A lost, found, and plagiarized book about love unites the stories of Holocaust survivors/victims, widows, fatherless children, and lovers. The engaging structure of the story eventually ties these characters together and reveals the impact the book has on their lives.

But such insightful and beautiful prose, such substantial and meaningful passages seem spoiled by attempts at "cutesy" writing. It appeared contrived and it cheapened the impact of the dialogue for me.

Long ago and far away a boy fell in love with a girl. This love inspired him to write, and part of what he wrote about were the stages in human evolution that hadn't gotten very much attention. Around the time of the Stone Age, for example, there was also an Age of Glass when "everyone believed some part of him or her to be extremely fragile." In addition, there was an Age of Silence when people spoke only with their hands. But because we do so very many other things with our hands, sometimes there were misunderstandings. There were times a person might be performing a task and was mistakenly thought to be saying, instead, "Now I realize I was wrong to love you." Because, yes, there was a gesture for the question: Was I wrong to love you?

And I thought, sitting there with my book, reading, minding my own business, I thought: Well, there's the question I've been trying to put into words for the last ten damn years. Because this is what your heart starts screaming when people you care about begin to die. (Live long enough, do everything right, it doesn't matter, people you care about still begin to die.) And I'm not proud of this. I'm not proud that my heart has this question on its lips most of the time. Was I wrong to love you? Because, if I hadn't, it certainly wouldn't hurt this much to bury you, my friend.

There are a lot of reasons The History of Love deserves a thorough reading. And it's not just about these Ages of Man - it's about what became of the boy's scribblings, what use was made of them by other people, and it's also about a brilliantly-rendered fourteen-year-old named Alma Singer who is desperate for her mother to be happy and her brother to be sound. And it's a puzzle of a thing that will glide you all over emotional creation before it tethers itself to solid ground. But most of all...most of all...it may do for you what it did for me. It may put words to whatever it is your heart's been screaming.

کتاب فوق العاده ای نیست، اگر صرفا به خاطر ترجمه ترانه علیدوستی تصمیم به خوندنش بگیرید، چندان براتون دلچسب نخواهد بود. نه اینکه ترجمه بد بشه فقط میتونست ترجمه روان تری داشته باشه. موضوع خود کتاب جالب بود، و به شخصه فکر میکنم با همین موضوع نویسنده میتونست کتاب بهتری ارائه کنه.
قسمت هایی که آلما تعریف میکنه رو بیشتر دوست داشتم، قسمت های آخر کتاب هم جذاب تر هستند.
در نهایت فکر میکنم اگر توی مدت زمان کمتری این کتاب رو میخوندم بیشتر جذبم میکرد ولی باز هم نمیتونست قانعم کنه که ۵ستاره کامل بدم.

Holding hands...is a way to remember how it feels to say nothing together.

I just finished and I am sad I am done. This isn't a romance, but a beautiful, quirky piece of literary fiction. If I attempted to summarize the plot, it would be an injustice as I could never capture the finely developed characters, the beautiful prose and the laugh out loud moments that make this book unique. All I can say is that I highly recommend it. It is a rare gem.

زمستون پارسال تا صفحه ٦٠ خوندم، اولاش خوبه ولى بعدش خيلى خيلى درهم‌برهم می‌شه

آخـــــــی

"If you don't know what it feels like to have someone you love put a hand below your bottom rib for the first time, what chance is there for love?"

What a reading experience! I went into this book knowing absolutely nothing about its premise. All I knew was that it is highly regarded by many of my Goodreads friends. What you should know is that right after I finished reading it, I spent the rest of the day rereading and underlining passages and clues I might have overlooked. Did you find yourself doing the same thing after watching The Sixth Sense for the first time? Don't lie!

This book is a compelling, heartwarming study of loneliness, loss and adolescence. At least ten to fifteen characters are inadvertently drawn together by a book published soon after World War II called The History of Love. The mystery behind its author and publication, and the different lives it touches up to present day unfold in a series of personal journal entries. Central to the novel are a group of teenagers who each survive and/or escape the Nazi occupation of Poland only to find the overwhelming loneliness and grief that awaits them when they attempt to "start over."

