The Historian

It would probably have been healthier if I'd given up on this 700-page monster at any of the many points at which I commented to others that it was like Dan Brown wrote a vampire novel. It just goes on and on. What's more, it's written in an odd first-person that has three (two? three? I forget now) narrators, which is resolved by making all but the teenage daughter's occasional appearances just the reading out of letters from older characters. Epistolary novels obviously have a fine heritage in the Gothic, most notably in Dracula, but at least those feel like real letters. These are letters that go on for twenty pages of excruciating detail. The only reason I can give for why I actually finished this is that I'm on a bit of a gothic/vampire 'thing' at the moment, but that's probably not actually a strong enough argument.

I loved the premise, the combination of the historical and mythological Dracula, explored by the characters through academics and research. Kostova layers the story, telling it in her present, about when she was younger, reading about her father's past, describing his mentor's adventures. Other letters, postcards, etc. are also used like this. It mostly works well, and manages to tell the story of several people at once, without losing focus of the "main" story.

Kostova's way of writng is not for me, though. I have a hard time visualising what I read, and she tends to go on about the looks and feels of places the characters are visiting. I'm not negative towards doing so, but it's not quite for me. Some plot-devices are a bit clumsy though, and she relies a bit too heavy on coincidences.

Dracula is still alive, and looking for a librarian! Wow! I love evil librarian vampires, and the characters, especially the Turkish Professor and Helen, were fabulous. However this book was long winded, and the plot connections and coincidences not always credulous. With some snipping it would have been more riveting.

Although overall I enjoyed the book, I did feel it was a little too long. It was hard to remember all the bits of research that they did. I would have liked a bit more on the daughter's journey, felt a bit like it was a coming of age thing at the start but then she seemed to get forgotten a bit.

I did love the descriptions of the Eastern European countries that they visit.

Dear lord, this was dull. The Da Vinci Code with less excitement.