The
Historian is indeed a book that did not start merely
start with a passing “what if”, question,
but stemmed from years of well thought out preparation,
and seeming years of planning and writing. Each page
and every description painted so many textures that
the story transports you exactly to the location of
the happenings on the paper before you. It managed to
detail some parts of history that I would have thought
I would have a hard time grasping what transpired before
me, yet I was able to keep up. The story start at a
snail’s pace, and does keep going that pace for
quite some time, yet it did pick up after a while. When
that happened, I have no idea. I just know that at some
point getting to the end of the book switched from quenching
curiosity to almost seemingly sustenance.
It
blended a great fantasy story about Vlad the Impaler
and Dracula that not only intrigues you from the beginning,
it holds your interest throughout. The Historian
has successfully blurred the lines between fantasy and
reality.
Character
development was the area I thought Elizabeth Kostova
really shined. There are so many characters that you
meet along the way that seem small yet at the same time
each had impact upon the outcome. Then you have the
relationship between the young woman and her father.
That
is how the core of this story. They both share something
together that at the beginning only the father knows
of, and yet the daughter find out what that is until
end. The young woman’s father was my personal
character. We meet him as an older man at the end of
his life with tired eyes from a lot of mileage, both
physically and spiritually. Then we learn his life’s
journey. On the flip side, we meet a young woman, full
of ambition, curiosity and questions. Her inquisitiveness
starts her on a quest that she could not have anticipated,
yet ultimately took with her eyes wide open.
To
sum it up, Elizabeth Kostova has not only shown a great
example of a fantasy book, she has shown all of us a
great example of how a great story teller writes a book.
Recommended
reading.
Elizabeth
Kostova's Website |