The History of Love, Nicole Krauss

Michal Ivan, Old Man Figure Drawing, 2013

(December 30) Read this because a favourite new blog mentioned it as the blogger's favourite book. When I looked it up, I discovered it was a New York Times bestseller and highly touted elsewhere… so off I went.

I liked it a lot but would not give it more than a 3 out of 5. I liked its style and voice quite often, but there was a lot in it that was just so -- "sigh... everyone’s done this before a million times." And by "this" I mean: captured the charming sarcasm of New Yorkers of the 1930s to '60s (mostly Jewish ones); looked at the lifetime of horror inflicted on Jews by Nazism by way of the small individual life of one or two refugees; written a book about a fictional book that turns out to be the book you are reading (well, this one doesn’t do that exactly, but it’s very close).

It reminded me a lot of The Book Thief, in fact, although the plot is quite different. There is the humorous Jewish sarcasm and a lot about writing and being a writer.

In fact, I'm a little tired of writers writing about writing at this point. Sometimes it feels like the only activity anyone is interested in reading about is the process of creating something to read.

This book, though, is more multi-layered than the usual book about a fictional book, because the fictional book in question is claimed by a number of different authors, and this is, kind of, the tension that has to be resolved.

But there's a trip-up: before we get to sample it, the fictional book is characterized as "amazing" and "life-changing" by some of the characters who have read it, and it is plagiarized by wannabe writers, and it is immediately published by publishers who receive manuscripts of it. Our expectations are high. When we finally do get to sample some of the chapters, we find out it's not that remarkable a book. I mean, I just didn't find it that great -- the excerpts are kind of silly and jejune. I can't imagine a whole book of the kinds of passages offered in the excerpts would be life-changing.

Perhaps more to the point, in terms of my own reaction to the book: I was not interested enough in unravelling all the layers of who was writing what and who was who to go back and figure it out when I got confused. I would just think: "I will go look it up on the net when I’m done," and, now that I am done, I don't think I'll even go and do that.

Yes, lives could potentially cross and criss-cross in extremely complicated ways unknown to the people living them, but in a book I want that all to work out to a conclusion that is insightful, not just "wow, weird coincidence."

Also significant: young people don't have any idea at all of what it feels like to be 60 or 40 or even 20 years older than they are. When you are in your 70s or 80s, you are not acting like a teenager no matter what weird thing life is throwing at you. You can be "immature" in old age, but it's a different version of immature, imo. So Krauss's elderly people are not convincing to me.

I'm dwelling on things I didn't like here, but I didn't hate this book at all. I liked it fine. But I can't understand why it was a bestseller or anyone's favourite.