No, He Doesn't Want To Suck Your Blood (The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova)

Member Name: venice105

Product:	The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova
Date:	03/12/07 (151 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Looong read for the cold winter nights

Disadvantages: Slim on thrills

I recently finished the book, The Historian, after taking an admittedly long time to do so. At 700 pages long, much of it dense, detailed narrative dryer than Tutankhamun's t-zone, it was a long slog indeed. I forced myself to finish it, however, hoping that the payoff would be in there somewhere - I mean, a bestseller, on Richard & Judy's book list no less(!), surely there must be something more to it. This "thrilling" novel, oft described as "unputdownable" (my husband did in fact finish it on holiday in a week), was so lauded that I did hold out hope it would pick up my interest more as it progressed. It tended to make me want to fall into a deep slumber after about ten minutes, one where perhaps a vampire called Dracula might make an actual appearance and give me a genuine thrill.

This is the first novel of Elizabeth Kostova, published in 2005 to much critical and bestselling success. It took her ten years to write and was obviously a labour of love from the level of detail and research in it. The Historian is very well written in many respects. The descriptive passages of various European haunts of the toothy one are borderline poetic, subtle, never overwrought. This hardly makes up for the lack of narrative punch, however. I have yet to find a vampire novel that does it for me. Even in high school I found Anne Rice (hugely popular in America) slushy Gothic nonsense. That said, it was slick with exciting events, that Lestat knew how to have a good time.

The Dracula of the Historian is more suitably mysterious, which does create some level of excitement for his appearance. Unfortunately even the greatest writer would find maintaining excitement for 600+ pages without the appearance of the central villain of the piece a bit of an ask. By the time he does finally appear, I had lost the will to care. Perhaps if I had forced myself to read the book less languorously, but like the vampiric hero, I had better things to do than devote my time to this draining book.

The narrative jumps around, from the present where the daughter of a professor (supposedly the main, unnamed narrator) is recounting searching for her missing father in the 1970's with a young English male companion (Stephen Barley), to the 1950's, where the girl's mother, Romanian born Helen, is searching for HER professor father, Bartholemew Rossi (who was on his own Dracula hunt in the 1930's, where he met Helen's mother - phew!), with a young male companion (her future husband& the girl's father, Paul), all of it intertwined with the disappearances having otherworldly links with a presumed dead Transylvanian tyrant. So the two narratives are rather similar, although it is the past one that creates the most drama as it is devoted the most time, and the mother's subsequent disappearance seems to be hinting at exciting things to come. Seems to.

Not long after I finished this book, the quite bad film by Francis Ford Coppola about Dracula (the one with Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder doing dodgy accents, and Gary Oldman being quite sexy actually), was on, and despite its awfulness, it just highlighted for me all the excitement that was missing from this book. There was no sex in this Dracula. This chap was more interested in collecting dusty copies of books about himself and cataloguing them than committing any naughty ravishing/vampirizing of young innocents. The only victims were those who got in the way of his Dewey decimal system, or would provide a useful service as a catalogue assistant (hence the kidnapping of professors). I mean, all that lurking around university campuses and all he can be bothered with is hunting down middle aged men with leather elbow patches? Pur-lease, this is Dracula? Of frilly white shirts, creepy Bela Lugosi stalking, lusting for the blood of virgins?

I appreciate the author trying to update and make him a more sophisticated fellow, unfortunately she has also made him a rather boring one. What is the point of him being devastatingly handsome if he can't be bothered with human interaction? Especially when throughout the historical research and flashbacks the author describes the sordid history of Vlad Tepes, the Transylvanian ruler who impaled his victims with merciless glee - this positively evil creature does create some foreboding in the book, which to me was never fully realised.

