Book review: The Historian
Jul. 26th, 2007 10:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vernacular_lifeThe Historian, but Elizabeth Kostrova
The Amazon blurb has a few spoilers, so I'll summarize instead:
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, Paul, 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 belief that Dracula--Vlad the Impaler, an inventively cruel ruler of Wallachia in the mid-15th century--could still alive. Much of the story is told through letters.
Really liked the book overall, but boy was it a slow reader. Ironically, I thought that the most unbelievable part was that someone could write letters that long and that minutely detailed, NOT the fact that Dracula is still alive :P
I know very little about the history of the Ottoman Empire/Romania/Bulgaria/Turkey, so it was hard for me to follow some of the references without pulling up some secondary sources.
The version I had included the 'questions to the author' segment, in which a question was asked about a comparison of the Historian to A Secret History (one of my fav books of all time). No WAY would I have made that comparison, except both are first novels for female authors.....
Overall rating: B (dragged a bit 3/4 of the way through)
The Amazon blurb has a few spoilers, so I'll summarize instead:
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, Paul, 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 belief that Dracula--Vlad the Impaler, an inventively cruel ruler of Wallachia in the mid-15th century--could still alive. Much of the story is told through letters.
Really liked the book overall, but boy was it a slow reader. Ironically, I thought that the most unbelievable part was that someone could write letters that long and that minutely detailed, NOT the fact that Dracula is still alive :P
I know very little about the history of the Ottoman Empire/Romania/Bulgaria/Turkey, so it was hard for me to follow some of the references without pulling up some secondary sources.
The version I had included the 'questions to the author' segment, in which a question was asked about a comparison of the Historian to A Secret History (one of my fav books of all time). No WAY would I have made that comparison, except both are first novels for female authors.....
Overall rating: B (dragged a bit 3/4 of the way through)
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Date: 2007-07-26 07:29 pm (UTC)Started the book 2 Cabo trips ago and never got through the part of the novel with those g.damn LETTERS. I've tried numerous times since then but I just can't do it. Other than that, it had me until that point.
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Date: 2007-07-27 01:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-27 03:23 am (UTC)The Secret History is one of my all time faves too. Have you read her other book?
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Date: 2007-07-27 01:12 pm (UTC)I haven't read the other Donna Tartt book - I didnt read any great reviews of it, so have never had it very high on my 'must read' list.
The Secret History is such a 'fall' book to me; the first cold rainy November weekend I pull it out and try to hide in bed and just devour it again.
I may have to check this out...
Date: 2007-07-31 01:36 pm (UTC)Hi! My name is Anne...I found you through Amanda (tinksdust) in my search for someone who practices yoga. It is something I have been interested in for a long time and am finally getting around to investigating further and was hoping to be able to pick someones brain a bit. (That and I can always use new 'friends'!) :)
Re: I may have to check this out...
Date: 2007-08-01 12:47 am (UTC)welcome! havent posted much about yoga lately, but I practice the style called Anusara, which is derived from Hatha yoga and focuses on alignment (not the cardio-style power yoga). I haven't practiced as much as I'd like with a 15 month old running around!
look forward to getting to know you