Review of The Historian
Since this is the one day of the week my mind is not weighed down by the pressures of work, I think it’s an appropriate time to start writing a summary/review of the The Historian, the novel I just completed. (A nice change of pace from the recent slew of complaint-filled posts.) I promised you a review before and I am not one for breaking my promises, so here it is!
The Historian is not a novel I picked out myself, but a chance discovery I made while rummaging through the books mum had brought home from the library. A week before, I had seen the hosts of my favourite Japanese TV show interview the author, Elizabeth Kostova, and my interest was piqued after learning that despite this being her first novel, she had received 2 million dollars in advance of publishing it. This is very unusual for someone without a reasonably good track record in publishing and writing. In addition, she received the Hopwood Award for Novel-in-Progress from the University of Michigan, proving that the book was a very special read even in its rudimentary form. It was with this knowledge in hand, I began reading…
The novel takes the form of many other epistolary, or letter-based, novels such as Frankenstein or Dracula in that one or more stories are told inside that of another. In fact, there are three related timelines following three different characters in this particular novel, with two of the stories expressed through either dialogue or epistolary format.
The main timeline begins with Paul, a graduate student who discovers a strange looking book on his desk in the library with a single marking inside - a horrifying dragon print placed at the centre underlain with a single word: Dracyla. At first, Paul takes it to the front desk, believing that the book has been misplaced, but when the librarian returns it to him saying that it is not library property, Paul’s adventure begins. He is soon thrown into an upside-down world of supposed fantasy come to life when his advisor, Rossi, mysteriously disappears, with only a trail of blood left in his office. The urgency of Paul’s search is compounded by the discovery that Rossi, too, received such a book years before and followed the tracks of its owner to the depths of Eastern Europe. As a result, Paul immediately flies off to follow the clues left by Rossi, and finds himself mixed up in one of the darkest secrets kept by history: Dracula is alive and taking victims. Years later, Paul’s daughter finds the same book hidden away in her father’s library, and she too is drawn into the mystery her father has kept secret for so long…
Throughout the each character’s journey, the reader is simultaneously sucked in by the exciting pace of the story, as well as the plethora of carefully researched historical facts about the real Count Dracula, Vlad Dracula (son of the dragon), and his 15th century reign of terror. (I personally found the factual ring to this novel absolutely fascinating since it adds a sharp element of reality to the myth. For instance, it was intriguing to learn that the exact location of Vlad’s tomb has not been agreed upon by scholars, though there has been some speculation that it lies in an unmarked tomb in a Romanian Orthodox monastery.) Though I can’t give away much more of the story for obvious reasons, I can say that each character – the daughter, Paul, and Rossi - takes his or her own path towards unraveling the cloud of mystery surrounding Dracula, and subsequently, each encounters a unique set of horrifying dangers and secrets along the way. The question is: will be mystery be solved and the monster put to rest?
Kostova once said in an interview that it was her father’s stories of Dracula, not Vlad himself, which inspired her to write this novel. However, the true story of Vlad would be inspiration enough, as he is as interesting a subject of choice as one can get. His gruesome tendencies, and the fact that his legend was not confined to Eastern Europe but rapidly spread to most of Russia and the rest of Europe despite poor communication systems at the time is ample proof of this. The real Dracula was best known as Vlad the Impaler (Vlad Tepes) since impalement was his favourite form of torture, though he employed many other methods as well which you can find here if you are curious. The remains of one of his castles, also described in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, can be found by the Arges River near the town of Poenari. The story goes that Dracula invited a number of nobles from the area to a grand feast in the year 1459. Unfortunately for the nobles, the feast turned out to be a trap – the older and feebler nobles were impaled while the rest were marched off to build the castle in Dracula’s honour. It is said that the nobles were never allowed to rest and most of them worked until their clothes literally fell off in rags if death did not take them first. This was just one of the many cruelties Dracula committed during his reign, and it is no wonder that his story has been immortalized numerous times through the image of the vampire we all love and fear at the same time.
Kostova’s novel is a great achievement for many reasons. One might think that a story that has become so ingrained into our culture (think Halloween and the numerous Hollywood productions that have been spun out over the years) would have little left with which to work. Yet Kostova manages to take a completely new spin on the worn out tale by taking a figure of fantasy and turning him into a tangible being with historical roots. Perhaps, in this way, she makes him all the more terrifying to us all. Moreover, the fluidity of her writing and her ability to give life and personality to her characters does not seem forced, though the story is obviously meticulously calculated given that it took her 10 years to complete. Rather, character development seems to occur very naturally, and each individual rarely, if ever, performs an action that defies the paradigm set for his or her individual character make-up. All in all, the book is a perfect package and deserves every honour it receives.
So, as a final word, I would love it if all of you would give this novel a try, and let me know what you think. And if any of you have a recommendation for me, I’d be glad to hear it because I need a new book to sink my teeth into (no pun intended)! The end!
