Six Degrees of Separation: Wild Dark Shore to Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Welcome to this month's edition of Six Degrees of Separation, which is a monthly meme hosted by Kate from Books Are My Favourite and Best. The idea is to start with a specific book and make a series of links from one book to the next using whatever link you can find and see where you end up after six links. I am also linking this post up with The Sunday Salon, hosted by Deb at Readerbuzz and A Good Book and a Cup of Tea hosted at Boondock Ramblings. 

This month the starting prompt start was to start with your book group’s current selection (or if you’re not in a book group, start with the book that you’re currently reading). my read on a theme book club theme this month was "environment" and I chose to read Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghey, so that is where I am starting this time!

My first link uses the word shore as the connection. Dawn on the Distant Shore by Sara Donati is the second book in the Into the Wilderness series.

Another shore, again distant, so my next selection is A Distant Shore by Peter Yeldham. 

My next connection only uses the word distant, and is The Distant Hours by Kate Morton

If I think about a different word for distant, I have the word far, so I have chosen The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton. To be fair, it was only as I found the cover that I realised that the title is Faraway and not Far Away.

The opposite of far is close, and so I have chosen The Mystery of Mercy Close by Marian Keyes. (review)

My final selection uses the word close as the link. My selection is Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (review)

Next month, the starting point is Rachel Cusk’s latest novel, Life of M. Normally I find myself having an idea as soon as the prompt is revealed and I write the post straight away, but I must admit this time I am drawing a blank. Good job I have a month to think about it!

Will you be joining us next month?

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

From the back cover:

Nine-year-old Oskar Schell is an inventor, amateur entomologist, computer consultant, Francophile, letter writer, pacifist, amateur astronomer, natural historian, percussionist, romantic, Great Explorer, jeweller, origamist, detective, vegan and collector of butterflies.

When his father is killed in the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center, Oskar sets out to solve the mystery of a key he discovers in his father's closet. It is a search which leads him into the lives of strangers, through the five boroughs of New York, into history, to the bombings of Dresden and Hiroshima, and on an inward journey which brings him closer to some kind of peace.

I'm not quite sure where to begin with a review of this book, or what rating to give it.

My reactions whilst I was reading were that this was an extremely hard book to read...it felt like just plain hard work. The characters were on the crazy side, their antics varied from heart wrenching to just plain silly, their relationships very strange, however, there were definitely still moments of great tenderness, humour and poignancy.

Spread throughout the text there are various pages that are either images which are connected with the story, or not! Some of these had the effect of galvanising the storyline, but there were several which were a distraction as opposed to an addition. For example there is a chapter which is Oskar's grandfather writing to his son, and all through the letter there are red pen marks correctly spelling and grammatical mistakes.

This was a challenge, and that can be a good thing right?? Right, but in a lot of ways this was a very disjointed and too complex story, with some additional poignancy.

Interestingly enough, Jonathan Safran Foer is married to fellow author Nicole Krauss, whose novel The History of Love, takes a very similar set of circumstances and explores them. It will be interesting to do a comparison between the two books in due course.

Rating 3.5/5