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The History of Love

3.87 of 5 stars 3.87 · rating details · 60,504 ratings · 6,733 reviews

Nicole Krauss's The History of Love is a hauntingly beautiful novel about two characters whose lives are woven together in such complex ways that even after the last page is turned, the reader is left to wonder what really happened. In the hands of a less gifted writer, unraveling this tangled web could easily give way to complete chaos. However, under Krauss's watchful ey...more

Kindle Edition, 280 pages

Published (first published April 1st 2005)

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Feb 04, 2013 Steve aka Sckenda rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Steve aka Sckenda by: Bennet

Shelves: holocaust, about-books, jewish, love, death, fathers-and-daughters

“For my Charlotte, my Alma. This is the book I would have written for you if I could write.” (108)

I thank Nicole Krauss for writing this book for me because I could not write it for myself. This is the book I would have written if I could write. I would have written this book for myself; for all that I have lost; and for all that I hope to yet find. Nicole gives my loss words on wing. Nicole writes with the wisdom and skill of the aged.

I can’t reveal much about the plot. This is a review where...more “For my Charlotte, my Alma. This is the book I would have written for you if I could write.” (108)

I thank Nicole Krauss for writing this book for me because I could not write it for myself. This is the book I would have written if I could write. I would have written this book for myself; for all that I have lost; and for all that I hope to yet find. Nicole gives my loss words on wing. Nicole writes with the wisdom and skill of the aged.

I can’t reveal much about the plot. This is a review where less is more, and things should be left unsaid. But I suggest that if you have loss-- but ache to find, this book may speak to you as it did to me.

There is a mystery here that I cannot spoil. Many plot revelations await you. In general, it is about: losing and finding; leaving and arriving; stealing and giving; loosing and gathering; picking locks and locking out; living with but not accepting the truth; and dying and living. It involves infidelity and over-fidelity; secrets and revelations; plagiarism and translation; daughters and fathers, and brothers and sons, sisters and mothers.

Additionally, to greater or lesser degree, the book involves: lamed vovnick (the 36 holy people); messianic children; G-d, the unpronounceable name; floating in the Dead Sea; sleeping curled next to the warmth of a pile of books; how angels sleep; making lists; edible plants and flowers; a village that disappears; mass extinctions; deciphering the richness of silence; North by Northwest; Buenos Aires; purloined items buried under hydrangeas; 79 fossil gestures; Yiddish elders; the age of glass; the age of silence; cartwheeling leaves; a woman who translates Cervantes in her pajamas; and drinking water from muddy puddles in Polish forests.

There are so many different types of pain and loss that I think Nicole Strauss will speak to most people. The book is universal. The book has a very sophisticated structure with at least 3 narrators that you might assume might connect at some point. Usually I am an astute enough reader to figure out where a plot is heading, but I kept thinking that I had missed something because I still did know where it was going until about 30 pages from the end. Nicole took me by the hand and showed me.

There is a moment when one writer realizes that another writer is better: “Where he saw a page of words, his friend saw the field of hesitations, black holes, and possibilities between the words. Where his friend saw dappled light, the felicity of flight, the sadness of gravity, he saw the solid form of a common sparrow.” (116) “He learned to live with the truth. Not to accept it, but to live with it."156)

“With this book the stones of the wall that separated me from childhood began to crumble at last.” (129) For my father; for my golden-haired one; for my Claire; for my Mackenzie; and for the Steve that I once was. This is the book I would have written for you if I could write.

Written June 21, 2012
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May 28, 2012 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: promotional-copy, 2012, reviewed

I need to cut the crap with my preconceptions. Although I almost unfailingly launch into a new novel with great enthusiasm like a kid on Christmas morning, anxious to discover what hidden treasure awaits, for some reason I held out little hope for Mrs. Foer’s book about a book about love. Maybe it’s because books about books about love aren’t usually my thing? Maybe it’s because I read her husband’s bestseller last year and was less than impressed? Maybe it’s because I had heard somewhere that t...more I need to cut the crap with my preconceptions. Although I almost unfailingly launch into a new novel with great enthusiasm like a kid on Christmas morning, anxious to discover what hidden treasure awaits, for some reason I held out little hope for Mrs. Foer’s book about a book about love. Maybe it’s because books about books about love aren’t usually my thing? Maybe it’s because I read her husband’s bestseller last year and was less than impressed? Maybe it’s because I had heard somewhere that they wrote their books together (oh, how adorable!), bouncing ideas off one another and giving each other high fives, so naturally I assumed that if Mr. Foer’s book was gimmicky (which it is), then The History of Love would surely be a major eye-roller as well, right?

Wrong.

