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Home , Jonathan Safran Foer, Nicole Krauss

BIBLIOTECA TECLA SALA May 17, 2018 The History of Love

“Once upon a time, there was a boy. He lived in a village that no longer exists, in a house that no longer exists, on the edge of a field that no longer exists, where everything was discovered, and everything was possible. A stick could be a sword, a pebble could be a diamond, a tree, a castle. Once upon a time, there was a boy who lived in a house across the field, from a girl who no longer exists. They made up a thousand games. She was queen and he was king. In the autumn light her hair shone like a crown. They collected the world in small handfuls, and when the sky grew dark, and Contents: they parted with leaves in their hair. Quote from the 1 book Once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, Nicole Krauss - A 2 and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend brief biography his whole life answering.” Gurky’s Gift - 3 [https://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/1882970- Natasha Walter the-history-of-love] Nicole Krauss on 4-5 The History of Love - Alden Mudge Note 6

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Nicole Krauss - A brief biography

Nicole Krauss (born August 18, work of writers such as Italo was first published as an excerpt 1974) is an American author best Calvino and Zbigniew Herbert. in in 2004. The known for her four novels Man In 1999, three years after novel, published in the United Walks Into a Room (2002), The Brodsky died, Krauss produced a States by W.W. Norton, weaves History of Love (2005), Great documentary about his work for together the stories of Leo House (2010) and Forest Dark BBC Radio 3. She traveled to St. Gursky, an 80-year-old (2017). Her fiction has been Petersburg where she stood in Holocaust survivor from Slonim, published in The New Yorker, the "room and a half" where he the young Alma Singer who is Harper's, Esquire, and 's Best grew up, made famous by his coping with the death of her American Novelists Under 40, and essay of that title. Krauss father, and the story of a lost has been collected in Best majored in English and graduated manuscript also called The American Short Stories 2003 and with honors, winning several History of Love. Her third novel, Best American Short Stories 2008. undergraduate prizes for her Great House, connects the Her novels have been translated poetry as well as the Dean's stories of four characters to a into 35 languages. Award for academic desk of many drawers that achievement. She also curated a exerts a power over those who Krauss, who grew up on Long reading series with Fiona Maazel possess it or have given it away. Island, was born in , at the Russian Samovar, a City to a British restaurant in co- In June 2004, Krauss married Jewish mother and an American founded by Roman Kaplan, novelist , Jewish father, an engineer and Brodsky and Mikhail and they had two children orthopedic surgeon who grew up Baryshnikov. together, Sasha and Cy. Krauss partly in Israel. Krauss's maternal and Foer separated in 2014. grandparents were born in In 1996 Krauss was awarded a Krauss lives in , New Germany and and later Marshall Scholarship and York. immigrated to London. Her enrolled in a master's program at [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ paternal grandparents were born Oxford University where she Nicole_Krauss] in and Slonim, Belarus, wrote a thesis on the American met in Israel, and later artist . During the immigrated to New York. Many second year of her scholarship of these places are central to she attended the Courtauld Krauss's 2005 novel, The History Institute in London, where she of Love, and the book is dedicated received a master's in art to her grandparents. history, specializing in 17th- century Dutch art and writing a Krauss, who started writing when thesis on . she was a teenager, wrote and published mainly poetry until she In 2002, Krauss published her began her first novel in 2001. acclaimed first novel, Man Walks Into a Room. A meditation on Krauss enrolled in Stanford memory and personal history, University in 1992, and that fall solitude and intimacy, the novel she met who won praise from worked closely with her on her and was a finalist for a Los poetry over the next three years. Angeles Times Book Award. Her He also introduced her to the second novel, The History of Love,

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Gursky’s Gift - Natasha Walter

