The Historian [Kindle Edition]

Elizabeth Kostova (Author)

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 existed-and 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.

Editorial Reviews

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

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. It's been four years since Kostova's door-stopping vampire novel first shot up the bestseller lists, but this marvelous audio adaptation is worth the wait. Narrated by an ensemble of talented actors, this audio book is enhanced by impressive musical scoring during key transitions (from past to present, or between narrators) and at pivotal junctures in the story. The music adds to the eeriness of the novel's progression, while the brisk abridgement keeps the pace moving much more compellingly than the print version: where the novel reproduced a 15 page academic journal article, this adaptation trims it to its bones by allowing primary sources to speak directly across centuries of history. Rich with evocative settings and a sparkling cast, this adaptation may be an improvement upon the original. A Little, Brown hardcover.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• File Size: 936 KB
• Print Length: 704 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0751537284
• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company; 1st edition (June 1, 2005)
• Sold by: Hachette Book Group
• Language: English
• ASIN: B000FCK6EI
• Text-to-Speech: Not enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Not Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,977 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
  • #63 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Men's Adventure

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

908 of 983 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars This is an exciting novel! June 14, 2005

By Scott Pointon VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

This debut novel from Kostova contains elements from many of my favorite genres - thriller, suspense, mystery, historical fiction, and vampire lore. It is no surprise then that this supremely intelligent story was a very entertaining read. Though I feel that the story concept and character development deserve five stars, I feel that there are a few important flaws in this book which put it into the four star category.

First the good: All of the characters in this tale are very believable, including Vlad Tepes himself. I really enjoyed the historical facts surrounding the Ottoman Empire and Eastern Europe that Kostova weaved into her tale. I also loved the way she used letters to reveal the more thrilling aspects of the story bit by bit. This kept me in that "I'll just read ten more pages" mode on many a late night.

Now for the problems: The first 300 pages of this book were very compelling and hard to put down. Somewhere between page 300 and 450 it began to feel like Kostova had an old graduate school dissertaion on the migration patterns of monks in the 15th century lying around so she decided to work it into the story. Wow did that slow the pace... I don't have a problem with the storyline taking the characters on a search for the history of these monks, its just that Kostova occasionally strayed across the line between entertaining fiction and dry academic research.

All of that said, my opinion as a librarian and avid reader of such stories is that this is an excellent book, well worth reading. I am sure that it will have wide appeal and is no doubt deserved of its huge marketing push. I have heard that there is already talk of a movie...

543 of 620 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A suspenseful, literary novel June 14, 2005

By D. Bakken

Format:Hardcover

The marketing campaign is underway and Elizabeth Kostova's debut novel is already being hyped as the "Dracula Code" or some similar slogan. I disagree with that approach, not just because they are quite different in more ways than just storyline, but because "The Da Vinci Code" was a good thriller with elements of history mixed in, but it is not even in the same league with this book.

"The Historian" is an epic work of historical fiction that sweeps across Europe during the four decades between 1930 and the mid 1970s. It just also happens to involve the Dracula myth and a good dose of suspense. Now, some people may object to me calling this novel a work of historical fiction because it is mostly fiction and contains very few real characters. That is true, but Kostova does such an amazing job of making the Dracula myths come alive that you can't help feeling that the legends and the story are real. Her research is stunning in its attention to detail and the wide range of topics Kostova must've studied. A previous reviewer slightly criticizes Kostova for spending too many pages describing the pilgrimage routes of monks hundreds of years ago. While sections like that do slow down the pace of the novel somewhat, they don't distract from it. The last book that I read that combines elements of history, suspense, and great characters as well as "The Historian" was "The Devil in the White City".

Highly recommended!

41 of 43 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Who Is The Historian? April 16, 2009

By KiaJG

Format:Hardcover

Like all respectable vampire tales, this one spans centuries. However, that is where the similarity ends because I have never read a vampire tale quite like this. The protagonists span three generations. I can see someone turning this book into an epic movie or mini series. Each generation has one or more of its own historians. All are looking for the real Dracula (Prince Vlad Tepes) for both professional and personal reasons. The search for the truth will take them to several different countries and to journeys of self discovery that none anticipated.

Readers I must warn you that if you are hoping for a romance novel, this is not it. There are several love stories woven within and through the primary story, but as compelling as they may sometimes be (I wept at page 526), they take a back seat to the search for the "Dark Prince".

This is an adventure but not in the usual sense as there is really not much action (until near the end). Remember, these are historians so you can imagine their method of searching. I did not find this novel "Genuinely terrifying" as quoted from the Boston Globe but I agree it is "A thrill ride through history" as stated by the Denver Post. If you love history, traveling, and emersion into other cultures, you will love this book. It will feel as if you have been on an exotic vacation.

Warning, I found the first half of the book difficult to read. Elizabeth Kostova is a stickler for details (possibly in the excess) and I found it hard to form attachments to the characters.... The initial moving back and forth through different events within several generations was a bit confusing, but if you can hang in there, by the second half of the book you should have a strong bond to one or more of the protagonists and you will be thankful for the details that brought you to that realization.

This is a book that should make you think, "It could happen". I can even see readers who tend to enjoy non-fiction more than fiction finding merit and a great deal of fun in following our heroes through situations that are exotic and yet, believable.

What do our heroes find? I am not one to be accused of creating spoilers. My personal joy is in sharing a book with someone and then watching them discover the prize for themselves. I will tell you that what they find is quite fascinating so enjoy. Oh, and with all the historians in this story, I put this question to you. Who is THE Historian? Read more ›

102 of 117 people found the following review helpful

1.0 out of 5 stars Signs you're reading a bad book August 11, 2005

By Ethan L. Johnson

Format:Hardcover

1. You tell everyone you know how annoying the book is.
2. You're on page 300 and realize that a good editor would have cut out two-thirds of what you've read.
3. The book is told entirely in first-person, in journals and letters, by seven different characters, and you can't keep them apart in your head.
4. One of the "letters" comprises several hundred pages of the book, obliterating all suspension-of-disbelief.
5. It's a vampire book that is 99% vampire-free, a thriller lacking excitement, and a mystery that is not compelling.
6. You're on page 540 of its 642 pages and haven't touched it in three days.
7. You finish it an immediately start composing a blog entry slamming it.
8. You're reading the inexplicable bestseller The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova.

More About the Author

Elizabeth Kostova's engrossing debut novel is the culmination of ten years of research and a lifetime of imagining--since Kostova's girlhood, when her father entertained her with tales of Dracula, she has envisioned the story that would become The Historian. With her academic spirit and extraordinary talent, she's spun an intricate tale of sprawling mystery and suspense. Kostova graduated from Yale and holds an MFA from the University of Michigan, where she won the Hopwood Award for the Novel-in-Progress.