Whatever the reason, I was clearly out of line, and for that I owe Nicole a huge apology. In this book she weaves three intersecting storylines all under a cloud of intriguing ambiguity, so even though it is understood that the stories are related, it isn’t exactly clear how until about two-thirds of the way through. And as the stories of Leopold Gursky, Alma Singer, and Zvi Litvinoff are told to us, they leave an imprint on us even before we learn for sure who they are.

The History of Love is a gorgeous novel with gorgeous characters who do what characters do best: they love and they lose, they struggle and they fail, and if lucky they learn how to pick up the pieces and survive. For them, survival is not a destination but a journey. There’s no magic cure and there’s no end-all. But taken one day at a time, it is possible to live a life worth living. Krauss reminds us that all we really want is to remain visible—to be known, to be loved, and to be remembered by those who knew and loved us.

I won a copy of this book through World Book Night, a program begun in the UK last year to spread the love of reading. That program has now arrived in the US, and even though I technically shouldn’t have qualified for receiving a copy of this—WBN books are supposed to have been given only to “light” readers in the hopes that they become “moderate” readers—I will make sure that it will have been worth their while by spreading my love for this book about a book about love.(less)

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Jun 19, 2012 Ian Graye rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: reviews, read-2011, read-2007, reviews-5-stars

Original Comments (Pre-Review):

I would like to review this novel more formally in the near future, but to do so I'll have to flick through it and refresh my memory.

My reaction at the time was that it was one of the best novels I had ever read.

Nicole Krauss understands people and love and feelings and she writes about them in a word perfect way.

As a reader, I am prepared to go wherever she wants to take me. I will trust her judgement.

I have recently watched a few of her videos and interviews on Y...more

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Jul 26, 2007 Matthew rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Nicole Krauss is married to Jonathan Safran Foer. They both live in Park Slope, Brooklyn, and they both write clever, critically acclaimed novels featuring preciously innocent narrators, magical realism, and some safe postmodern "experiments" (blank pages, pictures, excessive repetition, etc.) that you'd notice just by flipping through. I loved Foer's Everything is Illuminated, liked his Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close okay, and liked Krauss's History of Love a little less. I'm wondering now...more

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Jul 30, 2012 K.D. Oliveros rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to K.D. by: Mae

Shelves: drama, stylish, tragicomic, love-story, family-drama, challenging, saddest

It is not hard to like this book. The writing is stylish. Four POVs with two different settings and starts way back from the Second World War to the present. This is basically a love story between two young lovers in Poland. They get separated because the father of the girl sends her to America not knowing that she is pregnant with a child. The young boy follows the girl to America only to find out that she is already married and the child does not know that he is the father. So, the poor man, L...more It is not hard to like this book. The writing is stylish. Four POVs with two different settings and starts way back from the Second World War to the present. This is basically a love story between two young lovers in Poland. They get separated because the father of the girl sends her to America not knowing that she is pregnant with a child. The young boy follows the girl to America only to find out that she is already married and the child does not know that he is the father. So, the poor man, Leo Gursky lives all his life watching his girlfriend, Alma Meriminski and their son Isaac Moritz from the distance until they both die and Leo has no other reason to live.

That's the first POV.

The second and third POVs are those of two siblings Alma and Bird Singer whose father gives their mother a copy of the book that is written by the old man (first POV) while he is a young man in Poland. The fourth POV is an unnamed narrator telling us that the old man has a friend, Zvi Litvinoff who becomes the author of the former's book.

But I will not tell you how the lives of these 4 narrators or POVs are interwoven or intersect because that is too much of a spoiler. In fact, the slow revelation of the clues or filling up of the blanks is the best deal this book offers. Well, of course, aside from the distinct voices of each narrator that make the reading quite a pleasurable experience.

My first personal complaint is that this slow revelation, tease if I may, became dragging and repetitive especially during the second half of the book. So, while on that part, I was asking myself if Krauss had no other things in mind for her characters to do other than to make them wallow in their loneliness. It is too depressing I twice had to check if the author of the book was not Jodi Piccoult. I mean, life is not all about sadness, day-in, day-out, right? Even when my father died in 1997, after a few days, because all of us siblings were in town, we went to a karaoke bar and sang the night away because my US navy brother was about to leave the next day. So, even if my dad was buried just two days ago, we had to give our brother a happy moment to remember during his visit because he only sees us once in every 10 years or so.

My second personal complaint is that there is a big similarity between Krauss' style of writing here and that of her husband, Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close like the almost empty pages and the young person searching for something. Here that young person is Anna Singer and she is looking for a woman called Alma Meriminski while in Foer's novel it is a young boy looking for the door that can be opened by a key. Had I not read Foer's first, I would have liked this book better. I am not against writing couples to compare notes but I hope they still maintain their own different styles so they don't appear as buy-one, take-one kind of thing. For example, some characters in the novels of Paul Auster and Siri Hustvedt may have that shade of detective mystery but all the other aspects of their novels are different. I have read 4 books by Auster and 2 by Hustvedt and they are among my favorite living novelists. Well, this is my first Krauss and Incredibly was my first by Foer and it might be still too early to say but right now, I have no urge of picking my second book by Krauss (unlike when I read my first Hustvedt that the next time I was in a bookstore I bought another book by her and started reading it upon coming back home).

