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?"