The Historian

Title: The Historian
Author: Elizabeth Kostova
Published: 2005 by
Genre: Historical vampire thriller.
Pages: 704


Be vewy, vewy quiet; we're hunting Dracula!

It's been a while again since I got this caught up in a book. And this one's the size of a brick. Yay!

First of all, a confession: I've never read Stoker's Dracula. I've tried a couple of times, but not yet. All I know of the myth (most of it anyway) I've learned from movies, TV, and Kouta Hirano's Hellsing. I do like vampires, though. (I don't consider the sparklies of Twilight vampires, in case anyone's wondering.) Anyway, in this book, The Historian, the main characters are running after Dracula, who may not be as dead as people had thought.

It's told from first person point of view, no matter whether we're reading the words of the narrator herself, her father, or her father's mentor, whose sudden disappearance after the appearance of a strange book kickstarts the book that we're reading here. Set in the 70's, 50's and early 30's, The Historian not only takes us on a trip through Europe, but also through time. The amount of details and historical accuracy boggles the mind, and the places are described with such accuracy that it feels like you're there yourself. It also helps that these places are real: Google and its image search were my friends more than once here.

Umm, I shouldn't try to write when I'm this sleepy. I keep forgetting what I wanted to say. Oh yes. The book started a bit slowly (but that might just have been me since I could only manage ten pages per evening the first few days before falling asleep (the book wasn't boring, I was just very, very tired)), but after that it's quite a fast-paced journey, with a lot of talk as well. The ending was a bit... anti-climatic. "Wait. That was it?!" but other than that, yeah. Great book! I finished it two days ago, but it still haunts me.


"December 12, 1930
"Trinity College, Oxford

"My dear and unfortunate successor:

"It is with regret that I imagine you, whoever you are, reading the account I must put down here. The regret is partly for myself - because I will surely be at least in trouble, maybe dead, or perhaps worse, if this is in your hands. But my regret is also for you, my yet-unknown friend, because only by someone who needs such vile information will this letter someday be read. If you are not my successor in some other sense, you will soon be my heir - and I feel sorrow at bequeathing to another human being my own, perhaps unbelievable, experience of evil. Why I myself inherited it I don't know, but I hope to discover that fact, eventually - perhaps in the course of writing to you or perhaps in the course of further events."