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Executive Times |
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2005 Book Reviews |
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The History
of Love by Nicole Krauss |
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Rating: ••• (Recommended) |
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Click on
title or picture to buy from amazon.com |
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Connections There’s a lot to like in Nicole Krauss’
novel, The
History of Love. First, she’s a gifted writer and her talent explodes on
these pages. Multiple narrators remain unique and separate voices. Characters
are fully formed and complex, with emotions that generate empathy among
readers. The tangled relationships among characters, and the depth of their
emotions could become overpowering in the hands of a less talented writer. In
The
History of Love, all the pieces come together, albeit in ways more quirky
and complicated that some readers will appreciate, but nonetheless connected
in ways that resolve all tension. Here’s an excerpt, from the beginning of
the chapter titled, “A Joy Forever,”
pp. 75-79: I don’t know what
I expected, but I expected something. My fingers shook whenever I went to
unlock the mailbox. I went Monday. Nothing. I went Tuesday and Wednesday.
There was nothing on Thursday, either. Two and a half weeks after I put my
book in the mail, the telephone rang. I was sure it was my son. I’d been
dozing in my chair, there was drool on my shoulder.
I jumped to answer it. HELLO? But. It was only the teacher from the
art class saying she was looking for people for a project she was doing at a
gallery, and she thought of me, because of my quote unquote compelling
presence. Naturally I was flattered. At any other time it would have been
reason enough to splurge on spare ribs. And yet. What kind of project? I
asked. She said all I had to do was sit naked on a metal stool in the middle
of the room and then, if I felt like it, which she was hoping
I would, dip my body into a vat of kosher cow’s blood and roll on the large
white sheets of paper provided. I may be a fool
but I’m not desperate. There’s only so far I’m willing to go, so I thanked
her very much for the offer but said I was going to have to turn it down
since I was already scheduled to sit on my thumb and rotate in accordance
with the movements of the earth around the sun. She was disappointed. But she
seemed to understand. She said if I wanted to come in and see the drawings
the class had done of me I could come to the show they were putting up in a month.
I wrote down the date and hung up the phone. I’d been in the
apartment all day. It was already getting dark, so I decided to go out for a
walk. I’m an old man. But I can still get around. I hoofed it past Zafi’s Luncheonette and the Original Mr. Man Barber and Kossar’s Bialys where sometimes I’ll go for a hot bagel
on a Saturday night. They didn’t used to make bagels. Why should they? If
it’s called Bialys, then it’s bialys. And yet. I kept walking. I
went into the drugstore and knocked over a display of KY jelly. But. My heart
wasn’t in it. When I passed the Center, there was a big banner that said DUDU
FISHER THIS SUNDAY NIGHT BUY TICKETS
NOW. Why not? I thought. I don’t go in for the stuff myself, but Bruno loves Dudu Fisher. I went in and bought two tickets. I didn’t have any
destination in mind. It started to get dark but I persevered. When I saw a
Starbucks I went in and bought a coffee because I felt like a coffee, not
because I wanted anyone to notice me. Normally I would have made a big production,
Give me a Grande Vente, I mean a Tall Grande,
Give me a Chai Super Vente
Grande, or do I want a Short Frappe? and then,
for punctuation, I would’ve had a small mishap at the milk station. Not this
time. I poured the milk like a normal person, a citizen of the world, and sat
down in an easy chair across from a man reading the newspaper. I wrapped my
hands around the coffee. The warmth felt good. The next table over there was
a girl with blue hair leaning over a notebook and chewing on a ballpoint pen, and at the table next to her was a little boy in a
soccer uniform sitting with his mother who told him, The plural of elf is
elves. A wave of happiness came over me. It felt giddy to be part of it
all. To be drinking a cup of coffee like a normal person. I wanted to shout
out: The plural of elf is elves! What a language! What a world! There was a pay
phone by the restrooms. I felt in my pocket for a quarter and dialed Bruno’s
number. It rang nine times. The girl with blue hair passed me on the way to
the bathroom. I smiled at her. Amazing! She smiled back. On the tenth ring he
picked up. Bruno? Yes? Isn’t it good to be
alive? No thank you, I don’t
want to buy anything. I’m not trying to sell
you anything! It’s Leo. Listen. I was sitting here drinking a coffee in
Starbucks and suddenly it hit me. Who
hit you? Ach, listen! It hit me
how good it is to be alive. Alive!
And I wanted to tell you. Do you understand what I’m saying? I’m saying
lift is a thing of beauty, Bruno. A thing of beauty and a joy forever. There was a
pause. Sure, whatever you say
Leo. Life is a beauty. And a joy forever, I said. All right, Bruno said. And a joy. I waited. Forever I was about to
hang up when Bruno said, Leo? Yes? Did you mean human
life? I worked on my
coffee for half an hour, making the most of it. The girl closed her notebook
and got up to leave. The man neared the end of his newspaper. I read the
headlines. I was a small part of something larger than myself. Yes, human
life. Human! Life! Then the man turned the page and my heart stopped. It was a photo of
Isaac. I’d never seen it before. I collect all his clippings, if there was a
fan club I’d be the president. For twenty years I’ve subscribed to the
magazine where occasionally he publishes. I thought I’d seen every photo of
him. I’ve studied them all a thousand times. And yet. This one was new to me.
