The Historian in Reading with Style

Feb 28, 2013 Thomas Acland rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: historical-fiction, 2000-s, mystery, 21st-century, gothic, set-in-the-usa, set-in-france, set-in-the-uk, set-in-italy, set-in-transylvania

I have decided to give this book a three star rating but being honest this is a generous rating as I will not be recommending it, I just don't think it I disliked it enough to put it in the two star category with those books I finished but really hated reading.

A modern adaptation of Bram Stoker's classic Dracula , the novel is written from the perspective of several historians, exploring the myth that surrounds the ancient Prince Vlad the Impaler of Wallachia. If you haven't read Bram Stoker's I have decided to give this book a three star rating but being honest this is a generous rating as I will not be recommending it, I just don't think it I disliked it enough to put it in the two star category with those books I finished but really hated reading.

A modern adaptation of Bram Stoker's classic Dracula , the novel is written from the perspective of several historians, exploring the myth that surrounds the ancient Prince Vlad the Impaler of Wallachia. If you haven't read Bram Stoker's original and your thinking of reading this book then go and read the original first, if you don't enjoy the original then you are unlikely to enjoy this and if you read this before reading the original then it will spoil the original which is by far the better book.

I really enjoyed how this book started and over the first two hundred pages or so I really enjoyed reading it and was preparing to write a raving review about how good the story was, unfortunately the rest of the book failed to be as good, however I will first talk about what I enjoyed and then go on to describe why I didn't like the book overall.

The book draws a lot from the original Bram Stoker novel however goes into more historical detail being written from the views of historians and written in a epistolary style that allows historical references to be easily inserted into the text. During the initial pages were are largely told the story of Professor Rossi through both the memories of the lead characters father and the letters of Professor Rossi. This build up was engrossing and at one point I even managed to get so involved with the story that I missed my tube stop.

However after this build up and the subsequent disappearance of Rossi we begin to follow the paths of Paul and Helen as they hunt throughout eastern europe and Istanbul for clues of Dracula. This is largely told through letters left by Paul to his daughter and makes up the majority of the novel. Unfortunately having enjoyed Rossi's earlier parts I found Paul's parts distinctly less interesting.

For one I didn't really like the character of the young Paul much preferring him when he was the older storyteller relating events to his daughter as they travelled throughout Europe on conferences. However my biggest problem with this section was that I felts as though the author had lost the flow of the story. I know its historical fiction but you can still spend too much time on the history and not enough time telling a story, which is what I felt was happening, I was finding it difficult to remain interested in the story and would read whole chapters in which it did not feel as though the story was progressing.

Having become disinterested in the book I did battle through in the hope that we were building up to a big ending, to be honest there was a big ending but I did not find it anywhere near as dramatic as it should have been. I can't tell you whether this is because it is not written in a way that builds suspense or whether I had just become so disinterested that I no longer noticed.

Another point of note is that the lead character becomes largely redundant as the book progresses which is a real pity as I really liked her character and had hoped she would be heavily involved in the story.

In conclusion I would have preferred this book had it have been about 300 pages shorter than it is, the idea of the book is very good I just found I got bogged down in the middle and it didn't flow quickly enough.

However I will leave this review with the opening quote which gets you reading the book, it has to be one of my favourites. Even now having read the book and looking at the cover this quote makes me want to pick up the book and start reading.
"To you, perceptive reader, I bequeath my history..."

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May 02, 2015 Kendyl rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, best-historical, fantasy, exciting, coming-of-age

I want to preface this review by saying that this is not at all in the genre I usually read, so maybe I'm not the best judge, but when in a used bookstore, I try to get a couple books I'm not familiar with. Basically, this was a thrilling, and informative, read. I never really cared for the Dracula legend before, but this made it really interesting, and I've since bought a copy of Dracula to read. I'd recommend this to anyone who loves a good story, especially an adventure. ...more

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