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The History of Love: A Novel (平装)
by Nicole Krauss
| Category:
Teens, Novel, Love |
| Market price: ¥ 158.00
MSL price:
¥ 148.00
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MSL rating:
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| MSL Pointer Review:
Wonderful and haunting, moving and virtuosic; Emotionally wrenching yet intellectually rigorous, idea-driven but with indelible characters and true suspense. It's a significant novel, genuinely one of the year's best. |
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AllReviews |
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Jana (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-28 00:00>
Nicole Krauss' History Of Love is one of the most poignant and beautiful novels I have read in many moons - dare I say years? I do not exaggerate. Her prose is pure poetry, and her writing is a wonderful example of literature as an art form. Although this is not a Holocaust novel, per se, the Shoah casts a long shadow over the narrative. I think the book is much more a remembrance of those who died, a memorial of sorts, than a book about death. Actually, the themes here are love, survival and loss. I shed many a tear while reading, sometimes because of the author's exquisite use of language, and others because of a character's terrible sadness, but I found myself bursting into laughter more often than not at the wonderful humor. Some of the dialogue is especially witty. Oddly, I was reminded of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's work. Perhaps the sense of wonder Ms. Krauss conveys, along with elements of fantasy which intertwine with reality, form a kind of magical realism.
"The first woman may have been Eve, but the first girl will always be Alma." So wrote young, aspiring author Leopold Gursky. He actually wrote three books before he was twenty-one, before WWII invaded his hometown of Slonim, which was located "sometimes in Poland, and others in Russia." Now, years later in Brooklyn, NY, Leo has no idea what happened to his manuscript, "The History Of Love," his most important work. He wrote the novel about the only thing he knew, his love for Alma. "Once upon a time there was a boy and a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering." He continued to write their story long after Alma's father sent her to America, where she would be safe from the Nazis. He even wrote after the Germans pushed East, toward his home.
At age eighty, Leo feels compelled to make himself seen at least once a day. He fears dying alone in his apartment, on a day when no one sees him at all. And he is capable of doing some pretty outrageous things to garner attention, including posing in the nude for a life drawing class. Ever since the war he has felt invisible. He survived by becoming invisible. And now, he needs to be sure he exists. When he came to America, his cousin, a locksmith took him in and taught him the trade. He did so because he knew Leo could not remain invisible forever. "Show me a Jew that survives and I'll show you a magician," he used to say. Leo finds some solace in his work. "In my loneliness it comforts me to think that the world's doors, however closed, are never truly locked to me." Unbeknownst, to Leopold Gursky, his book has survived also, and has inspired others in many ways, especially to love.
Alma Singer is a precocious teenager who lives in New York City. She is named for all the female characters in her father's favorite book, A History of Love. Singer, an Israeli, bought the only copy in a store in Buenos Aires, while traveling in South America. Alma's mother, Charlotte, is an Englishwoman who met her husband while working on a kibbutz in Israel. He gave her the book, a gift, when he realized how much he cared for her. He died of pancreatic cancer when Alma was seven. Seven years later, his family is still adjusting to their loss. The sensitive girl desperately wants to ease her mother's loneliness. She also wants to learn how to survive in the wilderness, and help her brother, Bird, be a normal boy. Bird believes he may be the Messiah. Charlotte, a translator, receives a request from an anonymous stranger to translate an obscure book by a Polish exile, Zvi Litvinoff, who immigrated to Chile. She accepts the commission. The book, written in Spanish, is titled The History of Love. Alma reads her mom's English translation and sets out to find her namesake. Her literary detective work is hilarious and her tenacity is admirable.
Ms. Krauss is a master at linking her various storylines seamlessly. Her characters are a delight - all vivid and memorable for their humanity, their eccentricity, and their inner strength. The author brings them to life on the page. They have all experienced sorrow and loss, yet there is not a self-pitying voice among them. And it is impossible not to love Leo Gursky. I hear my grandmother's voice, at times, when he speaks. She died years ago, and was probably a generation older than the author's grandparents, to whom the novel is dedicated.
I plan to reread The History of Love in a few weeks, over a weekend when I won't be disturbed. I made the mistake of taking the book with me to work, and between the train and the office, I felt the numerous interruptions seriously detracted from the glorious flow of the language. This is a novel which is meant to be read more than once, anyway. Enjoy!
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Barbara (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-28 00:00>
This book is very similar in both content and tone to Jonathan Safran Foer's latest book, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. It's interesting to note that Foer and Krauss are husband and wife.
Summary, no spoilers:
This novel is told from the point of view of several narrators.
