BIBLIOTECA TECLA SALA May 17, 2018 The History of Love Nicole Krauss “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 Page 2 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 The New Yorker 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 Granta'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 Manhattan, at the Russian Samovar, a New York City to a British restaurant in New York City co- In June 2004, Krauss married Jewish mother and an American founded by Roman Kaplan, novelist Jonathan Safran Foer, 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 Brooklyn, New Germany and Ukraine 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 Hungary and Slonim, Belarus, wrote a thesis on the American met in Israel, and later artist Joseph Cornell. 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 Rembrandt. 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 Joseph Brodsky who won praise from Susan Sontag 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, Page 3 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] Page 4 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.