Linking novels

(I was surprised upon learning that Nicole Krauss (The History of Love) and Jonathan Safran Foer (Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close) are married. Its just that they both wrote good novels - by "good" I mean fun to read and has to be read between the lines for they have deeper meanings. )

1. Alma and Oskar are similar in such a way that they are both in search of something tangible and concrete. Alma is searching for Alma Mereminski, the lead lady in the book her mom is translating. She is also hoping to unite with her mom the mystery man who asked her mom to translate The History of Love. Oskar is searching for a certain "Black" who could have owned the key he found from his dad's things. He is also eager to find out what object the key opens because of the hope that he'd learn more about his dad. Alma's search is for her mother; to try to cure her mom's loneliness and Oskar's search is for learning more about his father and is for indentifying who he really is. Both Alma and Oskar lost their father. Alma lost her father due to pancreatic cancer 7 years ago and Oskar lost his father from the 9/11 attacks. Both struggled not only to search for whatever they were looking for but also in coping with their fathers' deaths. Both Alma and Oskar have adventurous spirits. Alma enjoys the thought of survival and the wilderness. In fact, she writes How to Survive in the Wild. Oskar loved playing treasure hunts, puzzles, etc with his father. Both were discreet and did not give up easily on their search.

One of their differences is that Alma is a teenaged girl and Oskar is just a young boy. Another is that Oskar not really witnessed his father's death but he was the only one who heard his father's phone calls on the day of his death and Oskar kept it, carried it as a burden while Alma lost her father in a disease and has no one to blame. Another difference is their relationship with their father. Oskar was really close with his father and I am guessing that Alma isn't because she did not really mention her father very much. Last is the way they reacted to their mother's feelings toward their father's death. Oskar was not happy that his mom found somebody new and was able to cope with his dad's death while Alma tried to cure her mom's loneliness by finding someone for her mom.

2. Binx is a guy who prefers to stay in the background, watching movies. He is uncertain who he is and where he belongs. He feels that his life lacks substance and would rather date girls and watch movies than do something noteworthy. He felt the need to answer questions, make decisions, and live with the effects those decisions have on other people's lives. His search is unknown. I think I can only relate his search in The History of Love's context in such a way that he is searching for something that is lost - something that has been lost due to the fast-paced lives people choose to live. In The History of Love, Alma is searching for the girl Alma who has been mentioned several times in the book her mom is translating. Leo, the author of the said book is also searching for his lost book. At the same time, he is searching for his place or role in the world and in other people's lives which is why he does everything to be noticed.

3. Leo Gursky is an old man who works as a locksmith in New York. When he was younger, he loved his good friend Alma Mereminski. After the Nazis threatened Poland, Alma left Poland. She had a baby with Leo but married another man. Right after the war, Leo felt invisible. He felt the need to be sure that he existed and that he had to be seen at least once a day. He did everything to be noticed and to seek attention. He feared dying alone in his apartment with no one seeing him. Looking at him deeper, he is a man who lost a lot in life; he lost his young love, he lost his book The History of Love which is a book of his love for Alma, and he lost the opportunity of being a father to his son. It could just be summed up that Leo Gursky is someone who lost his life completely after a sharp turning point in his life. Thinking of what Leo has experienced though, I think he has a strong spirit. He also loves true and deep and is a forgiving person. What Leo can offer his son (literally) is his book which is his and Alma's love on paper. Another is love itself; his love for Alma, Isaac's mother. I also believe that Leo is very proud of his son being a writer like him. So maybe another thing he can offer is his passion in writing.