Just two small complaints. Overall, I still liked the book and it was worth my money (bargain at $1) and time (9 days of leisurely reading).

Thank you to Mae, Rhena and Bennard for reading this book with me. They were very disciplined in following our reading schedule and shared truly insightful daily comments while reading this book. I would not have liked the book if not because of them.(less)

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Mar 01, 2007 Sansanee rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: book-group, fiction

Have you ever felt so moved that it's as if you're possessed? Reading The History of Love was like having my chest cracked open, the words flooding into me.

Some passages I loved:

The floorboards creaked under my weight. There were books everywhere. There were pens, and a blue glass vase, an ashtray from the Dolder Grand in Zurich, the rusted arrow of a weather vane, a little brass hourglass, sand dollars on the windowsill, a pair of binoculars, an empty wine bottle that served as a candle holder,...more

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Aug 11, 2007 Teresa Jusino rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: readandreviewed

I finished reading "The History of Love" by Nicole Krauss a few days ago. Here's a synopsis:

"An unlikely and unforgettable hero, Leo Gursky is a survivor -- of war, of love, and of loneliness. A retired locksmith, Leo does his best to get by. He measures the passage of days by the nightly arrival of the delivery boy from the Chinese restaurant and has arranged a code with his upstairs neighbor: Three taps on the radiator means, "ARE YOU ALIVE?, two means YES, one NO." But it wasn't always so. Si...more I finished reading "The History of Love" by Nicole Krauss a few days ago. Here's a synopsis:

"An unlikely and unforgettable hero, Leo Gursky is a survivor -- of war, of love, and of loneliness. A retired locksmith, Leo does his best to get by. He measures the passage of days by the nightly arrival of the delivery boy from the Chinese restaurant and has arranged a code with his upstairs neighbor: Three taps on the radiator means, "ARE YOU ALIVE?, two means YES, one NO." But it wasn't always so. Sixty years earlier, before he fled Poland for New York, Leo met a girl named Alma and fell in love. He wrote a book and named the character in it after his beloved. Years passed, lives changed, and unbeknownst to Leo, the book survived. And it provides Leo -- in the eighth decade of his life -- with a link to the son he's never known. How this long-lost book makes an extraordinary reappearance and connects the lives of disparate characters is only one of the small miracles The History of Love offers its readers." - from bn.com

My thought at the end of the book was - The ending brought the book up from good to very good. Still not great.

I wanted to love this book. I really did. I had loved the excerpt I'd read in the New Yorker, and I was expecting to love the whole thing. I particularly loved the characters she created: Leo Gursky - who was so vivid, and interesting, with such a distinct voice. Alma Singer - a fourteen year old girl in a novel I could actually relate to for once. Smart, but not annoyingly/precociously so. Body issues, but not to the point where she felt sorry for herself as a person. Bird - my only complaintis that I feel like he got short shrift. He's so interesting, I think he deserved a novel of his own. He was reduced to a plot device, and that really irritated me, because I liked him so much. To have his interest in his faith exist only to serve Alma's search was downright criminal.(and why is his religious fervence treated like an illness instad of as something that can actually help him through his father's death? Just curious...)

What bothered me was that Krauss seemed to be trying too hard to be "experiemental." (whatever that means anymore...) What I loved about Man Walks Into a Room, her first novel, was its language and its directness. How it told a story. But for everything I enjoyed about this book, there were two that either annoyed me or confused me.

There are some beautiful poignant passages in this book - about lost/new love, about identity, about growing older...but then there's a page of charts for no real reason. Alma tells her story in list form. There are pages with only one or two sentences on them (some successful, some not). I dont' feel like any of these "tricks" suited the story she was trying to tell. It didn't feel like that's the way the story needed to be told - also, this didn't feel like Krauss' voice to me. It felt as if she were doing an impression...or at the very least, she was a ventriloquist speaking through a dummy. I missed her voice.

I wanted to hear Nicole Krauss speak...I ended up hearing who she thought we wanted to hear. It's not the same thing.
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Oct 07, 2007 Lucy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I've seen The History of Love on several other blogger's reading lists and after being made aware of the fact that the author, Nicole Krauss, is married to the author of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, a book I enjoyed only a couple of months ago, I made a reservation at the library.

In the mood for a romance, when it arrived, I bumped this book past others that have been sitting on my nightstand longer. At first, I was completely absorbed in the writing and Leo Gursky. I even told Emily thi...more I've seen The History of Love on several other blogger's reading lists and after being made aware of the fact that the author, Nicole Krauss, is married to the author of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, a book I enjoyed only a couple of months ago, I made a reservation at the library.