The first, and best narrator, (the parts that feature him are brilliant), is Leo Gursky. Leo lives by himself in New York. He was born in Poland, and fell in love with a girl named Alma. They vowed to spend their lives together.
Due to the war, Leo and Alma were separated, and Leo has spent his life alone, pining for Alma.
The other main narrator is a young girl also named Alma, who has lost her father to pancreatic cancer and lives with her young brother and mother. All have been terribly damaged by his death.
Although we occasionally get other narrators, the story is essentially told by these two wounded individuals. Alma tries to find the woman for whom she was named, and Leo tries to become a part of the living world, and become a part of his son Isaac's life. And all of this centers around a mysterious book entitled The History of Love.
This is a gorgeous book. Like Foer's novel, this book is funny, sad, and quirky. At times a bit too quirky.
I thought the chapters involving Leo were terrific. The book starts out with Leo's narration, and hence the book starts out on a powerful note.
Although I enjoyed the character of young Alma, the chapters involving her were often odd, and sometimes slowed the pace of the story.
Still, this book is worthy of 5 stars, and it would make a wonderful book club choice...there is a lot to discuss.
So who has the better book, Foer or Krauss? My vote goes to Krauss, who wrote a page turner that has a better flow, and is more accessible than the Foer's work.
Recommended.
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Debbie Wesselmann (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-28 00:00>
Nicole Krauss's astonishing novel about a manuscript that survives the Holocaust, a flood, broken friendships, a plagiarist, misunderstanding, and obscurity has all the heart and intelligence of the best fiction being published today. Elderly Leo Gursky is afraid of dying unnoticed, and he plans his days so that people will see him and remember him. Among other schemes, he makes a scene in Starbucks and poses nude for a drawing class. Leo wasn't always this lonely. Decades before, in a small town that was then part of Poland, he fell in love with a girl named Alma. He wrote a book about her before the two fled at different times and circumstances to safety during World War II. Despite the disappointments in his life, Leo continues to write, convinced that he will die when this next book is finished. Meanwhile, a teenager also called Alma, named after a character in a book titled The History of Love by a Chilean named Litvinoff, finds herself in the heart of a mystery: her mother is hired by a mysterious man named Jacob Marcus to translate The History of Love from Spanish. Since Alma's father passed away years before, her mother has been overcome with sadness, and Alma sets out to find Jacob Marcus as a possible suitor. Oblivious to Alma's quest, her brother Bird has decided he is one of thirty-six holy men, a "lamed vovnik", and might even be the Messiah. And then there's Litvinoff himself, in the past, with his personal story and connection to the manuscript and to Alma and to his own beloved Rosa. The stunning coup of this novel is how Krauss brings these diverse elements into a single, concluding moment.
Krauss has complete command of a story that could get away from a lesser novelist. Witty, sometimes sadly funny, with unforgettable off-beat characters, the novel draws in the reader from the first page, although its true strength isn't evident until the last hundred pages. The comparison of The History of Love to Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close is inevitable, since the two authors are married and both books were published in 2005. While the two works echo each other in parts, use similar postmodern techniques, and concern themselves with related themes, Krauss and Foer are too good to be lumped together. Still, these seem like companion books. The History of Love is every bit as inventive and as emotionally riveting as Foer's novel - and vice versa - but it (as does Foer's novel) seems to wink at readers who have read both. Readers familiar with Foer's book will smile as Leo reveals that he is a retired locksmith who can open any door he wants. And the set-up of a young person, missing his/her dead father and searching New York for clues to solve a mystery will seem familiar. Beyond that, however, these books stand alone as remarkable works about people, both immigrants and natives, who are adrift in contemporary America.
This exceptional novel deserves a wide readership. Highly recommended.
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Luan Gaines (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-28 00:00>
This remarkable novel is a paean to the strength of the human spirit, the nature of language and the yearning for connection. Leo Gursky has lived in stunning loneliness for most of his life. He has loved but one woman devotedly, a girl he grew up with in the old country. When she leaves for America, he stays behind to see his entire family annihilated by the Nazi's. Years later, after living as a refugee, he too comes to America, only to discover she has married, believing him dead in the pogroms.
Leo has escaped through writing since childhood, stories of real people, of the impossible, pages that fill the long, quiet hours. He is an old man remembering his first book, lost along the way years ago. Now he craves only to be seen by others, to be acknowledged in the world every day: "All I want is not to die on a day that I went unseen." With his damaged heart, Leo waits for the Angel of Death to appear and take him away.
In New York, Alma Singer grows up adoring her father, but he dies of pancreatic cancer when she is only seven. The bereft family is three, Alma's younger brother, Bird, an increasingly religious child who believes he may be the Messiah and her beautiful mother who cannot recover from the loss of her beloved husband. Brilliant with languages, her mother spends hours translating books to support the family, never leaving the house, withdrawing into memories of her love: "She chose my father, and to hold on to a certain feeling, she sacrificed the world."
