Characters

The History of Love introduces the reader to a plethora of characters who all seem to share some commonalities. First of all, the majority of the characters are Jewish, and the Jewish culture/history plays an integral role in this story. The two main characters, Alma and Leo, both live in New York City. Living in one of the biggest cities in the world, both are constantly surrounded by people, yet they are both fairly lonely and outcasted. Alma really only has one close friend (a Jewish boy named Misha), and Leo only has one close friend to interact with as well (his neighbor Bruno). Loneliness is a fairly prominent ailment for most of the other characters in this book as well. Both main characters, as well as many of the other characters in the story are also connected by a love for literature and writing. Most importantly though, almost every character in the book seems to have an appreciation for, or at least familiarity with, a book called The History of Love (go figure). How this book relates to each character, and how that unites all of the characters in a way, is yet to be revealed, but for now here's an outline of some of the characters and their backgrounds.

Leopold "Leo" Gursky Leo is one of the main characters in the novel, narrating approximately one-third of the book (will touch upon how that works in my next post about style/formatting). Leo is a lonely elderly man with a painful past. Before eventually immigrating to New York, Leo was a young boy living in Poland during the Holocaust. He frequently has flashbacks to his childhood and his home. He laments on how his family, as well as the rest of the Jewish community in Poland, failed to see the Nazi invasion coming. He says "there were rumors of unfathomable things, and because we couldn't fathom them we failed to believe them, until we had no choice and it was too late" (8). He regrets being unable to save his mother and brother and these regrets and flashbacks contribute greatly to his current sadness. Although it may seem odd for a Holocaust survivor with so many traumatic memories, another reason why his flashbacks inflict so much pain is because it's almost as if he feels that those years back in Poland were some of the best of his life. Most notably because he was in love with a young girl whom he felt he truly had a future with. Although we aren't given her name, he looks back on their relationship very fondly and very frequently. He paints their relationship as almost fairytale-like saying "once upon a time there was a boy who loved a girl, and her laughter was a question he wanted to spend his whole life answering. When they were ten he asked her to marry him. When they were eleven he kissed her for the first time...Their love was a secret they told no one. He promised her he would never love another girl as long as he lived" (11).  After she flees the country he loses contact with her until eventually he finds her in New York years later. He discovers she had his baby, but ended up marrying another man. Although she has moved on he still feels dedicated to her. This dedication prevents him from moving on with his life and contributes to his depression and loneliness. He thinks a lot about death and dying alone. Farther into the story though we see a shift where he becomes slightly more optimistic about life after he sends out the book he is working on to his son. He comes home that night and calls Bruno saying "Isn't it good to be alive?" (76).  So it seems as though things may be looking up for Leo in the near future. 

Alma Singer Alma is another main character in the novel, also narrating about one-third of the book. She is a 14-year-old Jewish girl who is a little quirky. She is obsessed with a book her father (now deceased) had called "How to Survive in the Wild". She reads it and knows the content pretty well. Her hero is French author Antoine de St. Exupery. She misses her father immensely, even wearing his sweater for "forty-two days straight" despite her peers taunting "WHAT'S UP WITH THAT DISGUSTING SWEATER?" (49). We see in this aspect that her faith/interest in certain subjects is unwavering regardless of the options of her peers. She is determined to be a matchmaker for her mother, constantly sending letters in her mother's name to eligible men and trying to set her up on dates. She is so invested in this partially because she wants her mother to be happy but also because she wants her mother to stop smothering her so much, she wants to kind of divert all that affection in a way. She is also intrigued by The History of Love as her father named her after the main character in the book. Her current mission is to find the real woman the book was written about so she can figure out what's so special about her. 

Bird Singer Bird is Alma's younger brother. He's slightly quirky too, he thinks for some reason that he is the Jewish Messiah. When he falls off a ladder and only obtains a slight injury to his wrist he is not surprised at all noting "deep inside [he] knew [he] was safe the whole time and that [God] wouldn't let anything happen to [him] because [he is] most definitely a lamed vovnik" (150). He runs a lemonade stand in an abandoned lot in his neighborhood where he is also building a wall for some sort of flood he is waiting for.

Alma's Mother Alma's mom translates books for a living. She loves to read and Alma talks about how she is frequently rewarding her favorite authors with posthumous Nobels. Although Alma is determined to set her up with someone, she doesn't seem interested in finding anyone else. Alma thinks that her mother may never love another man like she loved her father again.

David Singer David is Alma's father who died of pancreatic cancer when she was young. Although he is deceased, he is still an active character in the book as he discovered The History of Love in a small bookstore when he was a young man. He later gives the book to Alma's mother and (obviously) names his daughter after the main character.

Bruno Bruno is Leo's equally lonely and old neighbor. He and Leo have a secret messaging system to ensure each other that they are both still alive. He also immigrated to the US from Poland and we later discover that they were very close friends until he began to interact with the girl Leo was in love with. Leo recalls the last time he saw her-"sixty years ago, when [he'd] left her house in tears and caught sight of [Bruno] standing against a tree holding a notebook, waiting to go to her after [he'd] gone. A few months earlier [they'd] been the closest of friends...and yet. By the time [he] caught sight of [Bruno] that afternoon, [they] were no longer friends" (133). Although neither of them ends up with her, they discover that they are both simultaneously writing books about her. As readers it's hard to tell if this is something that will end up unifying them or creating tension between them as the story goes on...

Misha Misha is Alma's closest friend. They met when Alma's foreign pen pal encouraged her to talk instead to a Jewish boy from her town that was moving to NY. Misha has Alma help him learn more English, and in turn acts as a good friend and confidant for her. He eventually develops romantic feelings for Alma but we are unsure if they will pursue a relationship.

Isaac Moritz Isaac is Leo's son who actually doesn't even know that Leo exists. He is a famous author and Leo frequently checks his books out from the library. Isaac unknowingly meets his father at a book signing, but Leo is too afraid to tell him the truth. Isaac dies about halfway into the story, leaving Leo unable to know if his son read his book and also unable to reveal their relationship. 

Jacob Marcus Jacob is the man who writes to Alma's mother and requests that she translates The History of Love for him as quickly as she can (and for $100,000). It is still to be determined what his motivation for making this request is. He says in his initial letter that someone read a few pages to him as a bedtime story and he has never forgotten those pages, but Alma sets out to reveal why those pages were so impactful on him and why the book is worth so much to him.