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The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

Literary fiction

The History of Love

by Nicole Krauss

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Quick take

What's love got to do with it? In this beautiful, continent-spanning novel, the answer just might be everything.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, Emotional

    Emotional

  • Illustrated icon, Writers_Life

    Writer’s life

  • Illustrated icon, Immigration

    Immigration

  • Illustrated icon, NYC

    NYC

Synopsis

Leo Gursky taps his radiator each evening to let his upstairs neighbor know he’s still alive. But it wasn’t always like this: in the Polish village of his youth, he fell in love and wrote a book. . . . Sixty years later and half a world away, fourteen-year-old Alma, who was named after a character in that book, undertakes an adventure to find her namesake and save her family.

Why I love it

There are books that are wonderful and then there are books that change the way you look at books. The History of Love changed the way I look at books.

I got this book from one of my closest friends; a friend I met late in life but without whom I could not exist as the person I am today. There is a person in the world who understands me so intimately and so terribly well, and it is this person who gave me this book.

The History of Love works so incredibly well as a piece of literary artistry because it taps into some of the greatest tension we as readers can experience, and it makes us fall in love. Krauss creates a character in Leo Gursky who we need to understand and who is so very hard to understand. That tension between what we know and what we want to know keeps us riveted. And she creates in Alma a character so in need of being understood, and yet so beyond understanding that the tension is magnified. It is this dual tension that fuels the novel.

The story of a story unfolding is also what The History of Love is about. It is a search for an answer, and we not only go on the journey of the search but we are participants in watching the searcher search. It is the ultimate multi-dimensional novel in this sense: we watch a watcher watching. We struggle to watch a struggler struggling. We become a part of the novel without even realizing it. This book became a part of me as I read it and for a long time after.

Any novel that has twists and turns cannot really be written about; it needs to be experienced. The experience I had allowing this novel to unravel into a perfect pile of chaos and meaning was a transformative one as a reader and as a lover of literature. The process of watching a novel grow before your eyes as you turn the pages is spectacular.

The History of Love changed my life because of the way it made me believe. It made me believe in friendship all over again, and it made me believe in literature too. But mostly, this novel made me believe all over again in the promise of love.

Through history, we learn. The History of Love chronicles the way we learn to trust, to understand, and to love. In this way, we become a part of history.

Member ratings (2,140)

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Literary fiction
View all
Intermezzo
The Book of George
Real Americans
Dirty Diana
Wellness
Margo’s Got Money Troubles
The God of the Woods
Same As It Ever Was
Annie Bot
Bear
Mercury
True Biz
Family Happiness
The Husbands
The Lady Waiting
The Other Valley
Hard by a Great Forest
Good Material
The Bullet Swallower
Happy All the Time
Rental House
Alice Sadie Celine
Let Us Descend
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
Shark Heart
Homeseeking
Transcendent Kingdom
Hello Beautiful
Dominicana
What's Mine and Yours
The Unsettled
Ask Again, Yes
Vladimir
Infinite Country
The Prophets
Normal People
The Verifiers
Salvage the Bones
The Many Daughters of Afong Moy
I Have Some Questions for You
Black Buck
The History of Love
Age of Vice
Paper Names
The Light Pirate
The Secret History
The Kite Runner
Memorial
The Half Moon
Happiness Falls
The Gifted School
The Death of Vivek Oji
The Knockout Queen
Little Monsters
Yerba Buena
Beautiful World, Where Are You
Free Food for Millionaires
A Burning
The Mothers
The Water Dancer
Small Country
The Sympathizer
Fleishman Is in Trouble
Lot
An American Marriage
The Animators
The Mars Room
Exit West
White Fur
Woman No. 17
The Ministry of Utmost Happiness
Eat Only When You're Hungry
Rainbirds
A Ladder to the Sky
Golden Child
The Goldfinch
The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P
& Sons
The Association of Small Bombs
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All Grown Up
Marlena
Signal Fires
Someday, Maybe
Woman of Light
Marrying the Ketchups
The Shards