In the mood for a romance, when it arrived, I bumped this book past others that have been sitting on my nightstand longer. At first, I was completely absorbed in the writing and Leo Gursky. I even told Emily this book might go on my list of Top Ten favorites. Oh, how I loved Leo's thoughts and his "But." and "And yet." sentences. So stretchy. Those frequently used simple sentences created a narrative of yearning and unfufillment that perfectly expressed Leo's character's disappointment in life.

When it was Alma's turn to speak and disclose, I wasn't nearly so infatuated. Her thoughts and questions lacked the honesty and pain that the much older Leo was able to possess, which makes sense as Alma was only fourteen. Still, I persevered and even enjoyed the minute and slow discoveries she was making.

This book is almost a mystery. The hows and the whys are confusing and it isn't until the end that the missing key is given which opens up the full heartache and confusion of all the characters. Unfortunately, by this time, I was much less enchanted with the entire story as I found way too many parallels with her husband's book that I had already read. They are both about Jewish people divided by a generation who come together through letters. They are both set in New York City with flashbacks to Germany during World War II. They both involve extremely precocious and unnaturally odd children who lose a parent and deal with their grief by setting out on an expedition of discovery. And they both end abysmally disappointing with dysfunction winning over true love. Sigh.

I think I would have loved this book had I read it first or only. Sadly, both books feel tainted to me now. Like, maybe....in a perfect world, I could have enjoyed Singing Bee on NBC. But then Fox came out with Don't Forget the Lyrics. Same idea, different show...I enjoy neither because I don't like copying.

These books don't plagiarize each other or anything, but there are too many similarities for either to be the original and the great books that they are supposed to me. Maybe they need to set their typewriters up in different(less)

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dara I agree with you other than the fact that reading The History of Love didn't ruin EL&IC for me. Instead, during the majority of the book, I kept w...more
Mar 28, 2009 06:38pm

Melanie Daves I feel like reading Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close first would have ruined it for me, too. I don't know why that is, but I think reading The Hi...more
Jan 01, 2010 01:24pm

Emily Yelencich Totally see how this blending of the two novels could happen. I read both of these separately without knowing the authors relationship. In the end I t...more
Jul 12, 2011 09:52am

May 13, 2008 Christy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-for-teaching, 21st-century-american-lit

1. What I like about Krauss's novel.

Leo Gursky's melancholy, lonely presence. The sections of the novel told from his perspective are hauntingly beautiful.

Alma's precocious teenager voice. Her voice is less compelling for me than that of Leo Gursky, but still good.

The slow development of the connections between Leo, Alma, Zvi Litvinoff, Isaac, and the book The History of Love, in terms not only of plot but of theme.

2. What is mildly irritating about the book.

Leo's habit of saying "And yet."

Alma...more

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Jan 10, 2009 Beth F. rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: general-fiction, 2009, 2009-five-star-reads, i-reviewed-this-bad-boy, tnbbc-winter-2008

If the opportunity to read this book in one sitting would have been available to me, I probably would have taken it. Unfortunately my job tends to cramp my reading style more often than not (admittedly not the worst problem in the world to have), but sometimes I can’t help but think about how much reading I could get done if I didn’t have to spend the best hours of my day doing work. Oh well. I suppose that is what retirement will be for.

I really loved this book. The characters spoke to me and...more If the opportunity to read this book in one sitting would have been available to me, I probably would have taken it. Unfortunately my job tends to cramp my reading style more often than not (admittedly not the worst problem in the world to have), but sometimes I can’t help but think about how much reading I could get done if I didn’t have to spend the best hours of my day doing work. Oh well. I suppose that is what retirement will be for.

I really loved this book. The characters spoke to me and they became real, flesh and blood people. Sometimes non-linear storylines bother me. And I’ve begun to think that is because most writers are not capable of telling a story somewhat out-of-order without making it confusing. Nicole Krauss successfully employed the mechanism in The History of Love and I loved it. I kept reading to find out what it all meant. I kept reading to be surprised--and I was, pleasantly so.

There are three concurrent storylines: Leo Gursky, an 80-something Polish-American immigrant who moved to New York to escape the Nazis. He lost his family, his dignity, his youth, and when he successfully arrived in New York five years later, he discovered that the girl he’d loved since the age of 10, the girl whose “kiss was a question he wanted to spend the rest of his life answering” had married another, assuming Leo had been a casualty in the war.

Alma Singer is a teen girl, living with her mother and younger brother. Her father had died of cancer when she was a child. Alma was named for the character of an obscure book, The History of Love, written by Zvi Litvinoff. Her brother suspects he could be the messiah and her mother is still mourning the loss of her husband and has shown no interest in dating or ever marrying again. This concerns Alma.