I guess it depends on what you're going through at the moment, but this book just made my heart hurt so much. Not enough to cry, but enough to remind me that I am human, and that we all have personal circumstances that we're struggling to overcome. Sometimes one good day in a gloomy month is so precious that we dread the setting of the sun. The more I think about it, the more questions I have. Love is such a complex thing, whether it's fufilled, reciprocated, or never comes to fruition...it can be the thing that pushes us forward and makes us get out of bed every morning. That is pretty powerful, and Krauss did a magnificent job of relaying that message.

نمی دونم چرا اینقدر نوشتن راجع بهش سخته. نمی دونم بعضی جمله های این کتاب چطور منو به این اندازه داخل کتاب می کشید
از اسم کتاب توقع یک داستان عاشقانه رو دارید؟
این کتاب راجع به عشق نیست، راجع به زندگیه که عشق هم جزیی از اونه

لئوپولد یک مرد یهودیه که با حمله نازی ها فرار می کنه و به سختی خودش رو به آمریکا می رسونه و در این فرار همه چیزش رو از دست میده. حتی عشق زندگیش رو. حالا لئوپولد یک پیرمرده که از مرگ در تنهایی می ترسه

آلما دختری 15 ساله ست که اسمش از روی شخصیت اصلی کتاب مورد علاقه پدر مادرش یعنی "تاریخ عشق" گذاشته شده. آلما در حال کنار اومدن با مرگ پدرشه و پیدا کردن راهی برای خوشحال کردن مادرش

این دو داستان در موازات هم حرکت می کنند. ولی کجا قراره به هم برسند؟ حدس زدنش سخته چون داستان پیچیدست

داستان هایی که از چندین دید روایت می شن این ریسک رو دارند که با بعضی شخصیت ها ارتباط برقرار نشه. من عاشق لئوپولد بودم و منتظر تکه هایی که راوی می شد. عاشق دید عجیبش به دنیا، غم عمیقش. ولی راجع به آلما اینطور نبود
فرهنگ یهودی در این کتاب موج می زنه و برای من جالب و خواندنی بود ولی تکه های کوچکی که در رابطه با اسرائیل بود و سختی هایی (!) که برای ساکن شدن در اونجا کشیدند، سخت بود که با علاقه بخونم

به خاطر جمله های فوق العاده ش می دونم که حداقل تکه اول این کتاب رو دوباره می خونم. به خاطر لئوپولد. به خاطر کتابی که در بین صفحات این کتاب مخفی شده و از تاریخ عشق می گه، ولی نه اونطور که همه فکر می کنند. فقط باید این جمله هارو بخونید تا بفهمید چی می گم

حتی هنوز هم تمام احساسات ممکن وجود ندارند. هنوز حس هایی هستند که فراتر از ظرفیت و تخیل ما هستند. گاهی اوقات، وقتی قطعه موسیقی ای که کس ��یگری ننوشته، یا نقاشی ای که کس دیگری نکشیده یا چیز دیگری که پیش‌بینی، تصور و یا توضیح آن غیرممکن است ایجاد می شود، حس جدیدی وارد دنیا می شود

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 sadness and loss. It is a puzzle, a mystery, a comedy, a tragedy. It's quite simply wonderful.

Leo arrived in America when he was 25, fleeing the Nazis and following the woman he loved, Alma. But he is too late. We get his story in first person, in a distinct style, honest and hopeful.

Alma's father died when she was little and she occupies herself with trying to find a new man for her mother, while her younger brother, Bird, becomes convinced he's a Jewish messiah. She tells her side of the story in short brief chapters, notebook or journal style. Later, Bird also gets his own voice.

The third narrator is a third-person omniscient voice that retells the life of Zvi, but in such a way that the truth isn't clear at first. It's a great deal of fun putting it all together and realising the truth, though we're cleverly handled by Krauss who reveals things only when she wants to.

It is not told in a chronological way, though it seems so at first - in fact, Zvi is dead, Alma's story begins before Leo starts his, even though his comes first. It's clever and extremely well managed, especially considering how hard it must be to give voice to a character without them spoiling all the surprises.

