The Historian

To you, my unfortunate successor, I bequeath my history...

I recently finished The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova and I'm not quite sure what to make of it.

I'm tempted to say that it was good.

I'm also tempted to say that it was mediocre.

What I do find remarkable, is that there is a fan site. Which mentions that this book is being courted for a movie.

This leaves me feeling largely perplexed. How does one make a film when the main character itself is largely unknown?

Because believe it or not, The Historian's main character is not the main character.

Or maybe she is.

Or was it her father?

Wait a minute... Which of these two historians is The Historian?

For argument's sake, let's say it's the daughter. She's ultimately the one that is revealing the narrative to us.

The story itself is a collection of first hand experiences (a handful really) that occur to the narrator (because she is never given a name. Ever) interwoven with letters written to her by her father describing the horrific experiences he went through 20 odd years earlier than the book's present day.

An Aside: the book was written in "first person" which left me with a vaguely unsatisfied feeling, especially since it was in doubt who the main protagonist even was because most of the story is through the eyes of the narrator's father through his letters to his daughter. This being said, I knew the narrator's father's name: Paul and so I had an easier time of following his first person account of events. I found it incredibly distracting to read a book through the eyes of a person I didn't even know the name of because I (ie. me) wasn't reading Paul's letters. The narrator was and the narrator's "I" is not me. How can I immerse myself completely in the story if I don't know the basics? But I digress.

Unfortunately, I was never able to lose this "fogginess" of feeling. Throughout the entire book, which, actually, has two story lines: one that traces the path of "Dracula" throughout Eastern Europe and the path of the narrator's father hot on the trail of a legend (or the deadly undead?) which has left repercussions on the present (the kidnapping of his Professor) for reasons unknown (which, by the way, takes place 20 years before the the second story line) and another that has the narrator tracing the path of her father who has disappeared.

This, strange as this may be, is why this book is a mystery.

We're led on a wild goose chase of remarkable proportions. Where the most insignificant details in ancient and flaking folios lead us to surprising conclusions or devastating deadends. Clues that demand much wriggly thought to puzzle them out. Libraries, archives, museums: all were poached for the slightest information about deeds from the past. Without exception. And sometimes I was left wondering: wôt the hell is going on, where did that come from, was I sleeping while I read what came before?...

When we finally catch up to the quarry, the results are surprising. The denouement (which I suddenly realise is French for the untangling of a knot) of one of the plot lines is satisfying, but the one that follows is... strange...

I'm usually a lover of a good, long, book. This book, however, owing to the way it was written, and the fact that there was a great deal of obscure information and chaste but convenient coincidences, could have been honed down a good 100 pages.

And it could have used a narrator with a name.

And maybe more blood.

And though I said that I thought that the daughter was The Historian. I don't actually think that she's The Historian.

You'll have to read the book to realise why.