The Historian
by Elizabeth Kostova
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Book Summary Information
Author: Elizabeth KostovaEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2009-09-01
ISBN: 0316070637
Number of pages: 720
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Book Reviews of The Historian
Book Review: "My Dear and Unfortunate Successor"
Summary: 4 Stars
I'm not a big fan of vampire novels, nor of Gothic fiction generally. I'm not a bigot about it; it just doesn't appeal to me. But I do often enjoy long novels with complex characters and complicated plots, and this one certainly fits that bill. Actually, there are three separate but related narratives here, in three generations, focusing on Prof. Bartholomew Rossi in about 1932, his student and later professor in his own right, Paul, in 1955, and Paul's equally academically gifted sixteen-year-old daughter, in 1972. (In fact, most of the principal characters in this novel, and many of the supporting ones, are academics, historians, archivists, librarians, and bibliophiles.) Overshadowing everything, however, is the figure of Vlad Tepes, warlord of Wallachia in the late 15th century. Known as "Dracula," Vlad was the bane of the Ottomans in their extended conquest of the Balkans -- and, of course, he was a very real person, Bela Lugosi's portrayal notwithstanding. Rossi has been researching Vlad and in mysterious fashion receives a book that contains only a woodcut of a dragon in the center. The book is a warning, but it takes a few deaths for Rossi to catch on. Twenty years later, Paul receives another copy of the book -- and then his mentor disappears, which sends Paul on a quest to find him. The trail leads to Istanbul, Budapest, Bucharest, Sofia, and many smaller stops in between. Then, naturally, Paul himself disappears in the next generation and his written account of his earlier search sends his daughter looking for him. (I said it was complex. And I hope the author bought her quotation marks wholesale because she uses a lot of them, in layers.) In a sense, the most important character in the book is the world of the Balkans during the Cold War, which are often overshadowed by their earlier tumultuous history. Kostova does an excellent job of painting the Slavic culture and its Byzantine roots and later Ottoman overlay. The prose tends to the purple at times, but not disturbingly so -- not for this sort of narrative. Many of the reader reviews I've seen complained that the book was too long, too detailed, and included too much history. Those are exactly the reasons I so enjoyed it. This isn't meant to be _The Da Vinci Code_ -- thank God. There's a strong and very enjoyable flavor here of Victorian three-decker, which means you have to pay attention -- something I fear too many readers of the present generation are unwilling to do. There are some weak points, of course. Dracula's essential motives are never really made clear. And the resolution seemed almost unbelievably simple, after the long chase and near-misses that make up most of the book. I think the author also could have omitted the secret Turkish society. But the characters are engrossing and their multiple worlds are fascinating, and I fond it easy to lose myself in the story. Perhaps that's because I'm as much of an archivist, librarian, historian, romantic, and book-lover as any of the characters.
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