The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

The History of Love. You have seen it on the EL, or at the bus stop, or maybe a friend read it a few months ago. It's on display in the window at the local book stop. Whatever the case, you have heard about it. It's everywhere. That is basically why I picked it up. Sometimes curiosity gets the best of me...and if everyone else is doing it...I know that is not a good reason, but I just can not help it. Anyway. So I read The History of Love. It's a mere 250 pages and by all means fits the definition of a light summer read. There are at least four different narrators in the novel (I think maybe a fifth one shows up for a chapter but don't hold me to that) and some of them are really great. Such as Leopold Gursky, a persnickety old man with a fondness for making people uncomfortable by forcing them to come in contact with his aging body. He's great and hilarious (laugh out loud funny) and also charming and heartbreaking. Then there's 14 year old Alma Singer, and all I have to say to Krauss on this one is: "did you let your husband right this part?" These chapters are incongruous with the rest of the text and sound like they have come straight out of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close...which is too bad, not because that book was bad, I rather enjoyed it, but because that book has already been written.

Okay, so you want to know how the book is already? I get it. It's a lot of fun for the first third. Bland and un-notable (if that's a word) for the second third (I almost put the book down and gave up). The final third, well it was good. The stories came together pretty nice, although there were a few things that were never resolved that kinda irked me. But over all it was enjoyable. And it gives you a little more time with Gursky, who I really had a fondness for. So, should you read the book? Well, maybe if you are sitting at the beach and feeling kinda go-with-the-flow. Or if you happen to have a copy laying around and nothing else to read. Then sure, read it. It's good, but it won't knock your socks off. And if you can get over the fact that she pretty much plagiarized one of her husbands characters (and apparently he doesn't mind) then yeah, you will like it.