The Historian

A very long listen… with The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova.  Kostova’s tale is broken into three interwoven perspectives from different storytellers and different times, 1930s, 1950s, and 1970s (the narrator – the early days, the father (Paul) in the 1950s, and then the daughter (who is nameless???) in the 1970s).  The story is pieced together by the history enthusiasts (narrator, Paul, and his daughter).  This journey revolves around the history and lore of “Vlad the Impaler,” ie “Dracula”.  Yes, this is another vampire book!  How can this be?  Never a vampire book on the list and now 2 in one week?  Maybe I should never have proclaimed that NYU RAs don’t read vampire stories.  The good and the bad of this book, is that while vampire legend is a part of the book, much of it focuses on the journey of Paul looking for Dr. Rossi (his dissertation chair) and his daughter searching for her father.  What is the saying... "what comes around goes around?"  So the daughter grows up with a father who never shares anything about her mother except she died when she was born.  In a novel, that should raise suspicion already… Guess what?  Maybe she didn’t die.  When the daughter is searching through books in the attic she finds something strange and presents it to her father.  “The jig is up,” time to fess up Dad... Mom (Helen) didn’t really die during child birth… and is she still alive? History all seems to be united in the Dracula story.  Dad finally tells the tale of mom and that she was bitten by luring a vampire to gain more information about “Vlad” and the maps trying to find him.  There are a few journeys we learn about, Dad’s search with his wife (which leads to her disappearance) to find Dr. Rossi (oh yeah, he is really Helen's father!) and then Paul and his daughter’s search for Mom.  There are two love stories, Helen and Paul and also the daughter and Professor Bora (whom she meets on her journey).  Seems like a lot of history repeating itself!  Oh yeah, the vampire killing is pretty exciting, otherwise… hmmm way too long and repetitive to me.  I know it won some awards and all, but I don’t like vampire stores (in fact I dislike bats immensely – Gladys and the kids needed to get rabies shots when one flew in our house in Syracuse.. that too is a long story).  Not my cup of tea…