While it is an easily overlooked technicality, in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Oskar's home brew book, "Stuff That Happened To Me," is a folder rather than an actual book. Oskar needs an invention that creates a bound book which can be added to as he feels is appropriate. He likes flipping through it (as he does on page 53), so an eBook is out of the question. An easily modified bound book would create a compilation that would be both more durable and more presentable and easy to look through. The book would have an adjustable spine; to add pages, Oskar would press a button and the spine would "open." The pages could then be slid into their appropriate spot. After additions were made, Oskar would press another button, effectively closing the spine. The pages would all be locked through the pressure applied on them by both sides of the pneumatic spine.
"Stuff That Happened To Me" is no small detail; Oskar uses the book as a coping mechanism. Although he often uses it to simply catalog interesting information, it is also full of images and information that have had a deep impact on him. Oskar finds cathartic value in creating his database, using it as an outlet for any thing that piques his interest or stirs an emotion within him. Since he doesn't have the world's greatest communication skills, the volume is a way for him to get things off of his chest. On page 325, Oskar pulls out the book, searching for the photos of the man jumping out of the World Trade Center on September 11th. He wonders if that man could have been his father, illuminating the provoking and personal connections he has with certain content in the book. As such sentimentality is placed on these pages, an invention to preserve them beyond printed pages in a folder seems rather common sense; Oskar also says on page 325 that he will need to start a new volume soon, an issue that would be nonexistent with the modifiable bound book, creating more cohesion upon reflection on the pages.
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