History of Love

Reading List

P.S. I Love You by Cecelia Ahern
My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
For One More Day by Mitch Albom
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime by Mark Haddon
Twilight by Stephanie Meyer
New Moon by Stephanie Meyer
Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer
The Meaning of Tingo by Adam Jacot de Boinod
Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress: A Novel by Dai Sijie and Ina Rilke
The History of Love: A Novel by Nicole Krauss
Pride and Prejudice (x 2) by Jane Austen

The History of Love

I had borrowed the History of Love by Nicole Krauss at the beginning of summer and put it off until I was in the mood for a cheesy love story. By the end of August, I had exhausted the Twilight series and decided to make the book my sole companion on my college road trip. I figured with the hectic schedule ahead of me the book would at least take me a week to read. These were the first of many false notions.

The author, Nicole Krauss, relates three completely different love stories between people ranging from age thirteen to seventy through the discussion of a book. Surprisingly, although age wise I should technically relate to the thirteen year old girl with the Russian boyfriend, I found myself drawn to the main character Leo Gursky, the seventy man whose love was lost at age nineteen. His story I cannot relate to but his outlook on life and death was one aspect of the novel that had me pondering my own outlook throughout the entire story. Leo was not afraid of death, but rather dying unnoticed. His daily routine had lost all practicality; instead it was filled with ways of being noticed. In the opening scene of the novel, he signs up to be a nude model for an art class for the sole purpose that if he died on that day the students would remember him. He also lacks all fear of judgment and most fear in general, excluding the fear of loneliness.

Both main characters, and the other major side character, all share this fear but handle it in very different forms until the end of the novel. Leo imagines the presence of an old friend; Alma, the thirteen year old, finds solace in comforting her mother and fashioning her life as a remembrance of her dead father; Alma’s mother through translating the book her husband had given her years ago on their first date. The book doesn’t explore different definitions of love but rather the side effects of love lost at any age, whether be to death, mistakes or bad circumstance. I can’t say The History of Love made me view love itself differently, but it changed my view of the world and life. It also made me appreciate the power of a single book on the lives of millions and how books can bring people together, not only mentally but physically. The History of Love, by which I mean the book discussed within the pages of the novel, connects the lives of the three main characters, and especially Alma and Leo through understanding. Both gain identity from its pages, Leo being the author and Alma being named after the main character of his long lost book. In the end, their meeting is almost surreal because it connects the entirety of the story together. Little Alma has ended her search to find the author of the book that has saved her mother and Leo is finally recognized as the true author of the book he believed to be lost decades ago and has also put an end to his loneliness. There is no definite ending and while in most cases this would bother me, in this novel it fits because life and love are not definite.

This book was no cheesy love story; it was filled with questions of death, loneliness and identity in the crazy world. Books that have the ability to make me smile and cry are the ones I remember. It did this many times over. I expected a love story about two middle age characters, happy ending and the works. Instead I ended in a depressed but extremely thoughtful mood pondering my life. Basically, its one of the few books I read this summer that truly left an imprint on my heart and mind. And that's all I can ask for. (647)