History of Love

In Nicole Krauss’s novel The History of Love she takes the life of a lonely man with a large appetite for attention and tells his story of lost love and an unknown family whom he watches from a far. The main character a man named Leo Gursky, in his late 80’s, lacks a family or the friends to support him. He manages to survive from the company of one man Bruno and the knowledge that his dream of being a writer is being fulfilled by his son, who doesn’t know Gursky even exists. Gursky found love early as a child in Poland his home land with a woman named Alma, the woman who would eventually also break his heart upon arriving in America. He strives to constantly be seen in theght and the same passion that someone else finds in his book is the one that will bring Leo and this mystery woman together in the end. It is a story told in a somber but creative and inspiring way that seemingly is the beginning of a twisted tale of bitter-sweet happiness as Gursky hopefully finds the fulfillment he lacks in his life.
“I waited for something to happen, but nothing did. No wind that swept everything away. No heart attack. No angel at the door.” (Krauss 34) I believe that this passage lays down the mind set that Gursky has adapted and also shows the handle to a door in which instead of waiting for things to happen on there own, he must go out and make it happen himself. He is a creature of habit; who’s habits includesharp crippling statement about his once heightened life, forlorn and abandoned because of his lack of will to create or become something better. I am very interested to see where this book takes us from here and would like to reflect mainly on how the book makes you look at yourself, and question whether or not your getting up enough to do the stuff that is actually worth doing. Few I believe rarely ever do.

Works Cited

Krauss Nicole The History of Love . New York W. W. Norton and Company, Inc. 2005

Cited: Krauss Nicole The History of Love . New York W. W. Norton and Company, Inc. 2005 Print.