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| Leo Gursky vs. Alma Singer |
When they write my obiturary. Tomorrow. Or the next day. It will say, LEO GURSKY IS SURVIVED BY AN APARTMENT FULL OF [CRAP]. I'm surprised I haven't been buried alive. The place isn't big. (Krauss 3)
1. MY NAME IS ALMA SINGER When I was born my mother named me after every girl in a book my father gave her called The History of Love. (Krauss 35)
Leo is near the end of his life, obsessed with not being discovered dead for days, apparently unsuccessful as a writer, lonely, still longing for the first love of his life, saddened by the son he can never contract, and quite eccentric.
Alma is young, obsessed with finding a man to replace her mother's husband, an adventurous survivalist, concerned about her brother, Bird, and experiencing her first boyfriend.
Question: How do these twin protagonists' voices and stories contrast with one another? How do their interwoven narratives create the yin and yang of the novel?