It must take some courage for a lively home, a family where a trained by mine" - there is all the writer to create a fictional charac- widowed mother, Charlotte, is awkwardness of adolescence that ter who is also a writer, and to try bringing up a young boy and a 14 later begins to blossom into the to convey the power of this imagi- -year-old girl who was named power of desire. ned author's oeuvre. Isn't it hard Alma after the heroine of a book But as the novel progresses the enough to create one convincing her father loved. Gursky's novel patterns of the plot become tigh- authorial voice? [...] The fact that was not lost. It was published in ter, and threaten to drain the life Nicole Krauss, a young novelist Spanish in Chile, passed off by out of the characters. And with only one book behind her, Gursky's childhood friend as the although Krauss uses the histori- has attempted to carry off this friend's own work. And Alma's cal dislocation of the Holocaust feat is, if nothing else, testament mother, Charlotte, is now trans- as the reason for Gursky's to her bravery. lating the novel for an unknown correspondent. broken life, the fact that the out- We first meet Leo Gursky when come is so elegant and the emoti- he believes he is nearing the end So we begin to get passages ons are always described in such of his life, living alone in a tiny from Gursky's novel laid out a stylish, glancing way means that apartment in Manhattan. He is an within the novel that we are we never get the sense that we elderly Jew who came to America reading, and Krauss manages to are coming up against any real from Poland after the second interlock two levels of fiction - horror or despair. The very fact world war, having survived the the novel within and the novel that Gursky carries the candle for Holocaust in hiding, "mostly in without - with some brio. The his own Alma until his dying day - trees, but also cracks, cellars, ho- reader is quickly intrigued by even though she marries some- les". Gursky is terrified of dying Gursky's disappointed, dry voice, body else and has children he on a day when nobody has noti- and by Alma's more engaged and stays faithful to her - gives a ra- ced him, which drives him to naive tone. In the young Alma's ther fairytale feel to the whole mildly attention-seeking behaviour story we find an endearing por- novel. When the old Alma is - dropping his change in a shop, trait of a girl emerging into dying in Manhattan he goes every say. Although he seems to be a adulthood in a tricky family. She day to sit at her bedside in the man without much of a life, we longs to get her widowed mo- hospital after hours. "She was tiny soon learn that he was once rich ther to fall in love again. And she and wrinkled and deaf as a do- in art and love. He loved a longs to get her crazy young orknob. There was so much I woman, Alma, in Poland, but be- brother, Bird, to stop thinking should have said. And yet. I told cause he took too long to get to that he might be the Messiah - as her jokes." This moment should America she married somebody well as to stop picking his nose carry a massive emotional punch, else. He also wrote a great novel with his arm around his face. but it is so charming that it slips in Poland, The History of Love, but into a purely literary convention. There is something sweetly hu- entrusted it to a friend who later Krauss is undoubtedly an enter- mane about the way Krauss des- told him that it was lost. So the taining, humane and intelligent cribes the confused family. Holocaust allowed him to survive, writer, but this novel is just too When Krauss describes Alma's but without the core of himself, neat and too sweet for her talent first kiss, with a young Russian and it seems that all we see is the to fly freely. immigrant friend - "His tongue husk of the man, withered and was in my mouth. I didn't know [https://www.theguardian.com/ waiting for death. if I should touch my tongue to books/2005/may/21/ We soon move from Gursky's his, or leave it off to the side so featuresre- empty little apartment to a more his tongue could move uncons- views.guardianreview19]

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Nicole Krauss on The History of Love - Alden Mudge

