The Historian in Pick-a-Shelf

Sep 20, 2010 Paul Perry rated it it was amazing

This is such a superbly constructed novel, the framework being told by the narrator, never named, but the majority of the book in epistolary form through the letters and journals of her father and her father's professor, with some additional letters from her mother. It perhaps this, along with the pacing, which gives the book a slightly old-fashioned feel, but this certainly isn't a cause for complaint. The way that the narrator reads something in her father's journal that he has discovered in a This is such a superbly constructed novel, the framework being told by the narrator, never named, but the majority of the book in epistolary form through the letters and journals of her father and her father's professor, with some additional letters from her mother. It perhaps this, along with the pacing, which gives the book a slightly old-fashioned feel, but this certainly isn't a cause for complaint. The way that the narrator reads something in her father's journal that he has discovered in a letter from his professor

This superbly constructed novel follows the teenage daughter of a US diplomat as she seeks to unravel the dark secret that obsesses her father, using his journals which record events of some years before she was born, including notes of letters of his college professor. This nested style might have been awkward, but is handled with such deft skill that it flows beautifully. The epistolary form, and perhaps something in the pacing, gives the book a slightly old fashioned air, but this is certainly not a complaint. Rather, Kostova is happy to enthrall the reader gradually with exquisite detail and carefully paced reveals instead of the fast jump cuts more common in a modern thriller.

This pace, and the space of the 720 pages, allows for some wonderful travelogue throughout Europe – Sophia, Budapest, Oxford, rural Romania – and to Istanbul, that is exquisite and never superfluous, along with the exploration of some interesting themes, among them the shifting patterns of political and religious power in Eastern Europe over the last half millennium and an aside on the horrific possibilities if someone like Stalin were able to become immortal, and a continued revelling in a love of books and learning – although this is made rather uncomfortable when we find who the historian of the title actually refers to.

(Slight spoiler – but only if you have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHAT THIS BOOK IS ABOUT)

For me, one of the books great achievements is to deny one of the central themes of Stoker's original Dracula, where the overriding metaphor is of the contamination of foreign blood. In The Historian, almost all the pivotal figures are of mixed heritage – Professor Rossi is Italian-English, and in his daughter Romanian is added to the mix, and other characters are Italian-Turkish and even Scots-Hungarian Gypsy – and this mixing of cultures and ancestry is foregrounded as a strength.

One last word on the audiobook to which I listened. This was performed superbly by Justine Ayre as the narrator and Paul Michael as everyone else. A book can be made or destroyed in the audio form by the quality of the voice talent, and here Paul Michael especially did a wonderful job, each voice distinct and unique and the accents superb.
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Jul 28, 2011 Kristina Simon rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I finally finished The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova and it took WAY too long! While the story was interesting and Kostova's descriptions of European cities were often lovely, I found the book unnecessarily wordy and not as gripping as I would have liked. And the ending? No idea what that was all about.... but I didn't like it at all. ...more

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Jul 24, 2010 Rachel added it

I think I read this.
But the fact that I can't remember what happens is a bad sign.
I confuse this book with Geraldine Brooke's "People of the Book" but Brooke's book was much better--I must assume--since I remember the plot. ...more

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