The History of Love

I found this book very hard to follow. There were three sub characters /writers...I think. I felt lost each time a different character took over. I am still uncertain of the ending. I gave it 3 stars because I liked the character of Leo and I think the idea of the story is good.

Was a nice book that left you feeling good, however I was hoping for a big connection and it was just sort of what it was. Did enjoy the read though

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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.