The Historian (Elizabeth Kostova)

Ever since “The Da Vinci Code” became a big hit, bookstores have been filled with books of similar themes: adventure novels with a taste of “history”. One of them is “The Historian” by Elizabeth Kostova. I hadn’t read any new releases for some time, so when my friend offered that book to me, I was more than glad to accept her offer.

“The Historian” is an old story with a new twist, actually. It’s a long-long-long narrative about the hunt of, undoubtedly, the most famous phantom in our pop culture--vampire. Not just a vampire, but the vampire--Count Vlad of the Order of the Dragon (aka Dracula). Familiar, eh?

First, a little bit of summary. A woman (which remained nameless all through the book) recaptured a chapter in her life when, as a young woman, she followed the trail set by her predecessors (her father and her father’s post-graduate supervisor) in their hunt for Dracula. The quest extended for three generations (1930’s-1950’s-1970’s), that’s why I said that it’s a long-long-long narrative. The woman told her story, which in it contained his father’s story of his own past experience, which in it contained the memoirs of his supervisor. Confusing? I wouldn’t blame you. During my reading the book, there were times when I was befuddled myself at whose narrative it was which presented before me. Really, it took full concentration to read the book.

Each narrator (the girl, his father, her father’s post-grad supervisor) was lured into finding out all about Dracula, even going for a quest in search of him, due to the mysterious discovery of an old book. There weren’t any writings on the book, saved for the picture of a dragon with an inscription of “Dracula” in the middle pages of the book. Enough with the summary; lets on to my impression on the story.

In my opinion, “The Historian” fulfils the most basic requirement of a good story--the power to capture its audience (or readers, in this case). Unless there’s something more pressing that needed to be done immediately, I found it difficult to stop reading the book. That’s just how skillful Kostova was at weaving her tale.

Regardless its title, “The Historian”--a reverence to Dracula’s keenness in keeping the chronicles of men by means of keeping a private library--merely uses historical facts as ornaments. These facts are not really important for the sake of history itself.

Let me explain. There are a bunch of historical facts in “The Historian”. One wouldn’t have accused Kostova for not doing enough research because she did--foreign relations among countries during the Cold War, Ottoman Empire’s conquest of Europe in the 15th century, some Eastern European countries’ Middle Age’s history, etc. These facts are, however, only important in relation with Dracula (which was taken from a real life character).

In short, Kostova is only used historical facts to make her story more interesting, not because the importance of these facts--something which, as a history obsessed freak, I don’t fancy.

Nonetheless, it’s only trivial matter compared to the fact that there are far too many coincidences in the story. Too many coincidences that even the most unobservant readers will not fail to notice them. THAT is the more substantial flaw of “The Historian”. It seems that every time the girl’s father went--whether it’s a foreign city with a million people population or an international congress unrelated which topic unrelated whatsoever to Dracula--he would always meet people that possess the same mysterious book. He’s also very lucky to always find the documents containing information necessary to continue his investigation in such short period of time. Even the grand closure, when Dracula was successfully vanquished, is set upon accidental fashion. Isn’t it quite spectacular that two people who had just arrived--in a timely manner, by the way--at the spot, could be able to organize the perfect ambush to beat an extremely intelligent character who had outsmarted his enemies for near half millennium?

The overabundance of coincidences is only one of “The Historian” ‘s minus points. Until now, I’m still left in the dark about Dracula’s true motive of giving his dragon books to all those people. Sure, it’s mentioned that Dracula only gave his books to few selected individuals; mainly historians because they had the ability to “preserve the past”, so to speak, something that Dracula himself wished to do. That also explains why Dracula ended up taking Professor Rossi (the post-grad supervisor) and told him to make an inventory of Dracula’s book collection.

Still, something is amiss. Why not just make the historians his slave right from the very start? It would surely save lots of time and energy. Dracula wishes that his existence kept secret, which was why he tried to intimidate anyone who tried to find out more about him. If that’s the case, why he gave the dragon book in the first place--knowing the curious nature of the historians would surely cause them to track Dracula? There were five people that received the book, but why only Professor Rossi that was kidnapped when the other historians also took inquiries to pursue him? I wonder if anybody who had read the book could tell me the answers to all those questions.

Overall, “The Historian” is worth the read, especially if you like adventure novels. It’s not one that I’d like to add to my favorite book list, though.