There's a great deal of humour in this book, which makes the poignant sadness and tragedy all the more bittersweet. The writing is beautiful and original. I remembered a few pages in particular - these are from Leo:

As soon as the acne cleared my hairline began to recede, as if it wanted to disassociate itself from the embarrassment of my face. (p14)

I meant to pat his arm but he moved to brush something from his eye, the result being that I ended up patting his man-breast. Not knowing what else to do, I gave it a squeeze. (p88)

I considered myself a spy infiltrating an alien world: the domain of the female. With the excuse of gathering evidence, I stole Mrs Stanislawski's enormous panties off the clothesline. Alone in the outhouse, I sniffed them with abandon. I buried my face in the crotch. I put them on my head. I raised them and let them balloon in the breeze like the flag of a new nation. When my mother pushed open the door, I was trying them on for size. They could have fit three of me. (p127)

And Alma:

"You're not Dr. Eldridge are you?" I asked. "I am," he said. My heart sank. Thirty years must have passed since the photograph on the book was taken. I didn't have to think for very long to know that he couldn't help me with the thing I had come about, because even if he deserved a Nobel for being the greatest living paleontologist, he also deserved one for being the oldest.

I didn't know what to say. "I read your book," I managed, "and I'm thinking of becoming a paleontologist." He said: "Well don't sound so disappointed." (p54)

There are lots more quotes I could share but it would take me forever to find them.

The History of Love tells an old story in a new and original way, giving a fresh voice to characters that feel familiar, and a breath of life into the classic tale of immigrants fleeing World War II and trying to put their lives back together, but failing. I came to really care for Leo, and Alma and her family, and feel a surge of anger at the injustice, and also a sense of calm at the inevitability of it all. It's going to take me a while to really understand the effect of this book, but even knowing the truth, I'd re-read it and discover more.

I can't remember the last book I read that seemed this real, this alive, this wise and honest and truthful, with its blur of place and time so that you forget where you are and even, at times, when. Identity also loses its normally distinct shape, as walls disappear, distances shrink, and a search for the mysterious Alma of The History of Love brings the characters together. The past merges with the present in Krauss's brilliant book, laughter mingles with tears, and wisdom with foolishness. A superb book.

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.

I discovered Nicole Krauss' 'The History of Love' around ten years back. I was discussing favourite books with one of my friends at that time and she said Krauss' book was one of her top five alltime favourites. I made a mental note to read it at some point. When our book group decided to read it this month, I was so excited.

There are three story arcs in 'The History of Love'. The first one is narrated by a man in his eighties, Leo Gursky. He is Jewish and he moved from Poland to America during the Second World War to escape from the Nazis. The girl he loves moved to America before the war started. He hopes to catch up with her, get married to her, and live happily ever after. The Leo Gursky of today, narrates what happened. The second story arc is narrated by a teenage girl, Alma Singer. She lives with her mother and younger brother. Her father is no more. Her mother continues to grieve for her husband while the children grieve in ways that they don't even realize. One of the things that Alma talks about is a book called 'The History of Love' written by a mysterious writer called Zvi Litvinoff. The third story arc is about the writer Zvi Litvinoff and how he came to write this book. How the three arcs come together and get woven into one fabric and how this mysterious book binds them together, forms the rest of the story.

There was a time in the middle and late 2000s, say from around 2002 to around 2010, when there was an explosion of novels of a particular kind. It was hard to classify them - they were not love stories or murder mysteries or historical novels or literary fiction, though they had elements of some of these. Because they were hard to classify, they were called 'Contemporary Fiction'. They were written in prose which was accessible but also beautiful. In some of these stories, the narrator was a young character, maybe a teenager or sometimes even a pre-teen. But these books were not written for teenagers or pre-teens. They were written for grownup readers. Books like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Secret History, The Dante Club, The Piano Tuner, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, The Selected Works of T.S.Spivet, The Shadow of the Wind, The Memory Keeper's Daughter, The Time Traveler's Wife, The Lovely Bones, The Book Thief. Many of these books were written by first-time writers and they received great acclaim. Some of these writers followed up with a second book which was less acclaimed. Most of these writers faded away after that. Some of the writers continue to publish today, but their works mostly fall below the radar. I don't know whether this is how things happened. Or whether I am taking a collection of random facts and weaving them into my own fictional narrative. But this is how I look at it. Nicole Krauss was one of those writers. And 'The History of Love' was one of those books.