Alma is named after all the women in a small, but poignant book, "The History of Love". By some otherworldly coincidence, Alma's father gave this tome, written in Spanish, to her mother when they met. Now her mother has been commissioned to translate the book into English sending off a few chapters at a time. Alma surreptitiously reads the chapters before they are mailed, hoping for a clue to their benefactor's nature. The book is revelatory, written with exceptional insight and compassion, the lovely Alma at the heart of it: "Her answer was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering".
As she reads the pages, Alma is transformed, awakening a deep yearning in her soul. She begins a search that will open the doors of the past, releasing years of loneliness and regret and reach across generations: from the pogroms of the Jews in their homelands to the cosmopolitan city in South America where the book is published; to America, where lost souls wander the streets, their quiet lives passing with sparse comfort, where fathers and sons never meet, where a woman grieves, a young boy prays to be the Chosen One and a girl finds her way to the one person who will extinguish the burning in her soul.
Beautifully written, with exquisite sensitivity and compassion, The History of Love will open your heart, fill you with the bright light of understanding and leave you enriched for the experience. This gifted author has created something extraordinary, not a novel, but a journey into the chambers of the human heart. |
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Solinas (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-28 00:00>
"He was a great writer. He fell in love. It was his life." While those are the final words of Nicole Krauss's illuminating second novel, "The History of Love," those three short sentences only highlight what I knew all along. This a unique book, haunting and quietly funny, and which leaves you thinking about memories, about death, and about love.
Leo Gursky has a weak heart, and may die at any moment. Virtually no one knows him, and his own son never even knew of him; he drops his change and buys things, just so someone might remember him when he dies. Sixty years ago, he fled Nazi-occupied Poland to pursue a childhood sweetheart to America, but she thought he had died, and married someone else.
Before that happened, Leo wrote a exquisite ode to her, called the History of Love, a fictional look at love's origins, its milestones, and at a mysterious girl called Alma. A copy of that book found its way into teenage Alma's household, and she was named after that mysterious woman. Now, as her grief-stricken mother translates one of the few copies into English, Alma sets out on a journey of discovery - about the mystery author, the person who wants the translation, and the mysterious original Alma.
Nicole Krauss writes much like her husband Jonathan Safran Foer - she also takes a look at the past and present, at immigrants, and at the journies of our elders. And the insights she shows about the nature of love, and the intersections of life and literature, are startlingly deep. Many longtime authors can only dream of such delicate sensibilities.
The writing itself is surprisingly fluid, considering that Krauss changes narrators and timeframes several times, and sometimes refers to one character by different names. She also changes her style, depending on the narrator - the old man has a more rambly style, while Alma neatly compiles her thoughts into numbered lists.
All the stories of death, loneliness and memories could be depressing. But Krauss injects them with gentle humor, such as Alma's brother Bird, who thinks he might be the Messiah (yeah, right, kid). There are also surprisingly poignant passages from the History of Love itself, which offer tiny insights into Leo's past love. Never sentimental, never maudlin. Just quietly, sadly romantic.
The History of Love is a truly exquisite piece of work, an insightful novel that is both heartbreaking and heartwarming. Definitely one of 2005's must-reads, and a beautiful read.
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Uyeshima (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-28 00:00>
A book within a book generally reveals itself as a literary conceit by a writer intent on showing his or her craft to an audience deemed too cynical for more straightforward prose. However, author Nicole Krauss has written an emotionally rich novel that uses this binary structure to illuminate two extremely different interior lives. The first is Leo Gursky, an eighty-year old Jewish man who survived persecution in WWII Poland before moving to New York City, where he leads a sad, involuntarily invisible existence. In the confusion after the war, he lost the great love of his life, as well as the son he never knew, who in turn, has become a famous and respected writer. The other protagonist is a fatherless fifteen-year old named Alma. She was named for a character in the Spanish-language book-within-the-book, "The History of Love", which was a favorite of her parents since her father bought it in South America expressly to give to her mother before his death.
As fate would have it, Alma's mother is asked to translate this book into English, and Alma becomes obsessed with her namesake character. The common thread for both Leo and Alma is that they are each searching for someone - Alma for the inspiration for the character in the book and Leo for his long-lost son. The lives of these characters finally intertwine but not in any predictable way, and much of the credit has to be given to Krauss' creative invention for taking such a daring approach in dealing with a plot device that could have fallen prey to condescending manipulation. What the author does very well is capture the transformative nature of literature in all its variety, whether it takes the form of entries in Alma's diary, letters, lists, translations or excerpts from an autobiography. Krauss uses these distinctive writing styles to define each personality vividly, and she is particularly successful in capturing the loneliness experienced by Leo as he tries to gain others' attention and the insatiable curiosity Alma has for her family background.
