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Loading... The Historianby Elizabeth Kostova
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. This is one of the few books that I will re-read. Loved it, loved it.  mcdougaldd | Dec 30, 2009 |  The Historian is one of those long, leisurely reads perfect for summer vacations or winter hibernations. For many people it would seem boring to pour over dusty volumes in libraries and ancient letters searching for clues, but I found this novel fascinating for those very aspects. Who hasn't hoped to find themselves on the trail of a centuries old mystery, in this case, Vlad Tepes, better known as Dracula in legend? We are given the story in layers and from many viewpoints. A family history is illuminated and not since Margaret George's fictionalized account of Henry VIII do we see such a thorough history lesson of a time period. If you like quick, snappy action and dialogue, this book is not for you. But if you love a bit of investigation along with your literary sensibilities, I highly recommend this book. Savor it as you would a fine wine. (  ) 1000reads | Dec 26, 2009 | Although it was a bit slow to start out, and at times I almost (though not quite) got lost in the flow of the story, The Historian is a truly thrilling ride, and one I would highly suggest to anyone looking for something new to read! Despite the fact that this book is about vampires, I can honestly say it's not like any of the other books out there on this subject. Different, unique, and one-of-a-kind are great words to describe this novel. You'll find no romanticized vampires in this novel! I enjoyed how Elizabeth Kostova managed to tell this captivating story, weaving together not only the story from Paul and Helen's point of view (through letters and some of it though story telling on Paul's part), but also from the point of view of Paul's daughter. While switching from the two POV's may, at first, seem a bit confusing, Kostova did a magnificent job at it, and I can honestly say that there was only one or two spots where I was momentarily confused. Since the novel was told in such a unique way, and done well, I really felt the connection to not only the story but the characters as well. They were not just words on a page, but honestly seemed like they were real. This was partly due to the lush details provided and partly due to the talent of the author. Not every author can pull this off, but fortunately Kostova did because, to be quiet honest, if she had not managed this, this story would have been drastically different, and a great deal harder to get through without losing interest. 4 STARS! A seamless twist of history and myth, The Historian is a great read for anyone that enjoys a good mystery. Mystery, suspense, a bit of historical accuracy, and even a dash of romance--- really, who wouldn't be interested in reading it? And don't let the vampire plot turn you away, I promise, it's nothing like any vampire story you've read before! ( )1  The_Book_Queen | Dec 16, 2009 | The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova, was a superb novel, one I didn't want to end. I was hooked after reading the first few pages, stealing time here and there, reading far into the night, following the search for Dracula in the real world. Kostova's plot lines, although deep and complicated, were easy to follow, for her story took me on adventures throughout the world with careful planning and spine-tingling storytelling. The characters sprang to life and never left me disappointed. The Historian is one of the best novels I've read in many years. (  ) saemmerson | Dec 14, 2009 | The Historian is the story of a hunt for Dracula...the original...Drakulya...Vlad III Tepes. Several generations of scholars, mostly historians, are discovering strange and ancient books. These books spark their curiosity and the search is on....for the true resting place of Vlad Tepes. The majority of the story is told through stories and notes from Paul to his daughter Eva, with small parts actually told through Eva's eyes. The story is captivating. Kostova has done her research and her description of events, places, and historical documents is fascinating. You can see her love of history and places in every page. The majority of the story moved quickly and I didn't want to put it down. There was a section near the end that started to drag a little for me as the search seemed to go on endlessly...but I'm sure that was the point, to show how long and tiring the characters worked in all their efforts. The characters were beautifully written and I became attached, especially to the character of Helen, Eva's mother. She is a strong female personality that was more than a match for the men she encountered in her travels. Overall this was a great book. I would have liked to see the action progess slightly faster, which lowered my rating slightly. 3.5/5 (  )2 jasmyn9 | Dec 7, 2009 | 
 Vlad Lit: don't flirt with it, just sink your teeth right in When, after many other allusions to historians and historicism, Kostova introduced a character whose last name is Hristova, I was tempted to run out to a pharmacy for some antihristomine. What's unfortunate about this overload is that the book -- which seems to want to do for historians what ''Possession'' did for literary scholars -- is otherwise the kind of wonderfully paced yarn that would make a suitable companion to a deck chair, a patch of sun and some socklessness.  In a ponderous, many-layered book that is exquisitely versed in the art of stalling, Ms. Kostova steeps her readers in Dracula lore. She visits many libraries, monasteries, relics of the Byzantine and Ottoman empires, crypts, restaurants, scholars and folk-song-singing peasants. Every now and then a mysterious pale, sinister figure will materialize, only to vanish bewilderingly. The book's characters find this a lot more baffling than readers will.  Stuffed with rich, incense-laden cultural history and travelogue, The Historian is a smart, bibliophilic mystery in the same vein (sorry) as A.S. Byatt's Possession--but without all that poetry.
Amazon.com (ISBN 0751537284, Paperback)If your pulse flutters at the thought of castle ruins and descents into crypts by moonlight, you will savor every creepy page of Elizabeth Kostova's long but beautifully structured thriller The Historian. The story opens in Amsterdam in 1972, when a teenage girl discovers a medieval book and a cache of yellowed letters in her diplomat father's library. The pages of the book are empty except for a woodcut of a dragon. The letters are addressed to: "My dear and unfortunate successor." When the girl confronts her father, he reluctantly confesses an unsettling story: his involvement, twenty years earlier, in a search for his graduate school mentor, who disappeared from his office only moments after confiding to Paul his certainty that Dracula--Vlad the Impaler, an inventively cruel ruler of Wallachia in the mid-15th century--was still alive. The story turns out to concern our narrator directly because Paul's collaborator in the search was a fellow student named Helen Rossi (the unacknowledged daughter of his mentor) and our narrator's long-dead mother, about whom she knows almost nothing. And then her father, leaving just a note, disappears also.As well as numerous settings, both in and out of the East Bloc, Kostova has three basic story lines to keep straight--one from 1930, when Professor Bartolomew Rossi begins his dangerous research into Dracula, one from 1950, when Professor Rossi's student Paul takes up the scent, and the main narrative from 1972. The criss-crossing story lines mirror the political advances, retreats, triumphs, and losses that shaped Dracula's beleaguered homeland--sometimes with the Byzantines on top, sometimes the Ottomans, sometimes the rag-tag local tribes, or the Orthodox church, and sometimes a fresh conqueror like the Soviet Union. Although the book is appropriately suspenseful and a delight to read--even the minor characters are distinctive and vividly seen--its most powerful moments are those that describe real horrors. Our narrator recalls that after reading descriptions of Vlad burning young boys or impaling "a large family," she tried to forget the words: "For all his attention to my historical education, my father had neglected to tell me this: history's terrible moments were real. I understand now, decades later, that he could never have told me. Only history itself can convince you of such a truth." The reader, although given a satisfying ending, gets a strong enough dose of European history to temper the usual comforts of the closing words. --Regina Marler (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:03 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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