The History of Love by Nicole Krauss is a great book. Krauss writes fearlessly about love and death. The pursuit of love and the avoidance of death are the two big impulses behind most of our activity on earth, and are the two big themes of literature, as well. Krauss writes in a whole new way about the joy and the sorrow, the hope and the fear, that go along with love and death, and she adds in something beautiful: how we use words to try to control both love and death, to further our happiness, stave off our misery, and find a bearable truth in the sometimes unbearable reality of living. Despite the heavy themes, there is a good deal of humor and good-natured spirit in The History of Love. It is a survival manual of sorts, not so different from the “How to Survive in the Wild” guide treasured by one of the characters in the book.
All the characters in the book have known death, the truth of which they are trying to deal with, and love, the pursuit of which they have run from or are fully engaged in. They use words — as Leopold writes, “words for everything” — to avoid the truth or to confront the truth of death, and to find for themselves a safe place for love to be. Words in the book are translated, they are hidden away, they are plagiarized and they are revealed: through all the manifestations, the words are powerful. And when the words are too powerful, gestures take over the role of communication: one tap (no) or two taps (yes) to convey answers to a lifelong question. Is love worth it? Two taps.
The History of Love is the story of Leo Gursky: “He was a great writer. He fell in love. It was his life.” And it is the story of every person affected by the book he wrote for the woman he loved: the friend who lost everyone and to find someone again, stole the story; Alma, the woman who starred, again and again, in the story (she is the soul of the story, as “alma” means soul in Spanish); the son who had the story read to him and only too late comes to understand its significance; a different Alma, trying to help her mother find love again, trying to help her brother Bird be normal and not be a chosen one, and trying to understand the life of a woman who left Poland, leaving love behind, and began love and life all over again.
Krauss’ characters range in age from very old to very young, and include the dead who live on vividly in memory. They are all distinctly drawn as very real humans, with fear and sadness, desires and weaknesses. The ones left alive have a will to survive, some stronger than others, and their unfailing strength to pursue a path they do not completely understand — to finally share the book written about “everything”, to plant a garden, to go to a house in Connecticut, to attend a funeral, or hunt through old city records in a series of dusty offices — will, in the end, bring them knowledge and maybe even some peace, before the end.
I only wish we could have had more insight into the original Alma. She left Leo behind in Poland, and then believed that he had forgotten her. She starts a new life with a new man and her son, and suddenly there is Leo again, at her door: her old love confronts her new life. How does she feel about this? We don’t know. Surely in the history of love there is a chapter about old lovers returning after years away, to find their beloved ensconced in a new life. When can old love overcome the new, or does new love trump? Alma remains with her husband but shares Leo’s words with her son: the words of love can persist and remain and triumph. The son himself becomes a great writer, legacy of his true father.
This is a life-affirming, heart and tear duct pumping, and even funny at times, wonderful book about the power of words. The power comes from the people who write the words, the people who inspire the stories, and the people who read the words, becoming inspired themselves. The History of Love is joyous song in favor of the mind and the heart and the body and the soul, and the celebration that occurs when all four work together, the celebration called love.
