historyoflove

= HISTORY OF LOVE =

Quotes: Amanda  “Once upon a time there was a boy.”  “I studied for a few minutes. It wasn’t right. I added another word.”  “My mother is the most stubborn person I know.”  “My mother never fell out of love with my father.”  “The dead sea is the lowest place on Earth.”

 Questions-  When Alma Singer was born why did her mother name her after every name that her father gave to her mother?  Her mother named her after every girl in the book The History of Love. Her father gave her mother that book.

 When her father died what does she remember about him?  he remember that he had a wrinkled face and he was  What happened on Leo Gursky 14th birthday?  His town was attatcked by nazis and they were all killed, but he hid in the woods.  -  What does he like to do? <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">He liked to be noticed. He didn’t want to die on a day that he had gone unnoticed. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> Describe his best friend, Bruno.

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> Who was the girl he was in love with? What happened to her? <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> The girl he loved moved to America. When he finally got enough money to move to America also she had gotten married. She had his baby but was with another man.

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Summary: Ashley <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> This week we read the first 50 pages of The History of Love. It wasn't very interesting so far. It is about an old man named Leo Gursky. He used to live in Europe, but immigrated to America to follow the woman that he loved. His whole village and his family were killed by soldiers. The other main character is a girl named Alma Singer. She is about 14 and lives with her mother and brother, Bird. She didn't know her dad very well because he died when she was young.

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> QUOTES: Ashley

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">"I tried to think, and because I couldn't remember anything I hadn’t already told him a hundred times, I made up something.” <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> page 52

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> “‘One day you’re going to fall in love.’ I wanted to say, but never said: Not in a million years.” <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> page 54

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> “It wasn’t until two months later, Rose writes, during the first moments of sadness that seemed to slip through the open window without our noticing, disturbing the rarefied that comes with the beginning of love.” <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> page 69

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> “I stared at it. LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL. I thought, Perhaps it is. Perhaps that is the word for life.” <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> page 79

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> “I thought it would be strange to live in the world without her in it. And yet. I’d gotten used to living with her memory a long time ago.” <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> page 85

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> “Sometimes I set it up in the backyard and lie inside thinking about how you used to lie too. I’m writing this but I know you can’t read it. Love,”

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> Questions: <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> 1. What was Leo Grusky waiting for in the mail? He was waiting all day for the mail because he was waiting for some news from his son. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> 2. What was the letter from Jacob Marcus about?lThe letter asking Alma’s mom translate the book, The History of Love. He heard about her, and he thought she’d be the best person to translate the book. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> 3. Who’s parents immigrated back to Chile? the person who migrates to chile was the parents of Issac <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> 4. Who was found in Morocco in 1903? <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> 5. What would be different if she had a Russian accent? Alma thought it would be different if she had a Russian accent because she spent a summer with her friend Misha’s grandfather and Misha, and they spent the whole time singing Russian songs, and she couldn’t understand them because of their thick Russian accents. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> 6. Who is Zvi Litvinoff and what do we know about him? <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Zvi Litvinoff was the author of The History of Love there was not much known about him, except what his wife wrote about him after he died. He was 12 years older than him.They met at a cafe in Italy.

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Summary: Ashley <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> This week we read the second half of the history of love. It's actually kind of boring so far, and the language is a little hard to understand. The author writes in a way that doesn't make it very interesting. This week we read about the writer of the history of love. In the book, there is an actual book called the history of love. The author is Zvi Litvinoff. The way 'Zvi Litvinoff' writes is very image-y and you can really imagine that you are there.

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Questions: Ashley <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">1. Who was Misha? <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Misha was Alma’s friend from Russia. Her penpal introduced them and he lived in New York, like her. She’d been to his Bar Mitzvah and he was only a few years older than her. They were good friends. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">In Jacob Marcus’s letter, he stated that he was not married, and his life was mostly sitting reading, and sometimes writing. He was a bit old, and women usually interested him, but he had a history with The History of Love. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">1) Search for a stone, 2) Live near a lake, 3) Have a gardener with a limp, 4) Read, The Street of Crocodiles, 5) Need an unusual woman, and 6) Have trouble just walking to the mailbox. But it was written in code. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">The Birth of Feeling is about peoples’ feelings and confusion. It was about how feelings first came about, and about disappointment. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Litvinoff met his old, long lost friend in a café. He was working on and off in writing, and so was his friend. Litvinoff wrote obituaries for a living. He went to his friend’s house, to take care of him in his sickness, and realized he was writing obituaries too. But his friends writings were better than his, and he knew that too. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Based on that, Leo’s story came first, because Litvinoff was reading Leo’s obituary. It took place only a small time after. Alma’s story was the most current, and it took place a while after Litvinoff’s because He was the author of The History of Love and he’d been dead for a while. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Leo’s questions were 1) Who are you, 2) Where did you find this? 3) How did it survive? 4) Why is it in English? 5) Who else has read it? And 6) Is the number of readers greater or less than--
 * 1) <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">What did Jacob Marcus write in his letter to Alma’s mother?
 * 1) <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">What was Alma’s list of questions?
 * 1) <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">What was the passage “The Birth of Feeling” about?
 * 1) <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">What happened with Litvinoff’s friend?
 * 1) <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Based on the fact that his friend was writing Leo Gurskey’s obituary, what can we assume about the time sequence of the three stories (Leo, Alma and Litvinoff)
 * 1) <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">What were Leo’s questions?

