Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close Analysis (With less err)

As Oskar continues searching, the search is interrupted by chapters about the past and dealing with his grandma. I'm not quite sure what these chapters are supposed to symbolize yet, if they even symbolize anything. Most of the time the passages have a sweet message or love story behind them, like when Oskar's grandmother talks about her husband and her love.

There are also deeper passages, such as when where she describes how she received  a random letter from a turkish prisoner. Afterwords she went around asking a bunch of people that she knew to write letters for her, probably to get a comparison as to what type of person wrote the letter. This part of the book doesn't seem integral to the story, so I'm betting he either wrote in some deeper meaning than what it seems, or that he was just trying to make his book bigger. I doubt it was the later, but I also think the passages may be a device Froer used to break up the pace of the book after an important part to try and help a message sink in.

Maybe Oskar's journey itself is only secondary, and the real purpose of the book is to great across some grandiose meaning or philosohical message, with the story acting as the canvas on which the message(s) are painted.