The History of Love
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008| The History of Love | |
 Front cover of hardcover edition. |
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| Author | Nicole Krauss |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | W.W. Norton & Company |
| Publication date | May 2, 2005 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 252 pp (hardcover) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0393060349 |
The History of Love: A Novel is the second novel by the American writer Nicole Krauss, published in 2005. The book was a 2006 finalist for the Orange Prize for Fiction.
Contents
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The History of Love
The History of Love is a novel in the form of a homage to things lost, as well as to unsolved mysteries. The novel within the novel, also named The History of Love is the basis for all these questions.
Leo Gursky is an old locksmith who feels as though he is disappearing. He tries at all costs to draw attention to himself, but he still feels he has a void in his life. Eventually, he goes on a quest to find his long-lost son and the novel that he wrote as a young man, now published in Chile under the name of Zvi Litvinoff. Alma Singer is a teenage girl who is trying to keep her family together after the loss of her father. Named after the heroine of The History of Love, Alma tries to console her widowed mother (who has recently been requested to translate the novel from Spanish) as well as keep her younger brother Bird (who believes he is a lamed vovnik) from becoming a social pariah.
The main characters are: Leo Gursky, Alma Singer, Bird Singer, Zvi Litvinoff, Bruno, Isaac Moritz, Alma Mereminksi, Mischa.
Literary Allusions in The History of Love
There are many thematically significant literary allusions in The History of Love. The writer Isaac Babel (1894-1940), as eulogized by Leo Gursky in the chapter titled “The Trouble with Thinking,” has unmistakable affinities with Zvi Litvinoff’s description of Leo’s own writing style, and the description of Rosa Litvinoff’s writing style in the early chapter “Forgive Me.” The Polish writer Bruno Schulz (1892-1942) and his classic The Street of Crocodiles, is mentioned several times in the novel, as is Nicanor Parra (1914-), whose 1954 book of antipoems is translated by Charlotte Singer and read by the mysterious Jacob Marcus. A passing reference to Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) is also significant because Don Quixote is a novel that contains stand-alone stories within it, much in the same way that The History of Love contains excerpts of a mysterious book called The History of Love. Other important literary allusions in the novel include references to James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Antoine de St. Exupery, Leo Tolstoy, Rubén Darío and Pablo Neruda. In some ways, The History of Love is a celebration of the power writing and of the imagination, so it is hardly surprising that it would be so full of literary references.
Graphic Design and the Themes and Structure of The History of Love
Graphic design is important to the themes and structure of The History of Love. The dedication page consists of four photographs and the dedication: “For My Grandparents, who taught me the opposite of disappearing and For Jonathan, my life.” The use of photographs here is significant because of photography’s prominent role in the novel as proof of life or presence (an idea reinforced by the actual words of dedication.) Another important intersection of graphic design is how each character is associated with an icon that appears at the head of each chapter: Leo with a heart; Alma with a compass; Zvi with an open book; and Bird with an ark. These icons may be used as a starting point for defining these characters. For example, it makes sense that Alma be associated with a compass because she spends much of the novel doing research, asking questions and investigating her past and the past of the mysterious book called The History of Love. Finally, the novel includes interesting typography, such as cross-outs (in Alma’s journal) and a series of pie graphs of her ancestry, which appear on page 96. The pie graphs and accompanying context illustrate how identity is not an open and shut question or a yes and no proposition.
Comparisons to Extremely Loud
The History of Love was published in early 2005 as was Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, written by Jonathan Safran Foer who had just married Krauss. Both books feature a precocious youth who set out in New York City on a quest. Both protagonists encounter old men with memories of World War II (a Holocaust survivor in Krauss and a survivor of the Dresden firebombing in Foer). Both old men recently suffered the death of long-lost sons. The stories also use some similar and uncommon literary techniques, such as unconventional typography.
The similarities, however, are likely coincidental. Foer and Krauss were introduced by their shared Dutch publisher after their books were written.
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
The book was optioned by Warner Bros. in early 2005, and is set to be directed by Alfonso Cuarón. The movie is currently scheduled for release in 2010.
Footnotes
- ^ Janet Maslin (2005-04-25). “BOOKS OF THE TIMES; The Story Of a Book Within A Book”, The New York Times. Retrieved on 2007-04-26.
- ^ Marie Arana (2005-05-08). “Jonathan Safran Foer: Extremely Young and Incredibly Talented”, The Washington Post. Retrieved on 2007-04-26.
- ^ “WB buys book of ‘Love’”, Variety (2005-01-20). Retrieved on 2007-04-26.
MBTA