”The Historian” -- by Elizabeth Kostova (Little Brown & Company; 06/2005)
If you are a history fan and also interested in the legend of Dracula, you should not miss this book. I do not know if the Chinese edition has come out yet; but if it does, read it! You will not regret it.
The book bears a challenging length of 642 pages. Apart from the fascinating mytery of whether Dracula is alive or not, I was astonished by the author’s meticulous research on the subject, though towards the later part of the book, some section begins to read like a doctoral dissertation.
This is the author’s first book. She graduated from Yale University.
She said that the inspiration of this book comes from her childhood experience of traveling in Central Europe with her parents. Her father often told her Dracula stories but mostly based on Hollywood film versions. To begin writing this novel, Kostova (her husband’s last name; he is from Bulgaria) took a real historical mytery: where is Vlad the Impaler (Dracula) buried? or what became of his remains? And her research and story started from there...
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Review from Publishers Weekly:
”In 1972, a 16-year-old American living in Amsterdam finds a mysterious book in her diplomat father’s library. The book is ancient, blank except for a sinister woodcut of a dragon and the word ”Drakulya,” but it’s the letters tucked inside, dated 1930 and addressed to ”My dear and unfortunate successor,” that really pique her curiosity. Her widowed father, Paul, reluctantly provides pieces of a chilling story; it seems this ominous little book has a way of forcing itself on its owners, with terrifying results. Paul’s former adviser at Oxford, Professor Rossi, became obsessed with researching Dracula and was convinced that he remained alive. When Rossi disappeared, Paul continued his quest with the help of another scholar, Helen, who had her own reasons for seeking the truth. As Paul relates these stories to his daughter, she secretly begins her own research. Kostova builds suspense by revealing the threads of her story as the narrator discovers them: what she’s told, what she reads in old letters and, of course, what she discovers directly when the legendary threat of Dracula looms.”
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