day.