The History of Love. Review on 5 Best Books

The History of Love by Nicole Krauss. Mouthpad is taking forever to get it listed. So.

This is probably the best story  I’ll ever read. A beauty of a book – a gem. I was spending some time at crossword, as there was still time for the film in the adjoining pvr, and was flipping through books when I came across this one – the title intrigued me and I thought it was non-fiction. For the umpteenth time I had started to read Love in the time of Cholera and again I found my mind wandering…….i was thinking I am not capable of reading the deep stuff anymore…. but as I started reading the history of love, I was immediately engrossed. The story begins with a character called Leo Gursky and his daily struggle to go around his tiny room. An old man. Very self-deprecatory, Very humorous. I wanted to know more about him, so I bought the book. Later, fifteen pages into the book, and I was howling. Life was  so beautiful, so sad, where was I headed? It was the book of course. Its been ages since any book affected me that way.

So I stopped crying and simply relished the reading of the book from the next day. There is Leo Gursky like I said; then there is Alma, a fifteen year old who lives with her mother and brother and who is coping with the changes in her family after her fathers death. In their alternating voices, the story unfolds. Leo lives his life so that  his existence is not missed entirely( the book is dedicated to the authors grandparents who “taught her the opposite of disappearing”) – he has no one except a friend called Bruno who lives in the same building.  The only woman he loved has died and though he has a son from her, he has never been able to share his life with her. Circumstances have led to her marrying someone else. His son, a famous writer, is unaware of his existence. Alma is trying to help her mother fall in love again. Her mother is translating the History of Love from the Spanish for a mystery figure called Jacob Marcus.

The author is remarkably wise for a thirty two year old. And she writes so wonderfully that it is despairing for a wanted-to-be-writer like me. The level of empathy she evokes for each of her characters - that is rare. Her words brim with life – compassion for the we, for the individual, come effortlessly to her. Like one critic said “ this book restores your faith in fiction, it restores all sorts of faith”. There is a magnificient, couldn’t-be-better ending to this saga of emotional beings – guaranteed to give you that cathartic cry. But I must add here that there is nothing at all sentimental about the book. Life is like that - this book takes a good look at it.

Here are some excerpts from the book:

1.

I often wonder who will be the last person to see me alive. If I had to bet, I’d bet on the delivery boy from the Chinese take-out. I order in four nights out of seven. Whenever he comes,  I make a big production of finding my wallet. He stands in the door holding the greasy bag while I wonder if this is the nigh I’ll finish off my spring roll, climb into bed, and have a heart attack in my sleep. I try to make a point of being seen. Sometimes when I’m out, I’ll buy a juice even though I’m not thirsty. If the store is crowded I’ll even go so far as dropping my change all over the floor, the nickels and dimes skidding in every direction.

2.

“You got a little happier and also a little sadder”

“Meaning they cancel each other out, leaving me exactly the same.” “Not at all. The fact that you got a little happier today, doesn’t change the fact that you also became a little sadder. Everyday you become a little more of both, which means that right now at this exact moment, you’re the happiest and the saddest you’ve ever been in your whole life”……….  “ It isn’t like that for everyone you know. Some people like your sister, just get happier and happier every day. And some people like Beyla Asch just get sadder and sadder. And some people like you, get both.” “ What about you? Are you the happiest and the saddest you’ve ever been?” “Of course I am.” “Why?” “Because nothing makes me happier and nothing makes me sadder than you.”

3.

After a dinner of microwaved fake-meat chicken nuggets, I went to bed early and read what my mother had translated of the The History of Love under the covers by flashlight. There was the chapter about how people used to talk with their hands, and the chapter I hadn’t read called the Birth of Feeling. Feelings are not as old as time it began.

Just as there was a first instant when someone rubbed two sticks together ot make a spark, there was a first time joy was felt, and a first time for sadness. For a while new feelings were being invented all the time. Desire was born early as was regret. When stubbornness was felt for the first time, it started a chain reaction, creating a feeling of resentment on the one hand, and alientation and loneliness on the other……

4.

I felt my heart surge. I thought: I’ve lived this long. Please. A little longer won’t kill me.