Zvi Litvinoff is the author of The History of Love, a book that was originally written in Yiddish and thinly printed/released in Spanish. Litvinoff is dead before the beginning of the novel so the portions of his story are told posthumously.

Krauss keeps you guessing as to what these characters have in common and it’s not immediately apparent how these three characters are connected but by the end, everything is revealed and this story of missed connections, love lost, pride, humanity, sadness, aging and what could have been, all comes together. If I hadn’t finished this book in a public place, I probably would have cried tears of happiness, and the whole time my heart would have been breaking. It was very touching. Fantastic story. Excellent.
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Mar 20, 2008 Briana rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I came to this book expecting to be unimpressed, and I am not normally that type of reader. But I had read articles about Kraus and her husband (Jonathan Safran Foer) and how their latest novels were eerily similar. Having loved her husband’s book, I figured The History of Love would be a let down. I was wrong.

While I loved the precociousness of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close's Oskar, despite many criticizing Foer for it, after reading THOL Oskar just isn’t as appealing. Sure, his search is...more I came to this book expecting to be unimpressed, and I am not normally that type of reader. But I had read articles about Kraus and her husband (Jonathan Safran Foer) and how their latest novels were eerily similar. Having loved her husband’s book, I figured The History of Love would be a let down. I was wrong.

While I loved the precociousness of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close's Oskar, despite many criticizing Foer for it, after reading THOL Oskar just isn’t as appealing. Sure, his search is poignant and there are moments of pure brilliance in Oskar’s constant inventing and surviving. But, Kraus’ characters are richer and more human; fantastical in their own right (Leo’s desperate attempts to not die on a day that no one has seen him, Alma’s naïve effort to construct happiness for her mother, Bird’s fantasies of being a lamed vovnik), yet believable and real.

At first glance, old man Leo Gursky is depressed and depressing. After responding to an ad in the newspaper, Gursky is hired for $10 as a model for a nude drawing class. The reader is left to feel sorry for Gursky and speculate about why he would go (he craves human interaction, he doesn’t want to die on a day no one saw him, he’s bored). His apartment is covered in stuff---cluttered like that of a collecting recluse. He has a deal with his best friend Bruno to periodically check on each other to make sure one of them hasn’t died without anyone noticing. It’s a heavy dose of depression at the beginning. Yet, once he begins to tell his story, he is not just depressed and depressing. He is sympathetic and delusional, smart yet hopeless. He ends up somehow strangely warm. And funny—really funny!

Alma Singer is equally complex and textured. She’s 15 and awkward, obsessed with books of her dead father’s about surviving in the wild. She sleeps in a sleeping bag on the floor of her NYC apartment and is constantly worried about her little brother Bird and his growing strangeness and religiousness. She has a huge crush on her Russian friend Mischa, yet when he kisses her she pulls back and tells him she likes another boy. He responds to the rejection the only way a 15 year old boy can, by moving on and not calling her. She mopes and secretly hopes for him to call everyday, meanwhile she searches every human record in NYC trying to uncover the secret behind Alma Mereminski, a character from a book and the woman she was named after. When Bird asks her questions about their Dad, she makes up things because she can’t remember and she wants to be able to give Bird something of their late father.

Other characters are equally captivating. Kraus manages to tell a most imaginative story full of countless coincidences, esoteric passages (it’s a book about books, writers and readers), and Holocaust survivors in a very heart-warming and accessible way. This book was both profound and charming—which was really nice to find in one place.
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Aug 21, 2007 Elaine rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mainstreamlitfic, debut-novels

Disappointing ending & trite, too.
I think the plotting is pretty piss-poor. A very convoluted bifurcated structure of telling a story that hinges on a poor coincidental set of facts, and when you really stop to think about it -- you wonder if you've just spent 200 pages reading and trying to guess at two or three patched up facts that hardly amount to a mystery. Krauss has an engaging storytelling style, even stunning prose at times, punctured with welcome humor, but the strands do not come...more

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Dec 10, 2011 Jennifer (aka EM) rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: for-the-desert-island, lonely-hearts-club, for-diane, prosetry, read-only-coz-of-gr

Thank you to the lovely, anonymous man in the Port Credit Starbucks who handed me the napkins, without a word, as I finished this up not an hour ago with tears filling my eyes.

It was a perfect moment perfectly matched to this pretty much perfect book.
______________________

Read this book if:
1) you liked Incredibly Loud Extremely Close, Everything is Illuminated and/or The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
2) you like fictional, character-driven stories of Holocaust survivors e.g., The ...more

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Dec 23, 2007 Bryn rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: anyone in love with language

Shelves: own-it, multiple-narrators, contemporary-fiction, prize-winner

By page 11 I knew I was going to love this book. Krauss' writing style is simply incredible. I will admit I was somehwat confused by the story itself and had to back up several times (and the ending?), but reading this one tasted as good as a box of Godvia chocolates. If I ever catch up with all the books I want to read a first time, I will definitely revisit this one.

