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juushikaTitle: The Historian
Author: Elizabeth Kostova
Published: New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2005
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 642
Total Page Count: 62,070
Text Number: 178
Read For: reading books about vampires, recommended on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lupanotte's Big Recommendation List of Vampire Fiction, checked out from the library
Short review: While exploring her father's library, a young woman finds a cache of letters addressed to "My dear and unfortunate successor," and so uncovers a long lineage of historians, including her own mother and father, who have all set out on the same quest: to discover if Vlad the Impaler, known as Dracula, still lives; and if so, how he can be found and destroyed. A book of stories within stories, The Historian combines fiction and history, using narratives and letters to interweave the narrator's journey with the journey of her father and his mentor, traveling through France and through the East Bloc of the Cold War. It is intelligently plotted and dense with cultural and historical detail, but it is also ponderous and unrealistically constructed. I appreciate the concept, and enjoyed the first few hundred pages, but the book simply drags on too long and, by the end, is boring. I don't recommend it.
The Historian is unlike most modern vampire novels: interweaving multiple timelines, many related via letters and articles, and rich in historical and geographic detail, it is an dense novel which sits outside of the mainstream vampire genre. This is a bold and promising premise, and the book begins well. The narrator discovers her father's letters, and he tells her about his mentor's search for Dracula and the beginning of his own. Everything is detailed, almost to the point of hyper-realism: characters and motivations, setting, dialog, and the passage of time between plot points. The narrative is overshadowed by the threat of real violence, creating a careful tension which keeps the reader interested and immersed despite the slow pacing.
However, this tension does not sustain itself as the book goes on. Violence, both historical and a part of the plot, continues but does not change or increase; eventually it becomes redundant and too easy to dismiss. Meanwhile, the rest of the story gains in complexity but mostly in length. With precise dialog and long descriptions of settings and the filler between plot points, the partially-epistolary style reaches unbelievable detail and length. At over 600 pages, even though it contains three plot lines, the book is too long. While some of this detailed content is interesting, it largely serves to clutter the book. The plot slows to a crawl, the tension dissipates, and the novel becomes quite ponderous.
I would love to see more "intelligent" vampire novels, as this one tries to be. It would be a welcome departure from genre. Kostova also proves that there is sufficient content for a historical vampire novel tracing the legend of vampires back to the historical figure of Dracula. This, however, is not that novel: although intelligent, although outside of the genre, although heavily historical, this novel loses its vampires. They're there, of course, and they become marginally more threatening as the book goes on, but they are buried beneath ponderous description and the filler between plot points. I enjoyed the premise, admired a few of the characters, and appreciate what The Historian tries to do, but the more of the book I read, the less I enjoyed it. Having finished the novel, I'm not glad to have read it. It's not a bad book, but neither is it good or enjoyable. I don't recommend it.
Review posted here on Amazon.com.
Author: Elizabeth Kostova
Published: New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2005
Rating: 3 of 5
Page Count: 642
Total Page Count: 62,070
Text Number: 178
Read For: reading books about vampires, recommended on
lupanotte's Big Recommendation List of Vampire Fiction, checked out from the libraryShort review: While exploring her father's library, a young woman finds a cache of letters addressed to "My dear and unfortunate successor," and so uncovers a long lineage of historians, including her own mother and father, who have all set out on the same quest: to discover if Vlad the Impaler, known as Dracula, still lives; and if so, how he can be found and destroyed. A book of stories within stories, The Historian combines fiction and history, using narratives and letters to interweave the narrator's journey with the journey of her father and his mentor, traveling through France and through the East Bloc of the Cold War. It is intelligently plotted and dense with cultural and historical detail, but it is also ponderous and unrealistically constructed. I appreciate the concept, and enjoyed the first few hundred pages, but the book simply drags on too long and, by the end, is boring. I don't recommend it.
The Historian is unlike most modern vampire novels: interweaving multiple timelines, many related via letters and articles, and rich in historical and geographic detail, it is an dense novel which sits outside of the mainstream vampire genre. This is a bold and promising premise, and the book begins well. The narrator discovers her father's letters, and he tells her about his mentor's search for Dracula and the beginning of his own. Everything is detailed, almost to the point of hyper-realism: characters and motivations, setting, dialog, and the passage of time between plot points. The narrative is overshadowed by the threat of real violence, creating a careful tension which keeps the reader interested and immersed despite the slow pacing.
However, this tension does not sustain itself as the book goes on. Violence, both historical and a part of the plot, continues but does not change or increase; eventually it becomes redundant and too easy to dismiss. Meanwhile, the rest of the story gains in complexity but mostly in length. With precise dialog and long descriptions of settings and the filler between plot points, the partially-epistolary style reaches unbelievable detail and length. At over 600 pages, even though it contains three plot lines, the book is too long. While some of this detailed content is interesting, it largely serves to clutter the book. The plot slows to a crawl, the tension dissipates, and the novel becomes quite ponderous.
I would love to see more "intelligent" vampire novels, as this one tries to be. It would be a welcome departure from genre. Kostova also proves that there is sufficient content for a historical vampire novel tracing the legend of vampires back to the historical figure of Dracula. This, however, is not that novel: although intelligent, although outside of the genre, although heavily historical, this novel loses its vampires. They're there, of course, and they become marginally more threatening as the book goes on, but they are buried beneath ponderous description and the filler between plot points. I enjoyed the premise, admired a few of the characters, and appreciate what The Historian tries to do, but the more of the book I read, the less I enjoyed it. Having finished the novel, I'm not glad to have read it. It's not a bad book, but neither is it good or enjoyable. I don't recommend it.
Review posted here on Amazon.com.
