The Alluring Nicole Krauss

      Leo Gursky utters the phrase “And yet” more than fifty times throughout the History of Love. During her evening reading, Nicole Krauss said that this deceivingly simplistic statement “represented him in a way no other words could.” However, the phrase also seems to profoundly resonate with the author herself.  Her revelations about life and its value or meaning, are not novel ideas and yet Krauss conveys her thoughts in a manner that revitalizes their nature entirely.

Nicole said that “writing is a venue in which we may say and touch things we otherwise could not.” She stressed the importance of rhythm and sound and silence- noting that the phrasing of words is just as important as their content. These lessons about sentence structure and character development are fundamental but not ground-breaking. However, the passion enveloped in her words and the way in which poetic reflections poured from her mouth without hesitance, was a testament to the author’s sincerity.

In his Washington Post review “Parallel Lives,” Ron Charles also examines the “and yet” that clings to Krauss and her work. He describes The History of Love with its “characters named for other characters, cases of plagiarism and mistaken identity, and several crucial coincidences and chance meetings that are all maddeningly scrambled in an elliptical novel that shouldn't work but does.”  Charles calls Krauss’ book a spider web, a description the author would probably sanction because she “believes metaphor is the basic unit of literature and of language.”  Her book begins in the cobwebs of Leo’s life but ends as an elegant mesh of what Charles calls “beautiful confusion.” “The fractured stories of The History of Love” the reviewer says, “ fall together like a desperate embrace.”

Nicole seems to approach her writing the way she approaches life- without a master plan. She says she must “start before she knows where she will arrive.” Although she likens writing to “being skinned alive,” she also proclaims that it is the road she travels to find empathy. When she spoke to the Jewish Lit class, she declared that writing “comes from some necessity.” It also “is from the gut.”  It would seem that this idea is contrary to The History of Love with its interweaving plotlines and subtle allusions. It would seem the characters in Krauss’ book are painted so intricately they could not possibly be instinctual. However the author explained this incongruity when she clarified that nothing in the book was included based on “pure whimsy.” That would “go against every grain of her instinct.” Rather, writing is “honed instinct.”

Nicole’s talk harkened back to Aryeh Lev Stollman’s visit in many ways. The two seemed to be especially analogous in their quest to resist labels. Krauss refuses to surrender to categorization. If she thinks too much about others’ perception of her work, than “writing ceases to be a freeing experience.” Stollman was also wary of assumptions. The term “Jewish American writer” seemed almost distressing to both authors. Aryeh had been quick to mention the ways that literature transcends culture, a concept that Nicole preached as well.

To me, categorizing doesn’t seem as dangerous as these two writers claim. Why must a label be restricting? Why can’t an author collect labels as they produce work. Can’t a writer be labeled a Jewish American author only to be branded something else later on? The idea of being classified connotes restrictive properties but doesn’t it also celebrate a genre or type of work one has already mastered? Nicole acknowledged this idea briefly when she mentioned that labels could also be seen as “markers of the things she has done throughout her life.” In her text she writes that calling Mr. Mortiz “a Jewish writer…or, worse an experimental writer, is to miss entirely the point of his humanity, which resisted all categorization.” And yet. Couldn’t Mr. Mortiz’s body of work, along with the work of Stollman or Krauss, actually be an expansive anthology of labels that are gratifying rather than restricting?  Perhaps, the key is to embrace the categorizations bestowed upon you.

Part of Nicole’s success, in my opinion, stems from her ability to form connections. Not just the compassionate relationships she forms with her characters, but also with every individual who cracks the spine of The History of Love. This relationship, as Krauss described it, is “more profound than one might ever experience in life.” The book invites the reader, not only to delve into the author’s mind, but also to explore and possibly re-interpret the events relayed. Krauss said that, despite the word’s origin, the author is not the final authority. Rather, the reader is one who “finds things in the text that are far richer than even the writer may have intended.”  

It took not even two sentences of Nicole’s excerpt from Great House for the audience to realize that poignancy that saturates The History of Love exists in all Krauss’ prose. In a father’s tender, expressive monologue to his youngest  son, he says that he “seemed just the tiniest bit closer than the rest of us to the essence of things.” This is the effect Nicole Krauss has on her readers. Throughout The History of Love she provides us with a greater understanding of nature, the human condition, and the soul. She is closer to “life’s essence” than the characters she creates.