The History of Love

The History of Love

by: Nicole Krauss

2005

hardback 252

The fresh and very unique writing style of Nicole Krauss drew me in and kept me on my toes as i tried to connect the characters to their countries and sought to detect how it was that they interconnected with each other.  I had not read a novel in several months, maybe half a year, so i found the experience again fun as a little escape.  And now that it is over, it feels like guest that have been visiting the past week have moved on from our home.  Sophie got hooked on the novel with a line from page 11, " Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laugher was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering."  When she left for Africa, she asked me to return the book to the library as she was not going to be able to finish it and i thought i would go ahead and give it a go.  

Great description was given not just of things but of feelings and thought processes. The two characters i liked best were Leopold, an old man who had escaped Poland when the Nazis invaded and Alma: an almost 15-year-old that was named after the gal in Leopold's book that he loved since he was 10 years old in Poland.   There is a bit of a mystery to solve as the pages give way to the rich development of both Alma and Leo and others they both know.  And you learn a lot of this and that as you read along like a person can starve to death by eating rabbits and that a lamed vovnik is one of 36 super-powered Jews that live at any given time.  (Alma's younger brother, Bird, thought he was one of these).  

In my opinion, the story was not as proportional as it could have been and for all the build up and investment, it ended far to quickly... maybe i just was not ready to be finished reading about these endearing friends and wanted it to go on a bit more.  With the title being "The History of Love" do not expect a very romantic book, or a happy book, yet i did laugh a time or too. It was realistic and sad told of missed opportunities and made me want to live life fully for it ends for some before it is really over.