The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Historian
Book Review: A downhill slog
Summary: 3 Stars
At first this book grabs you by the throat and refuses to let you go. I found myself reading it non-stop for a good few hours. Then I found my attention waning. I began to flick through sections in a bid to find something, anything, to grab my interest. It did not and so I eventually finished feeling somewhat cheated.It is a good idea and I was rather hoping for something new in regards to Vampires, a creature that has been ruined as far I'm concerned. Sadly, the Historian peeters out.
Book Review: couldnt get past a 100 pages
Summary: 2 Stars
well i made it to about 100 pages, and i just couldnt see the point in carrying on.Nothing seemed to be happening, and the old fashioned style of writing did nothing for me.
i wanted to really like the book and thats why i perservered to paage 100, but really couldnt be bothered to trudge through another 600.
not the only one who struggled, 2 local librarions said the same thing to me when i took it back to the library!
i think its one of those books you are told is going to be brilliant, but in reality, its a bit of a bore
Book Review: I'll have Buffy back, please
Summary: 1 Stars
This book could have done with extensive pruning and, I am afraid to say, fact-checking. I don't know much about the Balkans, but I know a bit about Oxford - and this author seems to confuse the Radcliffe Camera with the New Bodleian Library building. She then gives the Radcliffe Camera a rare books room and a few skulls in glass cases. The Master of an Oxford college is then referred to inaccurately (and irksomely) as as "Master James". Yes, it's a novel, but if the basis of this novel is supposedly historical research, and if the author is so keen on showing off her erudition... well, it would make you lose interest in the book if the author's lack of plotting and characterisation hadn't already acheived it. An unwieldy book, not recommended.
Book Review: Dracula and Kostova do go on and on!
Summary: 2 Stars
This is a Gothick-type novel about a number of people who are on a Dracula-related quest. There is first Professor Rossi, who is in search of the grave of Dracula. He has left a series of letters, written in 1930 and 1931 about the scary things that happened to him during his researches, and in 1954 he gave these letters in a sealed envelope to his then pupil Paul. Two days later he disappeared mysteriously. In 1972 Paul's sixteen-year old daughter (never named) comes across Rossi's letters in her father's library, asks her father about them and coaxes him into telling her, in instalments, how Paul had tried to find out what had happened to Rossi. But before Paul's story has finished, he disappears too, leaving for his daughter a packet containing part of the rest of his own quest and telling her that he had gone to find the girl's mother, who had apparently died when the daughter was a baby; but Paul is no longer sure that she had in fact died. The daughter then sets out to where she guesses her father would have gone to look for her mother. And the daughter writes up the whole story in 2008 (sic). From this it appears that the novel is structurally very complex because it consists of all these stories within stories, some in the form of letters written between 1477 and 1964, others in narrative. In addition Rossi and Paul have encountered an assortment of other characters who also have stories to tell, and the reader has to remind himself from time to time whose account he is reading. The researches take the various characters all over Europe - to southern France, Constantinople, to Romania, to Hungary and to Bulgaria, and it is clear that Elizabeth Kostova has visited all these places herself. Any reader who has done likewise will be reminded of their atmosphere by Kostova's skilful and evocative descriptions.
Spooky things happen to all the researchers and to people and even animals close to them: they encounter the "undead" who, though they have enticed the historians by planting mysterious books upon them, are obviously determined to thwart their attempts to discover where Dracula was buried. So many terrifying things happen and the skins of the historians crawl so often (amid some fine descriptive writing, there are, however, too many clunky clich?s like this in the book) that one would have thought they would give up the chase; but the quest never leaves them alone. On several occasions they unexpectedly meet several other historians who are themselves engaged in research about Dracula and have stories to tell; and the atmosphere is so paranoid that the reader is led to wonder whether these meetings with other historians are really coincidences or whether there is something sinister behind them, too. In the first half of the book, something horrid happens in almost every chapter; but, for this reader at any rate, the frisson began to fade by virtue of repetition; and I found even the first two-thirds of the book far too long.
I found great stretches of the last 200 or so pages, which have much densely-written and indigestible historical information, positively tedious. But even here there are vivid descriptions of landscapes, of buildings and and of age-old peasant ceremonies which the author must have seen on her travels in the remoter parts of the Balkans. And towards the end of the book, as we reach the climax, there is one more truly chilling episode, and then, in the last few pages, the resolution of what had happened to Paul and his wife. But I am afraid it had taken far too long to get there, and for me the satisfaction of having reached the end of the book outweighed the satisfaction of having the remaining loose ends tied up.
Book Review: Sucks you in!
Summary: 5 Stars
It is all too easy to be rapidly jaded from the early promises made by the blurb on modern bestsellers. This book is different. From the very first the reader is drawn cleverly and gently in to a complex and intriguing plot, and the writing style seamlessly blends present and past into a narrative which keeps you turning the page. I fell on this book by accident, not being generally a great fan of vampires,(haven't even read the Bram Stoker one) but it proved to be a serendipitous find and I would highly recommend it to anyone who appreciates good narrative and a plot which keeps you guessing.The writing style is somewhat genteel, almost Jane Austen, which may put some readers off. I beg of you to persevere. I haven't read anything this good for many years.
I'm not even going to give you any spoilers...
BUY IT! BUY IT! BUY IT!