Erik Geiger's Blog

"Long", "Convoluted", "Jesus Christ, aren't I finished with this fucking book yet? "
are just a few of the words that came to mind when I read Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian.
I almost didn't read it.
The hype surronding Anne Rice's books pretty much killed my interest in vampire novels. The only ones I've read since the late 1980s were Dracula and The Historian.
However everything I heard about the novel suggested I'd like it. The richly detailed historical backdrop, the European settings, the complex narrative structure, these are characteristic of many books I've enjoyed in the past. And I did like The Historian. Mostly.
But I'm not compelled by stories that I like - I'm compelled by stories I love, and I didn't love The Historian.

While I respected the audacity of the attempt and mostly enjoyed it, I found the narative-within-a-narrative-within-a-narrative conceit distracting. Also, I was also distracted when Mrs. Kostova fell into the major pitfall of epistolary novels, one that even Richardson fell into with Clarissa: the letters are too bloody long! It strains credulity that a narrative describing vampire hunting in central Europe which spans hundred pages in the novel, somehow fits into a few hand written letters that the protagonist reads on a short train trip.
This mistake is repeated with variations - an aging scholar reads aloud an article containing commentaries and an account of a pilgrimage from Wallchia to Istanbul to Bulgaria, within a few stolen minutes.
The main weakness of the novel, however, is Vlad himself. Reading Vlad's history both within the novel and outside it, his complexity emerges. He was at once a savagely brutal dictator and a devoted patron of the orthodox church and a fierce nationalist.
Yet his actual appearances as a character in the novel are anticlimatic and disappointing, revelaing little of what made him interesting as an historical figure.
And frankly, his motivations are not compelling. He pursues successive generations of talented historians because he needs a librarian, someone to help him catalogue his vast, ideosyncratic library in order advance his vaguely sinister goals. What he hopes to accomplish, why he feels he needs a brilliant scholar, laboring as a willing servant, these are unclear.
Also unclear is why these several scholars are motivated to extent they are by the unlikely and outre proposition that Dracula walks the earth. These are brilliant people with excellent critical thinking skills, yet they hare off on the vaguest of missions, after the thinnest of clues.
These caveats aside, the book has some excellent bits. If you're looking for a long, langourous read that will engage you as long as you don't think about it too hard, something to read on the deck of a cruise ship, or from a beach vacation, The Historian should please you.