Well I just finished The History of Love this week and I thought it was a very interesting read. I was hoping Sarajane would post first because I am not sure how this online book group thing goes - but here are some of my thoughts anyway.
One aspect that I liked was that Krauss describes love from so many different angles.
I think one type of love we see is the all consuming love. Leo's love is one that consumed his life but it was a lonely love. He was unable to move on after Alma was married. Perhaps this is a true and deep love but it is certainly a love that he allowed to overtake him so that he led a life of solitary. Also at the end of the novel he indicates that she may have even been saying good-bye to him forever when she left for America and perhaps didn't love him as he loved her. Charlotte Singer also has a love that is all consuming. She and her husband certainly l0ved each other but after his death she is unable to move past her love - to the detriment of her and her children. I think the all consuming love is intriguing because it seems like the love that one would want - to be completely dedicated to one's love - but the book shows how this type of love can be very detrimental. Perhaps she is saying that one should love without losing one's own identity?
I think Zvi's love for Rosa is one that many people would relate to. He felt inadequate. He was sure of his love for Rosa but was also afraid that once she knew him well enought she surely could not love him. This led him to copy Leo's manuscript and led a life of guilt. However, I thought it was interesting that at the end we learn that he had no need to feel inadequate because Rosa loved him so much that she flooded her house to keep from him the knowledge that she found out he copied the manuscript.
Alma Singer's love/need for love is interesting as well. She loves her father, mother and brother very much but feels a need for both normalcy and for, maybe not even love but attention, from her mother. She needs her mother to give up her longing for lost love and to live in the present and help both Alma and Bird to deal with their love and sense of loss from their father's death - a loss in many senses of both parents.
Well this is getting very long and I don't think it is that insightful. But I am excited to read what others thought. My other question/thought is about the ending. I felt like the ending brought out so much without delving into it very much. Maybe I am just not an insightful reader, but I certainly thought Bruno - although an unusual friendship - was alive and living above Leo. He was just imaginary the whole time? I also thought she brought up a lot of interesting parts of the relationships between the characters right at the end of the story that left me wanting to know more details.
Good pick on a book Sarajane. I really enjoyed it and hope I am not the only one to post!!
---Camille
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3 comments:
I like your idea that all consuming love is dangerous. I agree that one should not lose themselves in the process of loving. In away you might say that kind of love is selfish. You give yourself to it {the idea of loving} but are you really doing what is best for the person, and isn’t that what love is? -doing what is best for the person you LoVe?
Rosa is an interesting character to look at. Did she hide the manuscript out of love? Or did she flood the apartment out of fear that she might not love the man without the name? Was she afraid that if she let others know and thus let herself believe that Zvi was not the man they thought him to be that she could no longer love him? Or did she in fact have his interest at heart, not her own?
I believed in Bruno too, untill the subway doors closed him out. After reading that part I had a feeling that perhaps Leo was looking at his reflection not his friend.
When you talk about angles it reminds me of Wallace Stegners book Angle of Repose. Have you read it?
Well I am glad that you and I are enjoying this book group!! I like your thoughts on Rosa. I would like to believe that she did it because of love but I am sure that there are many layers beneath her decision to flood the house and manuscript. You are far more perceptive than I. I didn't think anything about Bruno until the end - when they told us that he was imaginary.
I haven't read Angels of Repose - is it good? I read Crossing to SAfety by Stegner and liked it all right. I thought it was interesting but it wasn't my favorite.
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