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The Historian

By Elizabeth Kostova

(355)

| Hardcover | 9780316730310

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Book Description

To you, perceptive reader, I bequeath my history...... Late one night, exploring her father's library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters. The letters are all addressed to "My dear and unfortunate successor," and they plunge her into a world she never dreamed of -- a labyrinth where the secrets of her father's past and her mother's mysterious fate connect to an inconceivable evil hidden in the depths of history. The letters provide links to one of the darkest powers that humanity has ever known and to a centuries-long quest to find the source of that darkness and wipe it out. It is a quest for the truth about Vlad the Impaler, the medieval ruler whose barbarous reign formed the basis of the legend of Dracula. Generations of historians have risked their reputations, their sanity, and even their lives to learn the truth about Vlad the Impaler and Dracula. Now one young woman must decide whether to take up this quest herself -- to follow her father in a hunt that nearly brought him to ruin years ago, when he was a vibrant young scholar and her mother was still alive. What does the legend of Vlad the Impaler have to do with the modern world? Is it possible that the Dracula of myth truly existeda nd that he has lived on, century after century, pursuing his own unknowable ends? The answers to these questions cross time and borders, as first the father and then the daughter search for clues, from dusty Ivy League libraries to Istanbul, Budapest, and the depths of Eastern Europe. In city after city, in monasteries and archives, in letters and in secret conversations, the horrible truth emerges about Vlad the Impaler's dark reign -- and about a time-defying pact that may have kept his awful work alive down through the ages. Parsing obscure signs and hidden texts, reading codes worked into the fabric of medieval monastic traditions and evading the unknown adversaries who will go to any lengths to conceal and protect Vlad's ancient powers, one woman comes ever closer to the secret of her own past and a confrontation with the very definition of evil. Elizabeth Kostova's debut novel is an adventure of monumental proportions, a relentless tale that blends fact and fantasy, history and the present, with an assurance that is almost unbearably suspenseful and utterly unforgettable.

Critics

'The Historian' by Elizabeth Kostova

In this gripping tale the narrator, a 16-year-old girl, discovers an intriguing batch of letters in her father's library. Unable to resist reading them she unwittingly opens a dark chapter in her family's past, which takes her on an ominous and dange ... (read full critics)

readingmatters published on Mon, 27 Sep 2010

Neckrophilia

The Historian Elizabeth Kostova Little Brown £14.99, pp656 This book reads like a cross between Dracula and The Da Vinci Code. Essentially, it is a spirited update of Bram Stoker's classic, with a vastly ingenious plot in which Dracula has developed ... (read full critics)

guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

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41 Reviews

6 people find this helpful

*** This comment contains spoilers! ***

Book is seriously damaged by friend R's gf. Trash it.
Personally I like this MUCH MORE than the hype of "Da Vinci's Code". Vampire and the mysterious Eastern Europe always gives you a delicious cocktail. It let you tipsy but not over the head. Though it's 700 pages thick, you just need to spe ... (continue)

Book is seriously damaged by friend R's gf. Trash it.
Personally I like this MUCH MORE than the hype of "Da Vinci's Code". Vampire and the mysterious Eastern Europe always gives you a delicious cocktail. It let you tipsy but not over the head. Though it's 700 pages thick, you just need to spend like 3 days to finish it. In the past I joked that the book shall be re-named as "the librarian" instead of the historian, as Dracula is indeed searching for a librarian to manage his(its?!) study. ka. Anyway it did spark off my quest in Eastern European history in medieval time.
Worth to spend some hours to finish it. =)

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張小張・Cons said on Jan 31, 2007 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

2 people find this helpful

Although plot seem interested and well-chosen, the pace is far too slow. Could not finish this book even with furious attempts of frequent skimming and scanning. NOT RECOMMENDED

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Alex Can said on May 1, 2009 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

2 people find this helpful

I finally finished it last night. I don't want to say too much before the meeting, but wanted to make a brief record here. It wasn't the worst book I've ever read but definitly the worst thing I've read in ages. It was such a terrible narrative style, there was no different voices for any of the cha ... (continue)

I finally finished it last night. I don't want to say too much before the meeting, but wanted to make a brief record here. It wasn't the worst book I've ever read but definitly the worst thing I've read in ages. It was such a terrible narrative style, there was no different voices for any of the characters, but the worst part was the "historical research", her use of "historical sources" and her definition of a good historian! I think I finally know how doctors feel when they watch medical dramas.

