The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
January 4th 2007 09:05
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
This was the book that came with a million dollar advance, a Hollywood contract, the marketing blitz lesser mortals can only dream of and an author who looks as if she’s made for a reprise of Dallas. The Historian is Elizabeth Kostova’s vampire novel. It is based on Vlad Tepis, the Wallachian prince, the real figure behind Bram Stoker’s Dracula character.
As tyrants go, Tepis has a middling record. He has killed around 20,000 of his own people, the book quotes at some point. Considering Saddam gassed hundreds of thousands and he has millions of fans who still think he’s some kind of martyr, 20,000 looks cheap. Vlad, you’re small fry, mate.
Vlad Tepes, The Real Dracula
This kind of terror setup reminds one Anne Radcliffe’s type of Gothic novel where everything will be explained at the end. But the book takes a dubious dip into the supernatural in the climax and cheats us of even that small satisfaction. As a terror novel, maybe it would have worked in the age of Boris Karloff. Most of the information about Vlad Tepes presented in this novel can be more simply gleaned from this website. How does Kostova then fill her tome? By adding more information about each and every secondary topic-- the fifteenth-century East European towns, the Turkish- European clashes etc etc—and spacing her chase toward a limp climax in every one of those dismal towns.
| 52 |
| Vote |
Subscribe to this blog