Comparisons to Krauss' husband Jonathan Safran Foer's just-published book, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close are inevitable, as both authors incorporate a child's perspective in a world that proves itself too overwhelming to synthesize, and both use WWII Poland as a metaphor for the current sense of chaos and loss of identity. Perhaps because she is not dealing with the weightier implications of 9/11, Krauss is more successful in telling her story, as this may be the best multi-linear book I've read since David Mitchell's masterful Cloud Atlas came out last year and nearly won the Booker Prize. Strongly recommended.
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Vince Leo (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-28 00:00>
The History of Love is a great novel. Plotted with exquisite precision, propelled by deeply sympathetic characters, and crammed full of mysteries and solutions, this book lights up neural networks you never knew you had. Besides recounting the stories of a 15 year old girl and a Holocaust survivor, Krauss's novel is also the story of a book (The History of Love). What it says about books is just as important as what it says about love, even if it isn't going to make the end-of-paper movement at cartel Microsoft very happy.
Nicole Krauss understands books to be what no other medium is: self-contained, tough, mobile over continents and generations and languages, full of the future as inscribed by a piece of someone's soul. The History of Love (the novel within the novel) has a provenance that would make a Rembrandt painting blush: written in Poland, manuscript given away then stolen, conceived in Yiddish, translated to Spanish, published in Argentina, found by a Jewish traveler, given to his wife, secretly translated into English, discovered by a 15 year old girl in New York, AND MORE. In Krauss's telling, none of this is random, and even though characters act unaware of each other, the larger plan somehow manifests G*d in the lives of the Living. Why don't I just write it: according to Krauss, when the soul of the writer is pure, a book becomes an immanent sacred object. And in that way, books are a lot like love, only rectangular and full of numbered pages.
If we esteemed writers by what their novels hold faith with, Nicole Krauss would sweep this year's fiction awards. Besides her faith in the power of the written word, there's faith in the integrity and goodness of young outsiders, in the quest to redeem history in old age, in the ability of human beings to shape their own destiny no matter how complicated and compromised, and in the presence of love as an active agent for good in the universe. Last, but not least, Krauss has faith that writers can change the world through writing. If they can, and she has, then we're just a little better off today than we were before The History of Love came into the world of readers.
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Michelle (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-28 00:00>
I went into the bookstore two days ago and was accosted by a young man who worked there. He handed me The History of Love and told me I had to read it. It had been a while since I'd heard someone so enthusiastic about a novel, so I gave it a shot. Despite the many other things I had to do, I read the book in one day. (Things that had felt important before I started the book became unimportant in the book's light.) I went back today and bought two more copies - one for my sister, and one for my boyfriend, whom I live with, but want to have a copy of his own. That's the kind of book this is. You want everyone you know to read it, but you don't want to let your copy out of your hands.
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Pat Mody (MSL quote) , USA
<2007-02-28 00:00>
I read an excerpt from this novel in the New Yorker about half a year ago, and it was, quite simply, the best piece of fiction they had published for as long as I had been a subscriber. (Eight years.) I xeroxed it and sent it to all of my friends. They were also blown away. When I found out it was a piece of a larger work, I couldn't wait to read the whole thing. And when I finally was able to this week, I wasn't disappointed.
The History Of Love was more than I could have hoped for or imagined.
Leo Gursky is one of the great characters ever to be written. He is laugh-out-loud funny, and cry-in-public moving. He is wholly new, and a classic. And he's only one such wonderful character in a book that's overflowing with delights. I fell in love with Alma, I fell in love with Bird, I even fell in love with the brilliant nonsense-spouting janitor. I fell in love with the wild images, the poignant subplots, the descriptions that are as new as they are perfect.
Maybe that's the love that this novel is a history of: the love the reader feels for it.
This book is a dream. |
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Parks (MSL quote), USA
<2007-02-28 00:00>
The History of Love is the first novel I've read in many years that has the quality of timelessness. It's imposible to put one's finger on just what makes this book so strong. The characters are remarkable (in their believability, in their vulnerability); the story is engrossing and always a step ahead of the reader; the writing is sharp to the point of taking one's breath away. Everything about this book is gorgeous, even when it has to be ugly. But more than all of that, it got under my skin. It made me hugely impressed, yes, but a number of books every year do that. This one also made me care. Is there anything more a novel can do?
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