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April 25, 2016
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Free Ebook The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova
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The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova
Free Ebook The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova
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Amazon.com Review
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
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From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Considering the recent rush of door-stopping historical novels, first-timer Kostova is getting a big launch—fortunately, a lot here lives up to the hype. In 1972, a 16-year-old American living in Amsterdam finds a mysterious book in her diplomat father's library. The book is ancient, blank except for a sinister woodcut of a dragon and the word "Drakulya," but it's the letters tucked inside, dated 1930 and addressed to "My dear and unfortunate successor," that really pique her curiosity. Her widowed father, Paul, reluctantly provides pieces of a chilling story; it seems this ominous little book has a way of forcing itself on its owners, with terrifying results. Paul's former adviser at Oxford, Professor Rossi, became obsessed with researching Dracula and was convinced that he remained alive. When Rossi disappeared, Paul continued his quest with the help of another scholar, Helen, who had her own reasons for seeking the truth. As Paul relates these stories to his daughter, she secretly begins her own research. Kostova builds suspense by revealing the threads of her story as the narrator discovers them: what she's told, what she reads in old letters and, of course, what she discovers directly when the legendary threat of Dracula looms. Along with all the fascinating historical information, there's also a mounting casualty count, and the big showdown amps up the drama by pulling at the heartstrings at the same time it revels in the gruesome. Exotic locales, tantalizing history, a family legacy and a love of the bloodthirsty: it's hard to imagine that readers won't be bitten, too. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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Product details
Hardcover: 642 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; 1st edition (June 14, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0316011770
ISBN-13: 978-0316011778
Product Dimensions:
6.4 x 1.9 x 9.6 inches
Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
4.0 out of 5 stars
2,373 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#68,181 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
This was the first "adult" novel I read as a child, and it's still a book I come bakc to over and over as one of my favorites. I absolutely love fantasy novels that are heavily grounded in history and this book covers such a unique area of history, and accurately. The writing is superb and manages to stitch together multiple timelines seamlessly. It covers bits of history from Vlad the Impaler (the original inspiration for Dracula), the history of vampire lore, and some history of the USSR. It also doesn't put vampires in a romantic light like so many books do nowadays but makes them genuinely scary.
Now, if you are into the undead and a tour of Eastern Europe this is the book for you! This is the second time I have read this book, I enjoyed it just as much the second time. The story takes the reader on several adventures from England to Turkey to Hungary and Bulgaria. The book is full of folklore from these countries regarding Dracula and how his servants still walk among us. The cast of characters is vast and diverse, great for a book this size, yet, you are not bogged down with too many individuals to know how they fit into the story. Give it a try.
I have never heard an audio book so well read. The book includes American, British, Scottish, Italian, Turkish, Hungarian, Romanian, and Bulgarian characters. each character is read by a different reader who is at least bilingual in English and the target language, at least as far as I can tell. The effect on the realism of this book even though the book touches the world beyond, but no spoilers, would be hard to over estimate. This gives the book a cinematic quality. This is the way a book should be read, or listened to! This is the most effective audio book I have listened to, so far.
Relying heavily on found written accounts and correspondence, The Historian is an homage to Stoker's novel as much as a retelling of the Dracula legend. The characters and the way they are drawn in to the reality and threat of vampires to all who uncover their existence is engrossing. The reader also gets to know these vampire hunters much better than Stoker's statues of Victorian manly and womanly virtue. Unfortunately I found another similarity between The Historian and Dracula; an engrossing brisk beginning turns into a slog to find out how it ends. Too many teary moments, internal monologues about the anguish being experienced and every incidental local encountered warrants a paragraph of physical description. I recommend this book to anyone who likes gothic horror novels, especially about vampires which are vampires, and not unfortunate folk condemned to an appetite for blood and the nocturnal restrictions and alienation the come with it.
While this is fiction, it reads like nonfiction. It continued to draw me in for all 676 pages and beyond. I am still musing over the ending. Elizabeth Kostova did an excellent job of researching fact and interweaving fiction. I have, already, given copies, as gifts, to two friends. This is the kind of unexpected pleasure I hope for in every read; a work requiring active reading with use of my thinking process, as we journey through the pages with an intriguing plot and well-developed characters that are worth my investment of time and energy.
Good premise, but difficult to really get into. While I enjoy historical fiction as much or more than most, this story just seems to drag when it should be captivating. The plot lines are good, just seems to get lost in details, long descriptions, and random digression occasionally.
I first came across this book when my friend and I were making paper roses for her wedding decorations out of old books. She had picked this book out for its beautifully "marshmallow" aged pages - where the edges have turned a hue of golden brown. We were gluing the petals together when I saw the word "Dracula." I immediately thought, "What have we done?!" Reading the description of the book, I knew I would eventually have to read it.My interest in Dracula and Romanian lore, first peaked after reading Bram Stoker's Dracula. Then, ironically, I ended up marrying my husband, who was born and raised not 30 minutes from Castelul Bran, or better known as Dracula's castle.Enough about me, and onto the book review...This book was brilliantly written.I loved everything about this book. Yes, it is long, and takes a bit for the plot line to pick up in the beginning. But, the endurance reading is totally worth it. Kostova doesn't waste any words that she wrote, all having meaning and importance. For anyone who likes a meaty text, packed full of detail, historic locations and all-encompassing plot lines, this is for you.And please note, this is not about the Twilight-type vampires that are so prominent in today's literature. This is a twist off of the original "Dracula" novel, dedicated to the story of Vlad Tepes of Wallachia.
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