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| Plot Summary of The History of Love: A Novel |
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"Leo Gurskey escaped Poland after making himself "invisible" to the Nazis during WWII. He comes to New York in search of his childhood girlfriend and love, Alma. Finding her married and mother of two sons, one of which he learns he fathered before she escaped to America, he realizes that duty and responsibility will not allow her to leave this marriage. What was a young, unmarried, pregnant girl to do? New to America, alone, without an income or way to care for herself and her child, she married a "nice" man. So Leo spends his days wandering New York City, trying to become visible once again. His quirky ways ... spilling milk at Starbuck's to get noticed, posing nude for an art class (at 70+ years old), watching for his son from across the street and writing another book ... are the methods he uses to pass time until his death.
Leo had written a book, The History of Love, when he was not yet 20. The book was about his great love for Alma, the girl of his youth. He gave the manuscript to a friend in Poland, asking him to hold it for him (the friend was leaving the country) until he too could escape to freedom. No one actually knows what became of that manuscript but Leo's quest to connect to the world and not have lived a purposeless life are the quest that eventually helps him learn what actually did happen to his writing.
In a parallel plot, a young girl named Alma (named after the characters in a book written in Spanish and given to her mother by her father when they were falling in love)searches for meaning and knowledge of her namesake. Silently grieving her father's death, watching her younger brother behave bizarrely and her mother withdraw into her world of literature translations, Alma happens onto the real truth of Leo's manuscript (without knowing it is Leo's) and the intricate pieces of this puzzle of a novel come together in a moving and memorable way."
Kathy Nielsen, Resident Scholar
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| Review Analysis of The History of Love: A Novel |
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Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Romance/Romance Problems
Yes
Lover is
- totally uninterested
Main Character
Gender
- Male
Profession/status:
- writer
Age:
- 60's-90's
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events?
Yes
Ethnicity/Nationality
- Jewish
How sensitive is this character?
- sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Strong but gentle sense of humor
Intelligence
- Smarter than most other characters
Physique
- average physique
Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings?
- 4 ()
United States
Yes
Europe
Yes
European country:
- Poland
Style
Person
- rotating 1st
Accounts of torture and death?
- generic/vague references to death/punishment
Unusual Style:
- a lot of stream of consciousness
Amount of dialog
- little dialog
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Click here for more information about this book
Nicole Krauss Resident Scholar Profiles
TOP SCHOLAR:
 Kathy Nielsen
SCHOLARS:
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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