The History of Love

I just finished reading "The History of Love" by Nicole Krauss. I've been wanting to read it for a long time, intrigued by reviews and the premise: a young man falls in love and writes a book just before the Holocaust; the book is published by a different man; years later, a girl named for the woman the author loved and wrote about wants to find her namesake. The novel is written from several different points of view as the characters' lives intertwine -- common in modern fiction, but I love it.

So it was an excellent book, and I must say the ending has really given me pause. It wasn't what I expected, though I don't know what I expected. I had to just sit there and reread it several times, flipping back through the book to see exactly how it fit with the rest of the story. I wouldn't call it a twist, really, just surprising. I often wish books weren't over, but this one really left me not quite knowing what to do with myself. I definitely recommend it for my more literary readers.

One passage really jumped out at me as truly beautiful:
Even now, all possible feelings do not yet exist. There are still those that lie beyond our capacity and our imagination. From time to time, when a piece of music no one has ever written, or a painting no one has ever painted, or something else impossible to predict, fathom, or yet describe takes place, a new feeling enters the world. And then, for the millionth time in the history of feeling, the heart surges, and absorbs the impact.

Huh. In looking up the book link, I discovered that Krauss is married to Jonathan Safran Foer. I haven't read "Everything is Illuminated," but from the movie, it seems they have similar styles. And topics. And Polish heritage.