The History of Love

by Nicole Krauss

I heard about this book a long time ago. Great title, and it sounded like the type of story that would appeal to me. And then I learned that it's by the wife of the author of Everything is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (which I read last summer, but apparently, forgot to write about Everything is Illuminated). And while I feel like a woman's work should stand on its own, without having to be compared to her husband's, it would also feel strange to ignore the context of the work and the environment in which it came about.

I've never read books by authors who were married before. I feel like it creates a window into their lives. It's like they've invited the world not only into their minds and hearts, but into their home as well. There's certain similarities in the writing styles (I don't know which order the books were written in, only the order I read them in), in subject matter and characters. There's this theme of absent mothers, or at least, mothers that are too wrapped up in themselves and/or their pain to see their children fully. There are eccentric children, too bright/curious for their own good, trying to fix their broken parents. And then there are the old, who suffer the indignities of age and regret.

I really liked the writing of the book. It's incredibly well written and it made my heart ache (too much sadness, too much hope). Unfortunately, I didn't like the ending. Or really, the last third of the book. I guess it got too much involved in the mechanics of bringing all the plot strands to convergence. Or maybe I didn't like the way that they were coming together. Or maybe it's just that it started to remind me too much in style, themes and plot of her husband's work (which maybe it would actually be him reminding me of her, but I happened to read him first). Anyway, the first 2/3 of the book are excellent, and the last third disappointed me. But even considering the let down, the book is great - even it's worst is still pretty damn good.

"When I got older I decided I wanted to be a real writer. I tried to write about real things. I wanted to describe the world, because to live in an undescribed world was too lonely. I wrote three books before I was twenty-one, who knows what happened to them. The first was about Slonim, the town where I lived which was sometimes Poland and sometimes Russia. I drew a map of it for the frontispiece, labeling the houses and shops, here was Kipnis the butcher, and here Grodzenski the tailor, and here lived Fishl Shapiro who was either a great tzaddik or an idiot, no one could decide, and here the square and the field where we played, and here was where the river got wide and here narrow, and here the forest began, and here stood the tree from which Beyla Asch hanged herself, and here and here. And yet. When I gave it to the only person in Slonim whose opinion I cared about, she just shrugged and said she liked it better when I made things up. So I wrote a second book, and I made up everything. I filled it with men who grew wings, and trees with their roots growing into the sky, people who forgot their own names and people who couldn't forget anything; I even made up words. When it was finished I ran all the way to her house. I raced through the door, up the stairs, and handit to the only person in Slonim whos opinion I cared about. I leaned against the wall and watched her face as she read. It grew dark out, but she kept reading. Hours went by. I slid to the floor. She read and read. When she finished she looked up. For a long time she didn't speak. Then she said I shouldn't make up everything, because that made it hard to believe anything.
Another person might have given up. I started again. This time I didn't write about real things and I didn't write about imaginary things. I wrote about the only thing I knew. The pages piled up. Even after the only person whose opinon I cared about left on a boat for America, I continued to fill the pages with her name."

"And if the man who once upon a time had been a boy who promised he'd never fall in love with another girl as long as he lived kept his promise, it wasn't because he was stubborn or even loyal. He couldn't help it. And having hidden for three and a half years, hiding his love for a son who didn't know he existed didn't seem unthinkable. Not if it was waht the only woman he would ever love needed him to do. After all, what does it mean for a man to hide one more thing when he has vanished completely?"

First Boy

by Gary Schmidt.

Listened to this book on the way to E.'s party in NYC. The pacing in it is off, there is too much time spent on description, not enough on plot points, and certain things are implausible. For instance, the author wants us to believe that the main character (and thus the audience should be) fine with not resolving one of the major plot points in the book. I'm okay with ambiguity in general, but in this case, that fact that nobody's pursuing (at least privately) something that could easily be settled by an honest conversation or basic lab tests seems dishonest and insincere. Also, there's no real shading of characters in this novel - there golly shucks good and greedy violent evil. And a lot of talk about means justifying the ends (which we're Left to Ponder).

There's not a whole lot of subtlety in this book. But it did pass the time.

The Known World

by Edward P. Jones

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize. It's a story about freed Black slaves, who, in time, owned their own slaves. It introduces the people around them, their dreams and expectations. Ideas about what was right or what was possible. On one hand I loved it, as it wanders into grey areas of right and wrong, of separation of heart and mind. It paints a picture of humanity in a certain place and time, and it's beautiful but mostly tragic.

The hard part of this book is how brutal people are to each other. It's hard to see so vividly how awful people can be. Maybe it was naive to expect something good to happen to people trying their best, in this sort of novel of this sort of setting.

"As the days dwindled down to the time Henry's parents would take him into freedom, Robbins was surprised to know that he would miss the boy. He had not been so surprised about his feelings for a black human being since realizing he loved Philomena. He had gotten used to seeing Henry standing in the lane, waiting as Robbins came back from some business or from visiting Philomena and their children. the boy had a calming way about him and stood with all the patience in the world as Robbins, often recovering from an episode of a storm in his head, made his slow way from the road to the lane and up to the house. Fathers waited that way for prodigal sons, Robbins once thought."

"The kiss went through the breast, through skin and bone, and came to the cage that protected the heart. Now the kiss, like so many kisses, had all manner of keys, but it, like so many kisses, was forgetful, and it could not find the right key to the cage. So in the end, frustrated, desperate, the kiss squeezed through the bars and kissed Mildred's heart. She woke immediately and she knew her husband was gone forever. All breath went and she was seized with such a pain that she had to come to her feet. But the room and the house were not big enough to contain her pain and she stumbled out of the room, out and down the stairs, out through the door that Augustus, as usual, had left open. The dog watched her from the hearth. Only in the yard could she begin to breathe again. And breath brought tears. She fell to her knees, out in the open yard, in her nightclothes, something Augustus would not have approved of.

Augustus died on Wednesday."

Swimming to Antarctica

by Lynne Cox

I found this book one evening when I went to pick up the sequel to Quicksilver. It sounded inspirational, and exciting, and a like perfect escape. Something I'd never do (I only swim well enough not to drown), in places that I'd love to go (lakes in Iceland, across the English Channel, across the Bering Strait, around the Cape of Good Hope and Tierra del Fuego). And of course, to Antarctica. It's an amazing story of triumph over the elements. I was expecting it to be a bit like Into Thin Air but it's more of a story of athleticism than disaster.

The stories are great though the style is brisk (which isn't generally my favorite, but I guess it works for a sports narrative). I do wish there were a more personal side of the story available, like coping with family stresses, relationship ups and downs, or other non-swimming-related Grand Decisions and Events. It would make it a more well-rounded autobiography. Or maybe I'm just nosy.

"This time, it felt as if I were swimming through ice soup. Tiny blades of ice ricocheted off my body. With a quick sigh, I made it through that section. But a large berg was now directly beside us. There was no way I could swim over it, so I decided to stop for a moment and let it slide pass. That was a mistake. The icy cold water quickly seemed to pull the warmth from the marrow of my bones...
After the swim, Dena told me that I had swum in thirty-eight-degree water. It took me at least two hours of shivering to get my body temperature back to normal. We took it immediately after I got out of the water, and it was the same as when I'd started the swim. I'm sure it dropped once the swim was over, but I wasn't interested in trying to get a temperature by that point; all I wanted to do was get warm."