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The History Of Love
A Novel
by Nicole Krauss


7.3

based on 27 reviews
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based on 25 votes
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Official Publisher Site

In Krauss' second novel, the stories of a teenage girl and a lonely old man are linked by a book, written by the latter 60 years ago and presumed lost, but now serving as a source of inspiration for the girl.

W. W. Norton & Company, 252 pages
05/02/2005
$23.95

ISBN: 0393060349

Fiction
General Literature & Fiction

All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...

Kirkus Reviews

A most unusual and original piece of fiction -- and not to be missed.

Publishers Weekly

Her distinctive voice is both plangent and wry, and her imagination encompasses many worlds. [21 Feb 2005, p.154]

The Globe And Mail [Toronto] Candace Fertile

Nothing in this novel is a mere verbal pirouette. The authenticity of the humour contrasted with the sadness is extraordinarily moving. Krauss is the real thing; The History of Love is a novel to be read and reread.

Daily Telegraph Kasia Boddy

What makes this book outstanding is the graceful and exact quality of the writing, and an unusual warmth.

Daily Telegraph Alastair Sooke

Thankfully, Krauss, who is married to another playful novelist, Jonathan Safran Foer, knows how to massage the heartstrings as well as the head. As its wisecracking Jewish protagonist might say, this book gets you in your kishkes.

Houston Chronicle Barbara Liss

Alma and Leo alternate the telling of their complicated stories, which unwind to an inevitable, satisfying conclusion. Krauss writes superbly in both voices and never loses control of her wildly spinning tops.

The Spectator Neel Mukherjee

It takes one’s breath away to read the way Krauss has braided the strands together, achieving an incandescent meditation on how the testament of writing to love might be the only possible salvation for the bruised lot of mankind.

TLS: The Times Literary Supplement Toby Lichtig

The History of Love is more than a good yarn; and despite the quest for authorship at the core of its mechanics -recalling Borges, Calvino, Auster - it is more than a (derivative) play on the postmodern detective story.

The Independent Mathew J Reisz

This is undoubtedly the work of a formidably talented novelist.

The Independent Charlie Lee-Potter

Krauss's obsession with language makes for a novel full of feeling but entirely lacking in sensuality.

LA Weekly Claire Messud

The considerable pleasure of this book resides, at least in part, in its complicated and unexpected interweaving of literary influences.

Library Journal Sarah Conrad Weisman

Krauss ("Man Walks into a Room") develops the story beautifully, incrementally revealing details to expose more and more of the mystery behind Leo's book. [15 Apr 2005, p.74]

Village Voice Rachel Aviv

Like a caricature of Great Literature, the book skates through impossibly abstract topics -- the birth of art, language, romance, and vulnerability.

Washington Post Ron Charles

In the final pages, the fractured stories of The History of Love fall together like a desperate embrace.

Booklist Donna Seamon

Venturing into Paul Auster territory in her graceful inquiry into the interplay between life and literature, Krauss is winsome, funny, and affecting. [15 Mar 2005, p.1265]

Boston Globe Gail Caldwell

The final pages of the novel contain a discovery so lovely, so poignant and right and ultimately illuminative, that I was almost willing to forgive her every coy, clever cartwheel in the book.

Chicago Tribune Beth Kephart

One could say a lot of things about the meaning of all this--about how a single story is in fact everybody's story; about how books are what help us ask life's big questions; about how, when we pass away, what is left is the stuff we have collected. I like all those meanings, and I think and write on them myself from time to time. But I also simply like this book, no matter where it came from. [8 May 2005, p.C5]

Entertainment Weekly Jennifer Reese

Krauss has created a crazy spiderweb of associations and missed connections. Miraculously, she actually manages to make all the delicate filaments not only hold together but support the weight of the enormously ambitious narrative.

San Francisco Chronicle Megan Harlan

Krauss beautifully maps a literary labyrinth on which the hopes and desires of her characters depend.

The New York Times Janet Maslin

Beyond the vigorous whiplash that keeps Ms. Krauss's History of Love moving (and keeps its reader offbalance until a stunning finale), this novel is tightly packed with ingenious asides.

The New York Times Book Review Laura Miller

It's true that if Krauss is a writer whose gift lies closer to Carson McCullers's or Harper Lee's than to Singer's she will probably never get her fair share of glory. You don't win the Nobel Prize for writing about the inner lives of 14-year-old girls.

The New Republic Ruth Franklin

But Krauss, like all sentimentalists, is unable to stop there. She refuses to hold anything back, to allow the reader to do the necessary imaginative work of connecting the pieces without unnecessary interference.

Los Angeles Times Richard Eder

Mystery (the goad that aims at invigorating a novel's pace) manages to be no more than a puzzle (a drag that slows it down). The writer's connections are closer to tangles. Only disconnect, readers may wish to tell her. When not frustrated, they may find themselves close to cheering. [1 May 2005, p.R5]

The Guardian Natasha Walter

Krauss is undoubtedly an entertaining, humane and intelligent writer, but this novel is just too neat and too sweet for her talent to fly freely.

The Economist

In the case of Nicole Krauss's much-touted second novel, perhaps the bar has been raised higher than this charming, though hardly heart-wrenching, book can reach.

London Review Of Books James Wood

The result is an inability to control the flow of sentiment, and an uneasy sense that the novel’s Jewishness has been warped into fraudulence and histrionics by the force of Krauss’s identification with it.

New York Review Of Books Louis Begley

Alas, Krauss has been very careless about facts, to a degree that is disturbing enough for this reviewer to ask himself, reluctantly, whether she is not trying to exploit the emotional appeal of a subject she could have well left alone.

The average user rating for this book is 7.3 (out of 10) based on 25 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Herbert H gave it a1:
It starts very good but gets more and more confused. I often didn't know who is the "I" currenctly speaking; am I reading Krauss' novel or "The History of Love" novel in the novel or even a story within the novel in the novel.

Valerie J gave it a5:
Confusing. Interesting. Grabbed me about two thirds the way through. Will have to go back and read the start again to really get it I think. Probably great as a straight-through read - but how many authors have to rely on that?

Rebecca S. gave it a10:
This was the most engaging, provoking, moving, novel I have read in years. Krauss is a prodigious writer; History of love is the Beethoven Vionin Concierto of novels. I recommend it to deep thinkers and feelers who are on the hunt for something stunning and orginal. I am not sure why some people were confused by the plot. Perhaps the trick is to read it straight through. Five of my friends (male and female) were overwhelmed by the story's fluidity and intensity. My father, on the other hand, was absolutely confused throughout the whole thing. I don't understand why. But one or two reviewers felt the same. And yet. It's genius. Thank you Ms. Krauss!

TheKate M gave it a10:
I liked it. Alot. I am sure that there are many things people will find to complain about, but I am impervious to all of them when reading this book. I remember the most obscure asides from this book and have almost adopted them into my own history. This book is good. Nicole Krauss is good. It would be a travesty for her work to remain in obscurity while lesser authors like Anita Shreve are well-known and read.

Judy S gave it a2:
Too convoluted, made no sense, no understandable denoument. Should not have to read a book twice inorder "to get it".

Barbara B gave it a5:
Leo, Bruno and 14-year-old Alma are enjoyable characters, but overall the story was just too sweet to seem genuine, and the twists, turns and intersections of the plot just too neatly contrived to have any real drama.

Rebecca P gave it a10:
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The characters are real and interesting, and the story line is creative yet believable.

The History Of Love A Novel by Nicole Krauss

The History Of Love
A Novel
by Nicole Krauss