The Historian is not a novel I picked out myself, but a chance discovery I made while rummaging through the books mum had brought home from the library. A week before, I had seen the hosts of my favourite Japanese TV show interview the author, Elizabeth Kostova, and my interest was piqued after learning that despite this being her first novel, she had received 2 million dollars in advance of publishing it. This is very unusual for someone without a reasonably good track record in publishing and writing. In addition, she received the Hopwood Award for Novel-in-Progress from the University of Michigan, proving that the book was a very special read even in its rudimentary form. It was with this knowledge in hand, I began reading…
The novel takes the form of many other epistolary, or letter-based, novels such as Frankenstein or Dracula in that one or more stories are told inside that of another. In fact, there are three related timelines following three different characters in this particular novel, with two of the stories expressed through either dialogue or epistolary format.
The main timeline begins with Paul, a graduate student who discovers a strange looking book on his desk in the library with a single marking inside - a horrifying dragon print placed at the centre underlain with a single word: Dracyla. At first, Paul takes it to the front desk, believing that the book has been misplaced, but when the librarian returns it to him saying that it is not library property, Paul’s adventure begins. He is soon thrown into an upside-down world of supposed fantasy come to life when his advisor, Rossi, mysteriously disappears, with only a trail of blood left in his office. The urgency of Paul’s search is compounded by the discovery that Rossi, too, received such a book years before and followed the tracks of its owner to the depths of Eastern Europe. As a result, Paul immediately flies off to follow the clues left by Rossi, and finds himself mixed up in one of the darkest secrets kept by history: Dracula is alive and taking victims. Years later, Paul’s daughter finds the same book hidden away in her father’s library, and she too is drawn into the mystery her father has kept secret for so long…
Throughout the each character’s journey, the reader is simultaneously sucked in by the exciting pace of the story, as well as the plethora of carefully researched historical facts about the real Count Dracula, Vlad Dracula (son of the dragon), and his 15th century reign of terror. (I personally found the factual ring to this novel absolutely fascinating since it adds a sharp element of reality to the myth. For instance, it was intriguing to learn that the exact location of Vlad’s tomb has not been agreed upon by scholars, though there has been some speculation that it lies in an unmarked tomb in a Romanian Orthodox monastery.) Though I can’t give away much more of the story for obvious reasons, I can say that each character – the daughter, Paul, and Rossi - takes his or her own path towards unraveling the cloud of mystery surrounding Dracula, and subsequently, each encounters a unique set of horrifying dangers and secrets along the way. The question is: will be mystery be solved and the monster put to rest?
Kostova once said in an interview that it was her father’s stories of Dracula, not Vlad himself, which inspired her to write this novel. However, the true story of Vlad would be inspiration enough, as he is as interesting a subject of choice as one can get. His gruesome tendencies, and the fact that his legend was not confined to Eastern Europe but rapidly spread to most of Russia and the rest of Europe despite poor communication systems at the time is ample proof of this. The real Dracula was best known as Vlad the Impaler (Vlad Tepes) since impalement was his favourite form of torture, though he employed many other methods as well which you can find here if you are curious. The remains of one of his castles, also described in Bram Stoker’s Dracula, can be found by the Arges River near the town of Poenari. The story goes that Dracula invited a number of nobles from the area to a grand feast in the year 1459. Unfortunately for the nobles, the feast turned out to be a trap – the older and feebler nobles were impaled while the rest were marched off to build the castle in Dracula’s honour. It is said that the nobles were never allowed to rest and most of them worked until their clothes literally fell off in rags if death did not take them first. This was just one of the many cruelties Dracula committed during his reign, and it is no wonder that his story has been immortalized numerous times through the image of the vampire we all love and fear at the same time.
Kostova’s novel is a great achievement for many reasons. One might think that a story that has become so ingrained into our culture (think Halloween and the numerous Hollywood productions that have been spun out over the years) would have little left with which to work. Yet Kostova manages to take a completely new spin on the worn out tale by taking a figure of fantasy and turning him into a tangible being with historical roots. Perhaps, in this way, she makes him all the more terrifying to us all. Moreover, the fluidity of her writing and her ability to give life and personality to her characters does not seem forced, though the story is obviously meticulously calculated given that it took her 10 years to complete. Rather, character development seems to occur very naturally, and each individual rarely, if ever, performs an action that defies the paradigm set for his or her individual character make-up. All in all, the book is a perfect package and deserves every honour it receives.
So, as a final word, I would love it if all of you would give this novel a try, and let me know what you think. And if any of you have a recommendation for me, I’d be glad to hear it because I need a new book to sink my teeth into (no pun intended)! The end!
posted by heather-in-italia @ 1:12 p.m.
2 Comments:
Sounds very interesting. I love your writing style, you give a good, comprehensive overview. I'll have to check it out! :D
Thanks, Steph! This post took a lot of editing and rewriting since I kept leaving out important bits and filling it in with silly little details. It's kind of refreshing to write a review every now and then - gives an objective feeling to a form of writing which can get pretty personal! Anyway, thanks again!
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