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  • Reading The History of Love

  • I wasn't completely sure how I would feel about Nicole Krauss's The History of Love at first. When we started with a chapter where an elderly man talks about his flatulence, I had concerns. However, there's a symmetry between Krauss's book and her husband Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and In ... Continue

    I wasn't completely sure how I would feel about Nicole Krauss's The History of Love at first. When we started with a chapter where an elderly man talks about his flatulence, I had concerns. However, there's a symmetry between Krauss's book and her husband Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I was similarly worried when the first page of that book featured speculation about a talking anus. The good news is that in both cases, that kind of metaphor and description goes away quickly and leads into something much more inspired.

    The History of Love swaps narratives between three (and then at the end, four) characters. We meet Leo Gursky, the elderly man who lives alone and has a penchant for writing and making people pay attention to him. Next, we are acquainted with teenager Alma, who is obsessed with learning more about a book her mother is translating - titled The History of Love. Finally, we see the actual evolution of the book itself as we learn about the author on the title page. In the end, all come together in a most rewarding way.

    This is a book about writing, to be sure. It's also a story about the endurance of love. By the time I got to the end, I was in love, too.

    

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• ― moogle said on Mar 27, 2007 about the Hardcover edition| Add your feedback

• 1 person find this helpful

  • Unusual

  • I really loved this book. There are two story tellers: one is an old man named Leopold, a survivor of the Holocaust who immigrates to NY, who writes a book about his beloved, a woman named Alma. The other story teller is a young girl, whose life is inextricably linked to Leo and Alma. What a charmin ... Continue

    I really loved this book. There are two story tellers: one is an old man named Leopold, a survivor of the Holocaust who immigrates to NY, who writes a book about his beloved, a woman named Alma. The other story teller is a young girl, whose life is inextricably linked to Leo and Alma. What a charming mix of sadness, humor, quirky characters, and quirky fate. I loved it. I'm sure I will re-read.

    

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• ― Marion the librarian said on Apr 26, 2009 | Add your feedback

• 1 person find this helpful

  • 

  • The. Greatest. Book. Ever.

    I wish I had words to describe how wonderful this book is and how happy I am that I own it. I'm ready to read it again and I just finished it!!

    

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• ― mndy said on Jun 27, 2007 | 1 feedback| 1 feedback

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  • As a mystery it is interesting. However, for the better half of the book I felt it was moving too slowly . . . and yet. . .
    The little brother's role seemed superfluous. His role in connecting sub-plots to each other could have been accomplished in a simpler manner. There were too many diverge ... Continue

    As a mystery it is interesting. However, for the better half of the book I felt it was moving too slowly . . . and yet. . .
    The little brother's role seemed superfluous. His role in connecting sub-plots to each other could have been accomplished in a simpler manner. There were too many divergent plots which caused me to lose interest at various points . . . and yet . . .
    As the story of a romance that lasted through decades of separation, it is beautiful. The ending was perfect.

    

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• ― Missmath144 said on Jan 11, 2009 about the Audio CD edition| Add your feedback

• .

  • Very similar in style and in story to Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

    

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• ― polacek said on Jul 26, 2007 | 1 feedback| 1 feedback

A long-lost book reappears, mysteriously connecting an old man searching for his son and a girl seeking a cure for her widowed mother's loneliness.

Leo Gursky is just about surviving, tapping his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbor know he's still alive. But life wasn't always like this: sixty years ago, in the Polish village where he was born, Leo fell in love and wrote a book. And though Leo doesn't know it, that book survived, inspiring fabulous circumstances, even love. Fourteen-year-old Alma was named after a character in that very book. And although she has her hands full—keeping track of her brother, Bird (who thinks he might be the Messiah), and taking copious notes on How to Survive in the Wild—she undertakes an adventure to find her namesake and save her family. With consummate, spellbinding skill, Nicole Krauss gradually draws together their stories.

This extraordinary book was inspired by the author's four grandparents and by a pantheon of authors whose work is haunted by loss—Bruno Schulz, Franz Kafka, Isaac Babel, and more. It is truly a history of love: a tale brimming with laughter, irony, passion, and soaring imaginative power.

• FictionHolocaust survivorfateAmerican fictionHolocaustJewsNew Yorklovehistorical fictionBook Club Choice
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