Nicole Krauss' book has many of the elements of the books that came out during its time. It has a teenage narrator, it has some history woven in, the prose is accessible but beautiful, there is an underlying mystery in the story, and the ending is not simple and it makes us contemplate. There are digressions from the main story in which the narrator talks about life in the deepest parts of the ocean, how to find out whether a forest plant is edible, evolution, and other topics which are quite interesting to read. There are also direct and implied literary references to Kafka, Isaac Babel, Isaac Bashevis Singer which are fascinating to read. I discovered a new book because Alma Singer gushes about it - 'The Street of Crocodiles' by Bruno Schulz. I want to read that now.

I loved the two narrators of the story. Their voices are very different and Krauss brings them authentically alive on the page. Leo Gursky has the wisdom and the humour and the kindness and the devil-may-care attitude of a person of his age, while it is hard to resist comparisons between Alma and her more famous literary cousin, Scout, from Harper Lee's 'To Kill a Mockingbird'. I loved the fact that there is a book behind the story and it weaves all the plot strands together.

The prose is beautiful and there are many iconic sentences. Like this one :

"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."

And this one :

"It took seven languages to make me; it would be nice if I could have spoken just one."

There were beautiful passages like this one :

"She's kept her love for him as alive as the summer they first met. In order to do this, she's turned life away. Sometimes she subsists for days on water and air. Being the only known complex life-form to do this, she should have a species named after her. Once Uncle Julian told me how the sculptor and painter Alberto Giacometti said that sometimes just to paint a head you have to give up the whole figure. 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.
My mother did not choose a leaf or a head. She chose my father, and to hold on to a certain feeling, she sacrificed the world."

And this one :

"He learned to live with the truth. Not to accept it, but to live with it. It was like living with an elephant. His room was tiny, and every morning he had to squeeze around the truth just to get to the bathroom. To reach the armoire to get a pair of underpants he had to crawl under the truth, praying it wouldn't choose that moment to sit on his face. At night, when he closed his eyes, he felt it looming above him."

'The History of Love' is about love, family, relationships, history and how these things can come together and become literary art. I loved it. I am happy to report that Nicole Krauss was one of the writers of her time who didn't fade away - her newest book came out last year, though it looks like it was very much below the radar. I can't wait to read more books by her.

Have you read Nicole Krauss' 'The History of Love'? What do you think about it?

The great tragedy of life is this then, our friends are not allowed to finish their stories.

My second reading of this book bore out my feeling the first time I read it. The first two hundred pages are a stunningly beautiful and moving account of love and loss and the stories hidden within stories and then, of a sudden, it’s as if Krauss handed the novel over to her distinctly less talented husband to finish off the book. She ruins it with the fourth of her narrators, the entirely preposterous whimsy of Bird who is a kind of identikit of Foer’s equally irritating cutesy cutesy little boy narrator in Extremely Loud. Bird is a mistake and the attempt to add still more madcap tomfoolery and another search for a missing person, a person who doesn’t exist, is just daft. Bird as a character is a joke that simply isn’t funny. And to make another mystery of a mystery, to create another story with the honeycomb of stories, backfires horribly so late in the novel. I don’t think I’ve ever read a novel that punctures so catastrophically towards the end and has left me feeling so angry and cheated.

I'd forgotten how beautiful most of this novel is. How poignantly and succinctly Krauss conveys the childhood love of two Jewish children before the Nazis arrive. How magically she recreates Leo’s memory. And how alive and full of the heart is the old man recollecting himself as a boy in the narrative. Leo is a brilliant and heartwarming depiction of old age just as Alma is a fabulous evocation of adolescence.

Krauss writes brilliantly about love, in all of its forms. She’s got a marvellous eye for epiphanies and evokes them with searing poetic simplicity. And the multi-layered form of the novel where three narrators are each telling missing parts of each other’s stories is brilliantly achieved. It also works great as a literary detective story. Almost you have to keep a list of the clues as you’re reading.

So, absolutely brilliant until Krauss’ ultimate recourse to whimsy, as if she and her husband were sharing some private joke, and which comes very close to spoiling the poignant moving emotional fabric of this novel.