"The History Of Love"

[fiefoe]

"And yet."
This is the refrain of the retired locksmith, Leo Gursky. The very first voice from Nicole Krauss's novel, and instantly indelible.

• All I want is not to die on a day when I went unseen.
• Put even a fool in front of the window and you'll get a Spinoza.
• What is larger than life? To sit in the front row and look up at a beautiful girl's face two stories high and have the vibrations of her voice massaging your legs is to be reminded of the size of life. So I sit in the front row. If I leave with a crick in my neck and a fading hard-on it was a good seat. I'm not a dirty man. I'm a man who wanted to be as large as life.
  
• Other damages I take in other places. The pancreas I reserve for being struck by all that's been lost... Sometimes I imagine my own autopsy. Disappointment in myself: right kidney. Disappointment of others in me: left kidney.
• September 19th, I woke in a state of excitement. I got dressed and ate my breakfast bar of Metamucil, then went to the bathroom and waited in anticipation. Nothing for half an hour, but my optimism didn't wane. Then I managed a series of pellets. Full of hope, I waited some more.
• I cried too easily.
  I didn't have a head for science.
  Words often failed me.
  While others prayed I only moved my lips.
  Please.