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Robot-mel said on Sep 1, 2007 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

The longest single book I ever read. Totaling 816 pages.
This book was about the legend of Dracula (Vlad Tepes - the Impaler or the vampire). It also unfolded the history of a family.
Bartolomeo Rossi + Helen's mother ---> Helen + Paul ---> Narrator
There were three narrative line ... (continue)

The longest single book I ever read. Totaling 816 pages.
This book was about the legend of Dracula (Vlad Tepes - the Impaler or the vampire). It also unfolded the history of a family.
Bartolomeo Rossi + Helen's mother ---> Helen + Paul ---> Narrator
There were three narrative lines: Rossi's start and halt of his special research, Paul's searching for his missing mentor, and Narrator's following her suddenly disappeared father.
It involved the history of Eastern Europe back in the fourteenth centuries. Something like the wars between the Turkish and Ottoman Empire which I was not familiar with. The geographic coverage of adventures based around Eastern Europe, including Hungary Budapest Turkey Istanbul Romania Wallachia Transylvania Constantinople Bulgaria Sofia.
The story was first told backward by Paul to his daughter by mouth of words during duty trips. Upon his disappearance, it relied on the letters left behind by him to the Narrator, which on one hand unfolded the remaining story and on the other hinted on the search of the Narrator's father. It was a difficult job because it told story with twisted lines that converged.
The special interest of Professor Rossi was to find out the actual location of the final tomb of Dracula, instead of the long-said resting place Snagov. Paul learnt of his secret research on the same day Rossi was gone. He gathered clues and set out the hunt for Rossi, whose disappearance Paul believed to be related to the location of the tomb, or rather the current resting place of Dracula. In the college library, Paul met Helen who later turned out to be the daughter of Rossi. They acted together in search of the mystery of Dracula's relics. They went to various monasteries, museums, libraries, crypts, and during their breathtaking adventures they encountered friends (professors who were also in the interest of vampire legends) and enemies (undead librarian and secret police). Sadly, Helen was bitten twice on the neck by the librarian and got polluted. They also talked to Helen's mother, revealing the past between her and Rossi. From the various archives, Paul and Helen gradually completed the puzzle and discovered the pilgrim route through which the ancient monks transported the body of Dracula to reunite with his head, which had been taken off by Sultan Mehmed. They arrived Sveti Georgi eventually and found Rossi in a sarcophagus in the crypt. They however were not able to save him as he was already an undead and had to impale him using the dagger. They failed to catch Dracula in the secret library underneath.
After that, Paul and Helen married and gave birth to the Narrator. Helen was gone suddenly during a trip in Saint-Matthieu in Les Bains. Many years lapsed until the present time of the story. One day on receipt of some postcards, it came to light that Helen was still alive and Paul went back to Les Bains in search of Helen. The Narrator, Paul and Helen reunited in the crypt and they managed to kill Dracula there. All happened in a startle. The epilogue was a striking ending because the Narrator received the dragon book in Philadelphia some years later, and that meant Dracula was still undead.
This is an exciting and interesting book. The English is a bit difficult but good. It can be more precise at the beginning where the father and daughter hanged around in different countries, and more elaborations on the encounter with Dracula and his mysterious living in these five hundred years.
　
"One has time for only a handful of the great languages unless one gives up everything else in favor of linguistics."
"I must have been gazing around with naked emotion on my face, because I suddenly caught my guide smiling at me, amused."
"In the midst of everything was that expanse of the river, gray-green, its surface finely scaled by wind and glinting with sunlight."
"she was one of the best-educated women of her time in our country - one of the only splendidly educated ones, actually - and my grandfather spared nothing to pour into her all his knowledge and ambition."
"I do not simply feel weak but ill, and today I had a sensation that sent fresh misery through what remains of my heart."
　

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Candy said on Jan 5, 2012 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

I really liked this books. The author writes in a pleasant, easy style and the story is filled with geographical and historical details. I would definitely recommend it to people passionate about history and sort of detective stories. It's slow at times, but otherwise a very good read.

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Bleedindarklove said on Jul 1, 2011 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

*** This comment contains spoilers! ***

Maybe I read a few too many favorable reviews before actually reading the book, so *maybe* I had too high an expectation to begin with, but it was drawn way too long, did not feel that the story needed 642 pages to be told.
and ... huh? (*BIG spoiler alert!*) Vlad the Impaler, Dracula, ferocious ... (continue)

Maybe I read a few too many favorable reviews before actually reading the book, so *maybe* I had too high an expectation to begin with, but it was drawn way too long, did not feel that the story needed 642 pages to be told.
and ... huh? (*BIG spoiler alert!*) Vlad the Impaler, Dracula, ferocious warrior, was killed, just like that, completely wiped off the face of earth, after existing for over 5 centuries, in just half a page, by mere scholars, because his superhuman senses had been "distracted" for half a second? Are you kidding me?? THAT was really disappointing ...

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Linda said on Mar 4, 2011 about the Others edition | Add your feedback