P.S. Did a little Google searching to try to figure out what I missed. While I was largely unsuccessful, I did find some interest...more By page 11 I knew I was going to love this book. Krauss' writing style is simply incredible. I will admit I was somehwat confused by the story itself and had to back up several times (and the ending?), but reading this one tasted as good as a box of Godvia chocolates. If I ever catch up with all the books I want to read a first time, I will definitely revisit this one.

P.S. Did a little Google searching to try to figure out what I missed. While I was largely unsuccessful, I did find some interesting facts. This book is being made into a movie to debut in 2009. Krauss is married to fellow writer Jonathan Safran Foer, whose book "Everything is Illuminted" I found quite comical, but even more confusing than "History of Love" and certainly not as heartfelt. It was the runner up for the Orange Fiction prize in 2005 and was chosen as a Today Show read, and yet I still missed hearing about it until a couple months ago.

BEST REVIEW:

Monday, August 6, 2007
The History of Love: A Review by Julia Henderson

The History of Love was one of those books I avoided at first. Too many people told me how amazing it was, how much I'd love it, how I should run to the nearest independent bookstore and grab a copy.

All of that made me NOT want to read the thing, so I half-heartedly suggested it for my book club and felt not at all crushed when no one picked it. And then I saw it on a buy-one-get-one rack at the bookstore and picked it up. I really didn't know a thing about the book (except that people thought I'd like it), but from the moment I read the first paragraph, I was hooked by author Nicole Krauss's elegant, careful prose.

The author is married to Jonathan Safran Foer of similarly-topiced Everything Is Illuminated. They both live in Brooklyn and write non-traditionally about the Holocaust, and there's no doubt that Foer is the better-known author. But there was something in Krauss's book that tapped into my emotions much more successfully than Foer ever did.

The premise of the story isn't so unique: Teenaged lovers lose touch after the Germans invade Poland and desecrate a Jewish town and the survivors are never the same again; two adults fall in love over a book a generation later, and start a family; the father dies, the children are different because of his death; the young daughter tries to trace her parents' love; the lives of many people intersect in the small world of New York...but Krauss is so clever in the way she weaves these lives together that the reader finds herself completely and utterly immersed in the story, guessing at endings and seduced by the possibility of hope.

I usually speed-read -- afterall, there are too many good books in this world to justify reading slowly -- but The History of Love made me want to read slowly enough to savor every word. And it didn't surprise me that I stopped breathing for a moment when I read the last few sentences, or that instead of immediately moving on to the next book on my list, I waited a few days to give this one time to settle in. I even get that horrible jealous feeling when I see someone reading the novel on the subway...how lucky they are that they're still in the middle of it, how sad I am that I've finished it.

You'd be doing yourself a disservice not to read this book. If you need to borrow a copy, just let me know. I want my own copy to be passed to so many people that I get it back waterlogged by flood, fire-tarnished, tattered and worn.

Julia Henderson is Art Editor and Webmistress of Fringe.
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May 13, 2013 Maria rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: recommended, 2013-favorites

I recommend The History of Love.

Because, what was I supposed to say? I've waited my whole life for her? She was the opposite of death? And now I am still here, waiting?

Break my heart, why don't you, Nicole Krauss.*sniffs*

When I started reading The History of Love, I was laughing. I was humored by Leo's eccentricities. A few minutes later, I was quiet. I was gently wishing for the tears to go away. I must me mad, I thought. And it happened many times as my reading progressed. Smiling here, being...more

7 likes · like · see review

Nov 24, 2008 Shannon (Giraffe Days) rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008, fiction

This beautiful story is about an eighty year old Jewish-Polish immigrant and retired locksmith, Leo Gursky; a fourteen year old girl, Alma Singer, who is trying to find a way to make her mother not sad anymore; and Zvi Litvinoff, the author of an obscure book called The History of Love. What they each have to do with one another isn't at first apparent, but becomes all too clear and inseparable as you read on.

It is a love story, a story of survival and ageing, of memory and imagination, of sadne...more

20 likes · like · see review

Jan 25, 2008 Erin rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: book-club-selections

This book was promising at the beginning, but proceeded to get sloppy and puzzling, and then ended in an unsatisfying and unclear way. It's a convoluted plot involving a Polish Jew who falls completely for a childhood girlfriend, writes a book about her, and then is separated from both by the Holocaust. Not knowing the book was eventually published by the friend to whom he gave it for safekeeping, he now lives his old age in New York, lonely and waiting to die. His story is interwoven with that...more

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Mar 27, 2009 Laurel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I know everyone talks about how Nicole Krauss and Jonathan Safron Foer are married and perfect and live in Park Slope and blah blah blah. I can see the connections between their work, for sure, but I really liked this book a lot more than the Foer I have read. For instance, Krauss' non-traditional use of the page, the parts in the beginning and the end, don't bug me like they did in Foer's recent book.

