The Historian by Elizabeth KostovaMy rating: 2 of 5 stars
Boy did I get suckered into this one. I remember when this came out; it was everywhere. I'd just had a baby so I glanced at it several times and thought "That would be a fun DaVinci Code kind of read when I have time someday." Never picked it up. Never even looked very carefully at the cover.
Then we bought a Nook so that we could travel with our precociously well-read 8 year old without hauling a steamer trunk of books along with us. I was perusing the e-books available at the library and this popped up. "Perfect!" I thought. "I'll read this on vacation!"
But wait. It's about VAMPIRES?
How the hell could I have missed that?
I'm about 2/3rds of the way through; finding it ponderous, convoluted and stodgy but still engaging because of Kostova's ability to evoke a sense of place. You can almost smell Istanbul. In a good way.
But what editor anywhere thought it would be a good idea to faithfully fictionalize a scholarly article about a 14th century travel log? Zzzzzzzz.
And, wait. Vampires? Really?
And now I'm done and feel the need to edit the whole damn thing so that it has a sense of pacing and story arch.
And, really? One lucky shot was enough?
BUT I did, in fact, read the whole thing, so that's saying something, I suppose.
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I loved it, but then I love reading about Vampires. A lot. I just read Fevre Dream, which you might like more than this.It's completely different and the main character is a gruff steamboat captain who you really come to love. But I digress. The first time I tried to read The Historian I gave up because it was boring. But then I picked it up again a few months later and that time I stayed up until 3 a.m. reading it and I've read it a couple more times since. It does get quite ponderous, but I think it's really a lovely read. I also read her next book, something about swans and artn (or maybe there was just a swan on the cover?), and it wasn't really great. But she does write prettily.
ReplyDeleteEven if you don't like vampires, you should read The Dead Travel Fast. I think your kid would like it. It's basically a study of the ubiquity of vampires in modern culture and it is quite funny and fascinating.