Alright now this book is starting to get freaky. So Litvinoff turns out to be Leo Gursky's best friend at the end of Leo's life.
Time is probably the most confusing portion to this piece. It's, I guess, sometime in the middle of Leo and Alma's stories. Is Litvinoff also Bruno? Ahh I'm a little confused. Plus, Litvinoff says that Leo is a better writer than him, and he finally realizes as he's dying, but then he doesn't die. Isn't Litvinoff supposed to be from Chile? And Leo lives in New York... alright at least there is a lot of book left so I can figure this out hopefully.
To be honest though I really loved the eulogies that Litvinoff wrote for the different people in this section.
"FRANZ KAFKA IS DEAD
"He died in a tree from which he wouldn't come down. 'Come down!' they cried to him. 'Come down! Come down!' Silence filled the night, and the night filled the silence, while they waited for Kafka to speak. 'I can't,' ... 'Because then you'll stop asking for me.'" (Krauss 116)
Then in the first one it says:
"DEATH OF ISAAC BABEL
"Only after they charged him with silence did Babel discover how many kinds of silences existed." (Krauss 114)
Plus! (Now I'm on a roll) Remember this part of the History of Love?
"...she read the opening chapter, called 'The Age of Silence':
"...During the Age of Silence people communicated more, not less." (Krauss 72)
SILENCE!!! That's BIG!
First reaction: Maybe Krauss is saying that being silent is saying more than you think.
I read the History of Love too and I think Zvi is who Leo gave his manuscript to for safe keeping before he left Poland. He then published it as his own in Spanish. I'm a little confused though -- how did Isaac (aka Jacob Marcus) get a copy of Zvi's Spanish version and why did he want Alma's mother to translate it if he couldn't read what it was about in the first place?
ReplyDeleteGrace's description of the relationship is accurate, but it's been a while so I don't remember the specifics of how Isaac knows about the book. I think somehow he knows it's about his mother though.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I like your recognition of the importance of silence as a motif in the novel. It is certainly significant in ways to all of the characters, who remain silent about certain things.