Has anyone read 'The Historian' by Elizabeth Kostova?

[cynatnite]

I'm thinking of buying it and noticed that it's over 600 pages.

[winga222]

1. I really enjoyed it

I finished it the other night. It's a pretty engrossing read. Not a perfect book, mind you. Still a few loose ends dangling at the end. But a very good read.

[KarenInMA]

2. It's very good. It could have used a good editor,

it really didn't need to be 600 pgs, but I recommend it to anyone interested in history.

[demjuli]

3. Beautifully written...

I'm about 3/4 of the way through--I loved the first half of the book. Her scene-setting is brilliant--the story takes place in many locations across Europe, and she describes each new setting briefly, but so vividly that I felt like I was there. The first half of the book was really compelling, but it hit a dull patch about 50 pages ago.

[WCGreen]

4. Defiantly needed a better editor....

A lot of repetition....

I liked the historical perspective but I don't think I would recommend this book until it came out in paperback....

To much, to little action,

Ms. Kostova seems to be really impressed with her self and I think it detracts from what could have been a much better book....

[flamingyouth]

5. I completely agree with you.

I just finished it last night and had the same thoughts. I bought it at the airport before a long flight. I got into it right away but found it got boring by the middle. I did like the interesting spin on Dracula's life as a historian, but the book didn't need to be so long and meandering.

[northzax]

6. i bought it this weekend

for a flight, and am 150 pages in, I've had to put it away until the weekend, or I won't get any homework done...

[mainer]

7. if you like travelogues, okay. if you want plot, forget it.

This book was pretty much like a travel diary. "Then we went to Potsylvania and drank tea and ate crumpets and daddy told me the story of how his friend disappeared, but then, JUST as he got to the really important part, he stopped and said, 'let's go do something else' and I had to wait for another ten weeks, when we went to Dorkylvania, and we drank sherry and ate cakes and daddy told me more of the story, but just as it was getting really exciting, he said, 'wait, i can't talk any more today, we'll finish this another time,' and then a few weeks later we went to ...."

You get the picture. By halfway through the book, I was so infuriated by the author's drawing out what could have been told in a few hundred pages, using this STUPID literary device of "but then he stopped, JUST as he was about to tell me the answer" that I threw the book down.

[Dorian Gray]

9. Heeee, mainer...

There WAS a little bit of that!

I liked the travel diary aspect of the book, and I LOVED learning about Turkey and Easter Europe. I also liked the vampire lore co-existing in the very sterile Communist lands.

But, there was a lot of drawing out of the story!

[northzax]

10. Easter Europe?

is that next to Passover Europe? :)

[Dorian Gray]

11. Hah!

Sorry! But, typos make for good humor, sometimes! :)

[Dorian Gray]

8. Wow...

good timing! I haven't wandered over to the fiction section in awhile, and I JUST finished this book two nights ago! I liked it a lot (I can't say I LOVED it, but it was very good!)

I love vampires and history, so it fulfilled two of my favorite things to read about.

I did think the ending was a bit anti-climactic, however.

[kweerwolf]

12. I was really looking forward to reading it ...

... but the book was a bit of a letdown. It took time to get used to the shifting narratives when she goes back and forth between the daughter and the father without making it clear who's actually talking.

I enjoyed the history in the book, though the subject wasn't exactly new to me. While it was fun to read about so many different locations, there were times when the plotting seemed to really drag out.

Still, I don't regret the experience. It's not a bad book, but it could have definitely been made better. I think I'm so used to Ann Rice writing from the vampires' perspective that to read 600 pages before the vampire makes more than a quick appearance made me wish for a much shorter distance between the front and back cover.

Oh ... and for Ann Rice fans, this book will probably be a let down for you. It has none of the eroticism Ann puts in her Vampire Chronicles (but then it also doesn't read like a "boddice-ripping" romance novel like Rice's started to).

[senaca]

13. I enjoyed the book.

I was intrigued by the imagery of the the block cut Drakula on what else was a blank paged book. To me it stood for Vlad, his enemies or anyone else in history who put power before people. To get that power the self or humanity of the subjects had to be erased.

I liked the back and forth story log between father and daughter because it added another dimension to the angle that each generation believes they hold the answer perhaps based on past discoveries, yet in the end become "unfortunate predecessors" in the game of power or Drakula.

I particularly enjoyed the parts the took place in the cold block countries.