Monday, January 28, 2013

Book Review - The History of Love by Nicole Krauss


Sweetie has been begging me to read this book for years.  Why did I wait?  I loved it!

This is wonderful story about a lonely old Jewish Man who lives in New York City.  He is retired and alone and goes about trying to get noticed.  He drops his change, or tips over a store display.  One day he even poses nude for an art class.  Anything to feel less invisible.  His name is Leo Gursky and he has good reason to feel overlooked, passed by - invisible.

It is also about a pugnacious young girl named Alma, whose sole ambition seems to be wilderness survival; and her younger brother Bird, who strongly suspects he might be the messiah or at the very least a Lamed Vovnik.  

It is written from the perspective of Alma and Leo; both of whom I adore.  They are so real and accessible.  Krauss has a wonderful knack for making ordinary people and ordinary circumstances become extraordinary.  And then you discover there is nothing ordinary about their connection and the synchronous way in which their lives come together.   

Leo and Alma fancy themselves writers and they sure made a reader out of me!  It's almost hard to give Nichole Krauss credit for her characters have completely upstaged her.

Some reviewers think the book is convoluted.  I think it is an artistic masterpiece which I will read again!

*****







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