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Only half finished, and, sadly, wising I was already done Here's my problem. I think the character of Oskar, while a bit annoying at times (as all 9-year-olds can be), is overall a wonderful read, and the perfect foil for a tragedy such as 9/11. But the rest of the narratives -- the letters from the grandfather and grandmother -- are getting on my last nerve. The psuedo-Faulknerian stream-of-consciousness flow of the grandfather is getting a bit long-winded (I looked ahead from where I'm at in the book, after having read roughly 5-6 pages of the grandfather's letter, and discovered that I've got about 20 more pages to go before getting back to Oskar). I'm all for structural creativity, and I'm all for experimentation. But it's become something more than simply a novelty; it's distracting. Take for instance the pictures inserted throughout the text. While I grasp the point of why they're there (most of them, at least) and applaud Foer's effort to open up his characters' minds that much more, in the end, the pictures, for me, have failed in their ultimate purpose. Why? Because for me, the text of a novel is a fluid thing. The pictures, however, are not. They interrupt that flow. They seem far too static. Perhaps if they were moving pictures (think film, think the world of Harry Potter) then I wouldn't feel this way. But I can't get over the fact that the book is loosing its uniqueness and becoming, for me, despite the fact that scenes with Oskar are very emotional and believable, nothing much more than a gimmick.