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Review - The Historian
Aug. 13th, 2008 02:09 amI really loved Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian -- read it in two days, even with my girlfriend here and lots of other things I could've been doing. I'm a big fan of Stoker's Dracula, which might have explained it.
I can understand why people wouldn't like this book. I know there are various historical inaccuracies, which makes one wince when you consider that the very title is The Historian. The writing can be hard to get into, too -- the tone/style doesn't vary much between all the different narrators, which was awkward: for some of the time I couldn't quite remember who was telling which part of the story.
But I did love it. I liked the writing style -- although that might be my synaesthesia kicking in, because I liked the flavour of the words. The description is good, very colourful and rich. I got sucked into the story, and I didn't guess everything before it happened, which is currently my big bug bear with books. I liked the little references to Stoker's Dracula, too.
I think this is one I might recommend you reading some pages of before you buy it, or getting it free or from bookmooch or something. I think it requires a bit of patience, to get into the style, and to deal with the fact that it's kind of slow-moving. It definitely picks up speed -- or at least, for me it did.
I can understand why people wouldn't like this book. I know there are various historical inaccuracies, which makes one wince when you consider that the very title is The Historian. The writing can be hard to get into, too -- the tone/style doesn't vary much between all the different narrators, which was awkward: for some of the time I couldn't quite remember who was telling which part of the story.
But I did love it. I liked the writing style -- although that might be my synaesthesia kicking in, because I liked the flavour of the words. The description is good, very colourful and rich. I got sucked into the story, and I didn't guess everything before it happened, which is currently my big bug bear with books. I liked the little references to Stoker's Dracula, too.
I think this is one I might recommend you reading some pages of before you buy it, or getting it free or from bookmooch or something. I think it requires a bit of patience, to get into the style, and to deal with the fact that it's kind of slow-moving. It definitely picks up speed -- or at least, for me it did.
