Favorite Quotes:
"All I want is not to die on a
day when I went unseen." -page 4
"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." -page 11
"I had left my anger somewhere
long ago. Put it down on a park bench and walked away." -page 18
"I kept my manuscript in a box
in the oven." -page 26
"I know there is a moral to this
story, but I don't know what it is." -page 39
"...when I said I was going up
to my room she'd call after me, 'What can I do for you I love you so much,'
and I always wanted to say, but never said: Love me less." -page 43
"22. THAT YEAR I WORE MY
FATHER'S SWEATER FOR FORTY-TWO DAYS STRAIGHT" -page 49
"So many words get lost. They
leave the mouth and lose their courage, wandering aimlessly until they are
swept into the gutter like dead leaves." -page 111
"Perhaps that's why I hoarded
the world: with the hope that when I died, the sum total of my things would
suggest a life larger that the one I lived." -page 165
"As certain as I am sitting
here now, this letter exists. And yet. In my heart, I know my hand is
empty." -page 230
"Leopold Gursky started dying on
August 18, 1920."
About the Main Character:
Alma Singer. Leo Gursky. These two
take the lead in The History of Love. Alma lost her
father from cancer and has been trying to survive the tailspin it sent her
family into. Leo lost the love of his life long ago and has lived a secluded life
ever since. This story beautifully outlines how their paths cross and the
happiness and revelation it brings to them both.
Another Character to Note:
Bruno is Leo's best friend. They grew
up together in Poland and reunited in America. Bruno and Leo check in on each
other periodically to be sure they don't die without it being noticed. Bruno
gives Leo the gumption he needs to go to his son's house and generally keeps
the loneliness from killing him. To explain what makes Bruno interesting would
be giving too much away. He's just interesting...trust me.
Plot Breakdown:
1. The nude old man...Leo
Gursky, the man who wanted to be seen.
2. Alma Singer. An Alma, but not
the only one...we're introduced to the Singer family in list form {which I
love!}
3. Zvi Litvinoff...the man of
great guilt.
4. The loss of someone
someone important...Leo loses someone before he can express how important
they are to him.
5. Alma, the matchmaker,
and the translation...Alma's mother begins translating a book
and, as always, Alma thinks the man who commissioned her might be the one to
break her out of her slump.
6. Why Litvinoff did what
he did...the story is actually pretty sad.
7. Bruno gets Leo to where he
needs to go...He's looking for answers.
8. Misha's kiss, searching
for Alma, and Bird's journal...Alma's plot continues to thicken.
9. Alma finds who she's looking
for
10. Bird gets involved...he's
hoping to prove himself to someone very important.
11. The Park Bench
Something Interesting to Note:
One of the things I loved about this
book was the freedom Krauss took with the formatting. The perspective changes
each chapter. There are pages with three words. There is a page without a
number. Krauss was thoughtful in the layout and final product of The History
of Love and I think it adds so much to the novel.
I also love how Krauss addresses the
theme of death and how her characters each depict a different coping mechanism
with loss. There are characters that she doesn't really tell you much about
other than showing you how they deal with the loss of a loved one and that's
all your really need to know because they have become their loss. Krauss
shows how telling of a person grief can be.
Should you read The History of Love before you die?
I'm having a hard time settling on
the answer for this one. I think this book can make a huge impact if read at a
certain season in life and I think I read it in the wrong one. So I didn't
connect with it as much as other people I know who have read it...which makes me
want to say "No." But, I also feel like the originality, tenderness,
and beautiful execution of the novel warrants a resounding "YES!!"
And what more could one really ask for in a novel??? So I think that I want to
stick with yes....yup, it's gonna be a yes for this one.
The History of Love is
definitely a novel that demands to be reread because there is so much more to
it than what I took away the first time.