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Quotes: Marilin

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> There are hard things to describe. And yet i persist like a stubborn mule efforts. pg 121

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> I looked out the window. Across the street, a tree tossed in the wind. It was the afternoon, the children were shouting.... pg 122

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> In the days after my heart attack and before i began to write again all i could think about was dying. pg 124

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> it was still raining. On the way to the subway i passed the vacant lot where Bird had hung a tarp over the pile of junk that had grown to six feet tall, with trash bags and old ropes strung off the sides. pg 147

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> Summary: Amanda

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> This week we read up to page 150. We discussed the quotes that Marilin found. And we answered all of Ashley's questions. Some of the questions we couldn't remember the answers off the top of our heads, so we used the book for help. The internet wasn't working right, so we did our parts in microsoft word then copied and pasted onto here. The mood of this book is a little dark. One part is about an old man who is almost dying. He is still trying to find his son and get over his lost love. The other story is about a young girl named Alma. She is trying to get her mother to be happy again, because her father died.

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">QUOTES: Ashley <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">“He thought of his colleagues at the daily, which reminded him of his desk with the divots in the wood he used to finger to help him think, which reminded him of his typewriter with the sticky S so that his copy always had sentences like hisss death leavesss a hole in the livesss of thossse he helped” <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">page 154

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> “There was every reason to believe we’d make it. And yet. In an unexpected change of plans, he skidded to a halt just as he reached the train.” <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> Page 161

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> “‘It’s hard to say. There are so many Almas in the book.’ ‘How old is the oldest?’ ‘Not very. Maybe twenty’ ‘So the book ends when Alma is only twenty?’ ‘In a way. But it’s more complicated than that. She isn’t even mentioned in some chapters. And the whole sense of time and history in the book is very loose.’” <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> Page 171

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> “She’s old with long white hair help back by a tortoiseshell comb. Her apartment is flooded with sunlight, and she owns a parrot that talks.” <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> Page 175

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> “HOW ANGLES SLEEP. Unsoundly. They toss and turn, trying to understand the mystery of the Living. They know so little about what it’s like to fill a new prescription for glasses and see the world again, with a mixture of disappointment and gratitude.” <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> Page 185

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> “It was blazing hot January when he died. I wheeled his bed to the open window upstairs. The sun streamed in on us,” <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> Page 187

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">1. Who is in Poland and why? Litvinoff is in Poland because he was there to visit his friend and he had a letter for Leo Gursky. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">2. Who wrote a book and what was it about? leo gursky wrote a book about his lost love. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">3. Is one lie really as good as another? Explain. I don’t think one guy is good at another. Some lies can be very hurtful, when sometimes people only lie to protect somebody. If you lie to hurt somebody, it is much worse than a protective lie. Lying isn’t a good thing, but it can be better under some circumstances than under others. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">4. What happened to Alma’s friends? They all stopped hanging out with her because of her brother, Bird. She didn’t have many. And Her brother didn’t have many friends either. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">5. What did Alma try not think about? She tried not to think about Misha Shklovsky, Lub the Great, Bird, her mother.

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> Questions <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> 1.Why do you think the Author named the book The History of Love? - The book is called the History of Love because Leo Gursky wrote the book about how love is so important in history, and how it changed and shaped the world today. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> 2.Why does Leo model? Leo models because he want to leave an imprint of himself and he wants people to remember him. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> 3.What does Leo write in his notebook? he writes about Alma Mereminski to preserve the memories of his love to her. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> 4. Do you think the ending of the book was great and what was you favorite part in the book? I thought the end of the book kind of left you hanging. You realized that Leo Gursky was the real author, and The History of Love was the story of his life. Alma was named after the girl he fell in love with. But the real girl he fell in love with died. My favorite part of the book was when Alma met Leo Gursky. Although it left you hanging, you really started to understand what the whole book, and what The History of Love was all about. <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> 5.Would you recommend this book to others and why? - Personally, I wouldn’t because the book wasn’t my favorite, but it was a good book.

<span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> Quotes: <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> “And then and there I knew my time had come.” <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> “Sometimes I thought about nothing and sometimes I thought about my life.” <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> “I remember the first time I realized I could make myself see something that wasn’t there.”- pg 228 <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> “After the day when I saw the elephant, I let myself see more and believe more.” - pg 230 <span style="color: #ff0000; font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;"> “It’s strange what the mind can do when the heart is giving the directions.” - pg 242