I like how Krauss connected the lives of so many people in a way that seemed confusing and com...more

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Aug 20, 2007 Brynn rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: summer2007

"To paint a leaf, you have to sacrifice the whole landscape. It might seem like you're limiting yourself at first, but after a while you realize that having a quarter-of-an-inch of something you have a better chance of holding on to a certain feeling of the universe than if you pretended to be doing the whole sky." (45)

"He ran his fingers down the spine over her thin blouse, and for a moment he forgot the danger he was in, grateful for the world which purposefully puts divisions in place so that...more "To paint a leaf, you have to sacrifice the whole landscape. It might seem like you're limiting yourself at first, but after a while you realize that having a quarter-of-an-inch of something you have a better chance of holding on to a certain feeling of the universe than if you pretended to be doing the whole sky." (45)

"He ran his fingers down the spine over her thin blouse, and for a moment he forgot the danger he was in, grateful for the world which purposefully puts divisions in place so that we can overcome them, feeling the joy of getting closer, even if deep down we can never forget the sadness of our insurmountable differences." (63)

"Sometimes you need a stroke of genius and, lo and behold, genius comes and strokes you." (87)

"The fact that you got a little happier today doesn't change the fact that you also became a little adder. Everyday you come a little more of both, which means that right now, at this exact moment, you're the happiest and saddest you've ever been in your whole life." (91)

"Contrary to logic, the feeling of surprise wasn't born immediately. It came only after people had enough time to get used to things as they were. And when enough time had passed, and someone felt the first feeling of surprise, someone, somewhere else, felt the first pang of nostalgia." (107)

"At the end, all that's left of you are your possessions. Perhaps that's why I've never been able to throw anyways away. Perhaps that's why I hoarded the world: with the top that when I died, the sum total of my things would suggest a life larger than the one I lived." (165)

"Now that mine is almost over, I can say that the thing that struck me most about life is the capacity for change. One day you're a person and the next day they tell you you're a dog. At first it's hard to bear, but after a while you learn not to look at it as a loss. There's even a moment when it becomes exhilarating to realize just how little needs to stay the same for you to continue the effort they call, for lack of a better word, being human." (236)(less)

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Jan 16, 2008 Charissa rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: hopeless poets wandering in the wilderness

Recommended to Charissa by: fate

Shelves: literature, fairy-tales, all-time-faves

This is the sort of book that I didn't expect to like, given that the title seems ridiculously ambitious. But in a moment of optimism I bought it anyway, and boy did it pay off. Nicole Krauss skirts the intimidating topic of romantic love by sneaking up behind other kinds of love and encouraging them to stop leaning against the wall at the dance and get out there and share their groove thang. She weaves together disparate threads of lives until, by the end, you see the vast, beautiful, silken as...more

14 likes · like · see review

Mar 23, 2013 Anne rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, poland, 1001-books, new-york, 2013, audio, holocaust, favorites

This book made me smile from beginning to end. Especially the character of Leo Gursky. For him, alone, I would give this book 5 stars. And yet, there was so much more.

8 likes · like · see review

Apr 16, 2008 Susan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: jewish-interest

A powerful story about the loneliness of an elderly man, a Holocaust survivor, Leopold Gursky. He is a writer who is never heard, at least not in his own voice. Krauss paints the portrait of invisibility with such sorrowful accuracy. Leon is completely alone and "all I want is not to die on a day when I went unseen." Because of this, he purposely draws negative attention to himself, just for the sake of getting noticed. Such as dropping change on the floor in a busy checkout line. The most painf...more

10 likes · like · see review

Mar 31, 2008 Chak rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literary-snackers, fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The characters were the best part of this book for me, though there was a lot to like. There are many characters in the book, though only three really narrate (Leo - an elderly yet scrappy complainer who narrowly escaped the Nazis when they occupied Poland; Alma - a tween survival enthusiast pulled too tightly by the needs of her strange and possibly mentally challenged younger brother and her depressed, widowed mother, as well as her own developing needs to clarify her identity; and "Bird," the...more The characters were the best part of this book for me, though there was a lot to like. There are many characters in the book, though only three really narrate (Leo - an elderly yet scrappy complainer who narrowly escaped the Nazis when they occupied Poland; Alma - a tween survival enthusiast pulled too tightly by the needs of her strange and possibly mentally challenged younger brother and her depressed, widowed mother, as well as her own developing needs to clarify her identity; and "Bird," the aforementioned younger brother of Alma who sells lemonade to finance his presumed destiny of saving mankind). The author (Nicole Krauss) gave them fascinating attributes and interests and writes them with clarity, tenderness (even when they are unlikeable) and such a strong voice that the reader would know who was narrating even if there was only a sentence or two.

