Sarah kindly agreed to write the post for The History of Love. This is such a lovely review of this book, it's going to take me a couple of days to come up with a worthy response. Also, I had to play around with the font stuff to transfer the file, so I may have made some mistakes; please let me know if you see anything weird, so I can correct it. Sarah....thank you.
Anne asked me to write a review for the history of by nicole krauss and i have been a-strugglin with it. i don't know how to begin. i just want to scream "i love this book! please read it!! you must! you need it! everyone needs it!"
the end.
but that's not really a review. and as much as i've tortured myself trying to find a kosher way to write this review, i've come to the conclusion that i can't. my heart is too full so i'm just spilling, and i fear it might be a tsunami.
there are so many facets that i love: the writing style, the execution, the characters(oh, the characters), the story, the inspiration, the resolution, the mystery, etc., etc.
for those of you who haven't read it, i'll spare you my muddled summary and link; linkan official one</a>.
my heart almost hurts, this book so resonates with me. the more i've researched this book, the more i start to understand how the entire basis of it, the thought behind it and foundation upon which it was built is really what draws me in, the story being almost a bonus. nevertheless, i would love to spend some time chattin it up with leo, the main character and "the oldest man in the world." he grew up with a passion for writing but, because of varied circumstances, he had given up. after having a heart attack he started to write again.
leo: I did it for myself alone, not for anyone else, and that was the difference. it didn't matter if I found the words, and more than that, I knew it would be impossible to find the right ones.
on my blog and in my moleskin, i torture myself over finding the right words. when the right words cannot be found, i can't bring myself to force something shallow, so i don't write. sometimes in those quiet times, not always, but sometimes I need to remember and plunge forward.
also from leo: so many words get lost. they leave the mouth and lose their courage, wandering aimlessly until they are swept into the gutter like dead leaves. on rainy days you can hear their chorus rushing past: iwasabeautifulgirlPleasedon'tgoItoobelievemybodyismadeofglassI'veneverlovedanyoneIthinkofmyselfasfunnyForgiveme…
this makes me want to concentrate on and really hear every word ever said by every person.how great would our world be if we all felt(it just may be one of the reasons i blog...)
i found an article written by the author and she talked about how after her first novel was published, she felt a little lost and wanted to write something just for her, to no end. a nothing.
here is the author explaining that: Soon after that, Leo's voice appeared on the page. It was so familiar to me: at once the easiest thing I'd ever written, and also the most alive. Sometimes I even confused his voice with my own, or was unable to tell us apart; strange to say, considering he's an eighty-year-old man from Poland
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why is it that sometimes when we give up, let go of the control, our true inspiration is found? have you experienced that?
the majority of the characters in the book are either writers or closely associated with writers. i think that's why i can relate to this book so much: because i've always had a secret dream to write, to be a writer and to one day find my voice. (it was scary just admitting that to the cosmos. it's hard to not feel extremely arrogant declaring oneself as onething. but it's my dream. and i'm stickin to it.)
also from the author: I was moved by the idea of people who need to invent things in order to survive, either for their own sake or for the sake of protecting those they love. At some point in the book, Leo imagines telling his son: The truth is the thing I invented so I could live. Everyone in the book invents things they need to believe, or protects the inventions of those they love.
do you invent to protect? if so, how? do you create tangible art? what is your medium for protection? as a little girl, laying in bed i was scared every single night, scared of what was under my bed, in my closet, outside my window, going on next door, across the street, what might happen if i wasn't vigilant in observing every sound. i tried counting sheep. i tried singing. nothing worked until i started telling myself stories. i made up elaborate stories that spanned months and years, each episode starting like a sitcom previously on…(my brain)… when I started inventing, my mind was off unknowns - i created knowns and, consequently, relaxed enough to sleep. sometimes even now when i find myself especially wired, i revert back to inventing stories. i hope to one day invent my great novel.
again from the author: For a long time–almost a year–I wrote my nothings, my pages to no end. And pretty soon it became clear to me how much I wanted them to be something, how much of a piece they felt… Until I got there, I didn't know how the book would end. But somehow it did end, almost as accidentally as it began. And now, to my surprise, it's something.
how much of a piece... i had to read that about ten times before it clicked and i loved.
do you have things that you have to plug along doing, moving forward in faith but not really knowing if there is an end or a fruition, and suddenly it appears?
a question from the publisher: Leo decides to model nude for an art class in order to leave an imprint of his existence. He writes to preserve the memories of his love for Alma Mereminski. Yet drawings and novels are never faithful renditions of the truth. Do you recognize a process of erasure in the stories he tells us?
of course. i think it is only human to use erasure in our own stories. i think that is very prevalent in the blog-world and it's easy to forget how little we know of the "faithful rendition." it's easier to erase the bad. it's crippling to not. take childbirth... wow. if we didn't forget the excruciating pain, we'd never want to do it again. we'd all adopt.
to wrap up this too-long diatribe, here are some of my favorite quotes, impossible to expound upon so i'll just list a few, all from leo. oh, how i have a crush on him.
her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering.
the air felt different in my lungs. the world no longer looked the same. you change and then you change again.
…when a piece of music no one has ever written or a painting no one has ever painted, or something else impossible to predict, fathom, or yet describe takes place, a new feeling enters the world. and then, for the millionth time in the history of feeling, the heart surges, and absorbs the impact.
I danced the only way I knew how to dance: for life, crashing into the chairs, and spinning until I fell, so that I could get up and dance again.
did any quotes stick out to you? if so, please share.