He was standing in front of a window. His chin was down, head tilted to the
side. He might have been thinking. But his eyes were looking up, as if
someone had called his name right before the shutter clicked. I wanted to
call out to him. It was only a newspaper, but I wanted to holler it at the
top of my lungs. Isaac! Here I am! Can you hear me, my little Isaac? I
wanted him to turn his eyes to me just as he had to whomever
had just shaken him from his thoughts. But. He couldn’t. Because the headline
said, ISAAC MORITZ, NOVELIST, DEAD AT 60. Isaac
Moritz, acclaimed author of six novels including The Remedy, which won the National
Book Award, died Tuesday night. The cause of death was Hodgkin c disease. He
was 60. Mr. Moritz’s novels are defined by
their humor and compassion, and the hope they search for amid despair From
the first, he had his ardent supporters. These included Philip Roth, one of
the judges for the National Book Award in 1972, awarded to Mr. Moritz for his
first novel. “At the center of The Remedy is a live human heart, fierce and
imploring,” Roth said in a press release announcing the prize. Another of Mr.
Moritz’s fans, Leon Wieseltier, speaking on the
telephone this morning from the offices of the New Republic in Washington,
D.C., called Mr. Moritz “one of the most important and undervalued writers
of the late twentieth century. To call him a Jewish writer, “ he
added, “or, worse, an experimental writer, is to miss entirely the point of
his humanity, which resisted all categorization.” Mr Moritz was born in 1940 in Aside
from winning him an avalanche of praise and the National Book Award, The Remedy also made Mr. Moritz a household name. In its first year of
publication it sold 200,000 copies, and was a New York Times bestseller. His
sophomore attempt was awaited with eager anticipation, but when Glass Houses,
a book of stories, was finally published five years later it was met with
mixed reviews. While some critics saw it as a boldly innovative departure,
others, such as Morton Levy, who wrote a scathing attack in Commentary,
called the collection a failure. “Mr. Moritz,” wrote Levy, “whose debut novel
was emboldened by his eschatological speculations, has here shifted his
focus to pure scatology.” Written in a fragmented and at times surreal
style, the stories in Glass Houses range in subject from angels to garbage
collectors. Reinventing
his voice yet again, Mr. Moritz’s third book, Sing, was written in a stripped-down
language described in the New York Times as “taut as a drum.” Though
in his more recent two novels he continued to search for new means of
expressing them, Mr. Moritz’s themes were consistent. At the root of his art was a passionate humanism and an unflinching exploration
of man’s relationship with his God. Mr.
Moritz is survived by his brother, Bernard Moritz. I sat in a daze. I
thought of my son’s five-year-old face. Also the time I watched him tie his
shoe from across the street. Finally a Starbucks employee with a ring in his
eyebrow came up to me. We’re closing, he said. I looked around. It was
true. Everyone was gone. A girl with painted nails was dragging a broom
across the floor. I got up. Or I tried to get up but my legs buckled under
me. The Starbucks employee looked at me as if I were a cockroach in the
brownie mix. The paper cup I held was crushed to a damp pulp in my palm. I
handed it to him and started to make my way across the floor. Then I
remembered the newspaper. The employee had already thrown it into the trash
bin he was rolling across the floor. I fished it out, smeared as it was with
uneaten Danish, while he looked on. Because I am not a beggar, I handed him
the tickets for Dudu Fisher. I don’t know how
I got home. Bruno must have heard me unlock the door, because a minute later
he came downstairs and knocked. I didn’t answer. I was sitting in the dark in
the chair by the window. He kept knocking. Finally I heard him go back
upstairs. An hour or more passed and then I heard him on the stairs again. He
slid a piece of paper under the door. It said: LIFE IS BUTIFUL. I
pushed it back out. He pushed it back in. I pushed it out, he pushed it in.
Out, in, out, in. I stared at it. LIFE IS BUTIFUL. I thought, Perhaps
it is. Perhaps that is the word for life. I heard Bruno breathing on the
other side of the door. I found a pencil. I scrawled: AND A JOKE FOREVER. I pushed it back under the door. A
pause while he read it. Then, satisfied, he made his way up the stairs. The fact that Krauss is married to
writer Jonathan Safran Foer
will make some of the connections of style between The
History of Love and Foer’s novels all the more
interesting. Steve Hopkins,
October 25, 2005 |
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ã 2005 Hopkins and Company, LLC The recommendation rating for
this book appeared in the November 2005
issue of Executive Times URL for this review: http://www.hopkinsandcompany.com/Books/The
History of Love.htm For Reprint Permission,
Contact: Hopkins & Company, LLC • E-mail: books@hopkinsandcompany.com |
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