The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

Title: The History of Love
Author: Nicole Krauss
Publisher: W.W. Norton & Company
Original Publication Date: April 1, 2005
Pages: 260

This is now one of the greatest novels I have read.

I would have settled with that, except that the History of Love is just too pleasing, that my terseness was rather forcibly rooted out by the book. I seldom review (if one could call them that) books that I rate with 4 to 5 stars.

I remember reading once, where I did I have long forgotten, a witty reason that justifies speechlessness. I have once tried to verify this and failed to substantiate the claim (perhaps I looked at the wrong place), though I have held on to it because of its appeal and the propensity for people to believe it, much like common myths we choose to believe in (like how taking vitamin c supposedly cures common colds).

I'm telling you this because I was literary left speechless, reeling, contemplating and pondering numerous times in the book. The fact that I am writing to you now tells you of the triumph this book has precipitated upon my centuries evolved amigdula. What it doesn't tell you however is how it won that battle.

Everything about this book is pleasing from the typesetting, the form, the plot, the characters, the message.

I mean how could have Krauss presented such depressing lives in a riveting manner? She has presented the book in such a way that I have felt that there was a light at the end of the tunnel. And that kept me going.

I think the message that the book wanted to impart, or what at least it was able to impart to me in this convoluted setting is that moving on and letting go cannot be done (or is next to impossible) in solitude, that we can only move on with the help of somebody else, whether that be another love interest, a friend, or most especially, a family member. It was a simple message carried out in a convoluted manner perhaps the aspect that could have founded of diminished the beauty of this book.