#it’s The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

[therefugeofbooks]

as a teacher at the end of the school year, i'm dreaming of days i can sleep and read all day long

[sylvana-the-tsarina]

yesterday I borrowed a book from a library for the very first time and I have this soft feeling that I made smol!sylvana so intensely happy with that

[chaoticbuggybitchboy]

If I had a nickel for every book I was unreasonably obsessed with where the main character was an unnamed girl, I’d have two nickels which isn’t a lot but it’s really weird

[agardenandlibrary]

Afternoon reading: The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

I'm having the odd experience of really enjoying every page but also really wanting the story to hurry up so I know what happens.

[aseaofquotes]

Elizabeth Kostova, The Historian

[paperbackpercolate]

Review: "The Historian" by Elizabeth Kostova

Published: 2005 Page Count: 704

Late one night, exploring her father’s library, a young woman finds an ancient book and a cache of yellowing letters addressed ominously to ‘My dear and unfortunate successor’. Her discovery plunges her into a world she never dreamed of – a labyrinth where the secrets of her father’s past and her mother’s mysterious fate connect to an evil hidden in the depths of history.

Date Started: 26 September 2024 Date Finished: 15 October 2024

The Historian is like if Indiana Jones met Dracula. Historians and Anthropologists exploring eastern Europe and encountering danger- both human and supernatural- in their hunt for artifacts and the truth hidden in tales of folklore. 

While the framing of the novel is from the perspective of an unnamed narrator, the bulk of the story follows her father, Paul, in his youth. After the disappearance of his friend and advisor Professor Rossi, Paul teams up with fellow graduate student Helena to find him.

After reading through notes and letters left to him by Rossi, Paul suspects that Dracula- Vlad Tepes of 15th century Wallachia- is responsible for the disappearance. 

His journey with Helen to find Rossi brings them to temples and catacombs and has them cross paths with secret societies and vampires alike. 

Overall, this is a well-paced book that doesn't rush to get where it's going. The characters make discoveries in a way that isn't overwhelmingly fast or unrealistic.  They use the resources available to them and often times are relying only on their quick wits and silver tongues to escape danger.  

For me personally, my only grievence with the book is that some passages are written as academic papers, which can be a bit of a slog to get through. I know this was done purposefully by the author, but it did at times make me feel like I was back in college pulling an all-nighter to get through my readings for class.  

The book is also very long. It's the longest book I've read in 2024. Especially towards the end of my time reading it there were moments where my motivation to continue was less so the story being told and more so just the desire to finish the book.  

Much like Bram Stoker's Dracula, Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian is more or less and epistolary novel.  The bulk of the story is not our protagonist retelling events, but copying over events from letters, journal entries, and postcards. 

Also like Stoker's Dracula, romance and friendship play huge roles in the narrative.  While there is no trio of suitors brought together to defeat a vampire in honor of the woman they love, the main motivation behind most actions the characters take is love- be it romantic, familial, or platonic. 

While many books promote themselves as being modern takes on Dracula or savvy retellings of Stoker's novel, in an emotional and spiritual sense, The Historian is in my opinion the definitive new take on Dracula.

I recommend this book to anyone who enjoyed reading Bram Stoker's Dracula, has an interest in history, or enjoys mysteries and romances. 

"As a historian, I have learned that, in fact, not everyone who reaches back into history can survive it. And it is not only reaching back that endangers us; sometimes history itself reaches inexorably forward for us with its shadowy claws."

[dancingsalome]

Teenage fashion, 1972.

As the first chapters of The Historian takes place in the early 70s and the unnamed narrator is 16, I thought it could be fun to have a bit of a visual to what she could have worn.

[seekerreads]

5-4-3-2-1 book challenge!

another booktok trend i decided to pop into bookblr!! i've watched a million of these so i wanted to make my own!

5 books I love

☄. *. ⋆Books listed:

❥ Madame Restell: The Life, Death and Resurrection of Old New York's Most Fabulous, Fearless, and Infamous Abortionist by Jennifer Wright

❥ Pet by Akwaeke Emezi

❥ The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride by Daniel James Brown

❥ Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting by Clare Pooley

❥ Dragonfall by L.R Lam

4 books on my tbr

☄. *. ⋆Books listed:

❥ An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir

❥ The Heart Asks Pleasure First by Karuna Ezara Parikh

❥ The Undertaking of Hart and Mercy by Megan Bannen

❥ The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

3 books I recommend

☄. *. ⋆Books listed:

❥ Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb

❥ Fireborne by Rosaria Munda

❥ Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

2 recent 5-star reads

☄. *. ⋆Books listed:

❥ The Six Deaths of the Saint by Alix E. Harrow

❥ Anxious People by Fredrik Backman

1 current read

☄. *. ⋆Books listed:

❥ Royal Assassin by Robin Hobb

(divider credit: @enchanthings )

[literarycatchall]

“Today I will go to wait for her again, because I cannot help it, because my whole being seems now to be bound up in the being of one so different from myself and yet so exquisitely familiar that I can scarely understand what has happened.”

—The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova (2005)

[therefugeofbooks]

Currently reading The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

[lets-curse-each-other]

i'm really fond of Eastern Europe described in fiction about vampires. u know these gloomy, isolated villages; antediluvian, superstitious communities; deep desperation, the odour of incense, colored scarves on women's heads, dense forests, the Carpathians.

like... yeah, that's a pretty reliable picture. thank you for adding such a powerful atmosphere to the culture i live in. better in fiction, honestly.

[agameofbooksblog]

New reads! I didn’t realize I picked two vampire books until I started listening to The Historian. What are your thoughts about these books?

[chaoticbuggybitchboy]

made the disastrous mistake of thinking about a The Historian au where Professor Rossi did go back for Helen’s mother bcuz now I’m

don’t think about Helen growing up in England with her parents. Don’t think about her mother learning English and going to school and being brilliant. Don’t think about them moving to the United States for Rossi’s work and her mother having a job and Helen studying anthropology at Rossi’s new university. don’t think about Helen and Paul meeting in the library at their university. Don’t think about paul desperately begging to borrow the one copy of a book ‘just for a few hours please’. Don’t think about them falling in love and him being shocked to realize she’s his advisors daughter.

Don’t think about Helen’s mother and Paul’s mother bonding over cooking and being friends.

don’t think about their daughter growing up with a mother. Don’t think about her learning Romanian from her grandmother.

don’t think about their daughter staying with her grandparents while her parents look for professor Rossi in Europe. Don’t think about Helen and Paul finding him in time and bringing him home safe.

don’t think about their daughter going to England and studying in Oxford and falling in love with barley and don’t think about Paul’s reaction to finding that her graduate advisor was none other than Hugh James.

don’t think about all of them visiting Hungary and speaking Romanian when introducing their daughter and Barley to Ava. Don’t think about Ava cooking them a huge dinner and Helen and her mother helping while her daughter laughs and teaches Barley more Romanian and Hungarian.

don’t think about them being happy for the love of god

[agardenandlibrary]

***Spoilers for The Historian***

I think it's so funny that Dracula is like "I don't have time to catalog all my books... instead I will play threatening, increasingly convoluted mind games across continents with every academic who starts to study my life, to judge if one of them wants a job" like

a) worst job interview ever

b) dude, it's been 500 years, I think you probably had time to catalog your books

[jesteia]

[ridetomisery]

I saw on the older woman's face the gleam of a single tear. I've read there is no such thing as a single tear, that old poetic trope. And perhaps there isn't, since hers was simply companion to my own.

Elizabeth Kostova - The Historian