For her inventive second Krauss' second rule was that she Alfonso Cuaron (best known novel, The History of Love, Nicole would never let herself be for Y Tu Mamá También) set to Krauss set herself "two small bored. "Writing the first novel, I direct. Foreign rights have also personal rules." The first was that thought it was sometimes been sold in nearly 20 countries. she wouldn't do any research for necessary to write though a the book. "I just didn't want to," boring moment just to move the Krauss, 30, a Stanford graduate Krauss says firmly in a soft, lilting characters from point A to B. who also studied at Oxford, voice during a call to her home in This time I felt that if I was achieved acclaim as a poet Brooklyn's , where she bored, the reader would be before turning to fiction in 2002 lives with her husband, the writer bored. So I decided that as soon with the publication of her first Jonathan Safran Foer. In her well- as something felt a little dull I novel. Though her marriage to regarded first novel, Man Walks would invent a new story, Foer (author of Extremely Loud into a Room, Krauss had written vignette or character." and Incredibly Close) is the source of the experiences of Samson of considerable curiosity in Greene, a man whose memory is In the hands of a less skillful literary circles, she prefers not erased after removal of a tumor. writer, Krauss' rules might have to discuss it obviously reluctant It was a book that had a whiff of blended about as well as oil and to be seen as capitalizing on her research but nary a hint of water. But in The History of Love, husband's renown. autobiography within its pages. Krauss achieves an uplifting "The second time around," alchemy of surprise and With The History of Love, Krauss says, "I felt very thoughtful recognition. The result is a however, Krauss proves that her about what kind of writer I want haunting novel that has literary reputation can stand on to be. I didn't want to write a generated considerable its own. The novel focuses novel just to write a novel or just excitement even before its mainly on the slowly converging to be a writer. I decided to write publication. The New Yorker ran a stories of Leo Gursky and Alma something for myself. I wanted to much talked-about excerpt in Singer. Gursky is an 80-year-old really use the things that I know." 2004, and movie rights have retired locksmith in New York, a been sold to Warner Bros., with

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lonely survivor of a Nazi massacre This undercurrent of reference book. Like her character Leo in the Polish village where he and allusion, even when Gursky, Krauss' grandparents fled grew up 60 years before the novel unannounced, buoys and Europe before the start of World opens. Alma is a 14-year-old girl intensifies the story Krauss tells. War II. "I put in the photographs whose father has recently died, Yes, The History of Love is about and the dedication line because of whose mother shields herself writing and reading. But more the scene in the book where from loneliness by working importantly and more Leo . . . realizes that he has lost without stop as a literary essentially, it is about love and the ability to be seen by other translator, and whose nine-year- loss. As Krauss says, "It's what people. He is a person who old brother, Bird (over whom she we know and have experienced thinks a lot about his invisibility. vigilantly watches), thinks he might of love that give depth and shape And for that reason I wanted to be the Messiah. to our solitude. The book is use passport photographs of my about the necessity of imagining grandparents," she says. Leo and Alma - and all the many in the space of loss and of filling other characters in this slender, silence with made-up things - "In my mind the opposite of densely woven novel - are thoughts, feelings, images. disappearing is survival. The book connected across time and space Everyone in the book invents is shot through with odes to by the impact on their lives of an things to survive." survival, to the strength it takes almost-forgotten novel called The to survive, and to the joy of History of Love. Interestingly, Krauss found it those who have survived," Krauss easier to invent Leo than Alma, says. "My grandparents are "In the beginning," Krauss says, whose life experiences were people who love life. Every "this book was very much about closer to - but not the same as - conversation I remember having writing. I was thinking, well, how her own. "I struggled with with them as a child was about many readers does one really Alma's voice, I think, because I life - not about tragedy, not need? If it reaches one person and remember very well what it was about history, not about what changes her life, is that enough? like to be 14 years old and had happened to their families - Or two people? The idea that someone not unlike her," Krauss but simply about living." there is a book that has a print says. "It took me a long time to run of under 2,000 and that feel I could abandon the At the end of the novel, Leo's nobody reads but in the end a sometimes dull circumstances of and Alma's lives unexpectedly single copy of it connects and my own experiences and freely converge. And The History of changes all these lives was very imagine this character. With Love becomes not simply a story moving to me," she says. "I write Leo, conversely, I felt of love and loss but also a moving because I want to reach people immediately and totally at home history of survival, visibility and and have the kind of conversation in his voice. There was never a the joy of living. with them that can happen only question of wondering what [https://bookpage.com/ through a book. It's one of the would an old man from Poland interviews/8300-nicole-krauss] most beautiful conversations do here. I always felt with him there is, I think. So as the book that I was writing about myself, progressed, I realized that I was as strange as that may seem." writing as much about reading and Krauss dedicates her novel to being a reader as about writing. her grandparents, "who taught And I became unabashed about me the opposite of occasionally putting in lines from disappearing," and includes all the writers I love." photographs of them in the

BIBLIOTECA TECLA SALA

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