As mentioned earlier, I found the flashbacks to be by far the most interesting part of the book, as it's where most of the action takes place. Helen and Paul's adventures stretch from America to Romania, Turkey to France. There is no doubting immense research must have gone into documenting historical regimes that coincided with Vlad Tepes, as well as the fictionalized version of events that supposedly led Vlad/Dracula to seek shelter/an afterlife amongst certain chosen monasteries. The key linking these people together is a mysterious blank book that seems to fall into the hands of every historian who happens to crack open Bram Stoker/express an interest in the pallid prince. Helen herself descends from Dracula - while no direct evidence is supplied in this otherwise detail obsessed book - aside from her bearing a distinctive birthmark which amongst the superstitions of her village is enough proof.

The story of her mother and Mr. Rossi is a sad one, as there was an element of double dealing preventing him from keeping his promise to her mother and ever knowing his daughter Helen. Helen is an interesting character, full of the bitter darkness the author associates with her Eastern European lineage, and yet also fiercely loyal and loving. The more blank slate of the unnamed narrator's father, Paul, an unassuming American, serves more as an observer of the events than anything. His desire to find his mentor Professor Rossi is strong, but in amongst their adventures he is understandably left boggling at the events of past and present that unfold before his scholarly eye.

The events in Turkey will have the strongest impact on Helen and Paul's future together, as despite meeting members of an ancient order to protect the Turkish king and fight the persistent Dracula and his minions, they seem inevitably drawn towards tragedy. The evasiveness of the old bloodsucker is handled well - too well, perhaps - the only real hint of him for ages is when one of his undead minions pop up to stalk historians/other opposition. They are creepy, yes, and capable of inflicting the dreaded bite - Helen herself is a victim - twice!

This leads to the best sense of foreboding in the book, as the narrator has never met her mother and believed her to be dead until her father goes missing and she finds a number of letters to herself from her mother sent throughout the years she has been gone. The feeling that her mother may be infected/a vampire does create excitement.

The character of Turgut Bora, a Turkish historian, is a colourful one, and for me one of the main reasons this book didn't satisfy in the end. Without giving too much away, he is very helpful in Helen and Paul's travels, along with his ancient order of Ottoman empire guardians. So much time is devoted to the events in Turkey and its historical connections with Vlad Tepes, that in the final confrontation there is a real sense of disappointment that certain characters are left out and other, fairly insignificant characters reappear.

Eventually, after many, many pages of correspondence/ancient text excerpts (far too many if you ask me, at one stage I had to restrain myself from throwing the book across the room!) interspersed with the action, we begin to approach the finale. Helen and Paul find, via an old historian (yes, another one!) the Bulgarian Stoichev, links to a tiny village that may have once had links with the vaporous vampire.

And finally we meet Dracula, after 623 pages of waiting. I do apologise if this is seen as a spoiler, but for me this was just so frustratingly unsatisfying. I cannot believe during the editorial process not one person saw this as a potential problem. We get tidbits, glimpses of his minions earlier, as well as some brief flashbacks of Vlad Tepes' regime, but they really go nowhere near to justifying the length of this book. I get that it is historical fiction, but it was also marketed as some sort of Davinci code type thriller, which it is clearly not. I do feel there was a good book in here somewhere, it just got a bit lost in the voluminous layers of history so painstakingly recounted.

The author goes some way towards explaining Dracula's motivations, he himself is quite chatty on the subject and we do get a glimpse of how exciting this book might have been. Despite some satisfaction at actually getting to meet the undead antihero, the manner in which the final act is played out is very anticlimactic and left me going "huh?"

So after such a long slog it was disappointing to say the least. I have heard this book is love it or hate it, and I do know people who liked it so maybe I missed something somewhere. But I sure as sugar am not going back to find it in the 704 pages I already wasted my time on! Is it well written? Yes, which is saying something. I just think it's a waste and nowadays the art of editing seems more lost than Dracula's tomb. My rating is difficult on this one- three stars implies satisfactory, which despite some good characterisation and writing, this book was ultimately not a satisfying read so I have to err towards the lower rate.

Summary: Decidedly dusty historical vampire novel