Much of the dramatic tension in the book is due to the way Ms. Krauss reveals the story in a non-linear fashion so that much of it is obscured until the last pages, in which she takes (what I consider to be) a literary cop-out by making an important part of the story be a figment of someone's imagination. The reader was unecessarily tricked from the get-go (pages 5 and 6 to be exact) into a highly detailed and realistic vision of an imaginary friend. Why? I felt the story would have been a lot better and the writer would have showed more storytelling skill if she resolved that issue in a more creative way (or even kept the friend real), and that is why this book got four stars from me instead of five. Aside from that, though, I loved everything else.

A recurring theme in the book was that nearly every character wrongly kept information from a loved one in order to protect them. Only the eventually-omniscient reader was able to see the heartbreaking truth that these omissions only hurt the loved ones even more. That particular theme was expertly and consistently well-written and helped the reader identify with every character and understand his or her intentions.

In spite of the sorrowful and bittersweet tone of the novel, there were humorous parts that were highly entertaining, but never distracted from the larger story.

I would highly recommend this book. After 252+1 pages that I feverishly read, I still wished for more. (less)

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Aug 29, 2007 Sara* rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I just finished The History of Love by Nicole Krauss on my way to the office this morning. I started reading History after I read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. The two authors are married. The two authors write incredibly similarly so just about every book selling website suggests that you read both if any at all. Like a lamb, I followed the advice of one Amazon.com blindly without realizing I may have needed a break between the two.

Anyway, the History is all about...more

7 likes · like · see review

Sep 11, 2008 Jon rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

How about the history of me bawling my face off.

28 likes · like · see review

May 18, 2013 Louize rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A Reflection on The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

from The Page Walker

Once in a while, a certain novel will cross our path and it will capture us in a way that mere words will not suffice to describe how we felt after reading it. The History of Love is unbelievably strong; its wonders are beyond my capacity to convey. While reading the book, I remember how many times my eyes brimmed with tears, yet I remember beaming and laughing too. Such veritable diversity of emotions in one novel is oftent...more

10 likes · like · see review

Apr 04, 2013 MizzSandie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: well-written, interesting, heartbreaking, good-story, favourite, loved-it, moved-me-deeply, re-read-worthy, romance, want-to-own

Nicole Krauss writes beautifully.

She has a gift with painting pictures with words, feelings and people leaping of the pages, so raw and real you can almost touch them, and if you are not careful, they will cut you. Deeply.
Really, with this book, “I don’t know what to say about it, except that it moved me in a way one hopes to be moved each time he begins a book.”
And yet…. (view spoiler) I will try to say...more

4 likes · like · see review

Jan 19, 2008 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

Post-modern trickery, deceased fathers and their precocious offspring, WWII/Holocaust-era backstories, interweaving narratives tied together by endearingly convenient coincidences and gradually unveiled personal histories. No, I’m not speaking of Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (which, admittedly, I adore), I’m referring to his other half’s novel.

The novel that introduced me to one of my favorite voices in contemporary fiction: Leo Gursky.

I’m fairly certain that many...more

11 likes · like · see review

Jan 02, 2008 Siobhan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Meh. There's a lot to think about here, and a warmth and generosity that's very appealing. but I was not entirely satisfied with the way the book handled itself--either style-wise or theme-wise. Which I will attempt to explain:

Themes That Seemed Interesting and Really Worth Thinking About, But Which Seem Inadequately Explored:
* The conflation of Holocaust survivors' guilt (and second-generation survivors' guilt) with the familiar, authorly notion of "anxiety of influence." Which I thought was pr...more

4 likes · like · see review

Aug 08, 2007 Kristina rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Even though we're all a bit alone in the world, there are certain things that bind us together as human beings. What really made me stop and think about this, actually, was the bridge collapse last Wednesday. No matter where you were, you knew it was on everybody's mind, and somehow knowing, even when I was just sitting in Starbucks, that everyone around me was thinking about the same thing made me think about how we're all in this together. The woman who sold me my morning bagel at Brueggers st...more

3 likes · like · see review

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About Nicole Krauss

Nicole Krauss is the author of the international bestseller The History of Love, which was published by W.W. Norton in 2005. It won the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, France’s Prix du Meilleur Livre Ėtranger, was named #1 book of the year by Amazon.com, and was short-listed for the Orange, Médicis, and Femina prizes. Her first novel, Man Walks Into a Room, was a finalist for the...more

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Quotes from The History of Love

“Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.” — 5,688 people liked it

“there are two types of people in the world: those who prefer to be sad among others, and those who prefer to be sad alone.” — 1,306 people liked it

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