The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova -- Book Review and On the Ledge Readalongs Recap...

Quite a recap to put together on this subject!  And many a shout out and picture to share...please enjoy...

Few books draw me in as The Historian did, by Elizabeth Kostova.  Without a doubt, it is on my list of favorite books.

I hosted The Historian readalong on my other site On the Ledge Readalongs with my FABULOUS co-host Tedious & Brief.  How did the site start?  Read it by clicking here, or click the tab at the top of this page.

Bloggers who commented were (check out their sites!)
Peppermint, Ph.D,
Age 30+...A Lifetime of Books
Buttery Books
Desktop Retreat
Beachreader
Tell Me a Story
Geranium Cat's Bookshelf
Under the Boardwalk
Care's Online Book Club
Polishing Mud Balls
A Library of My Own
A Reader's Respite


This is my second reading of The Historian, and I definitely know it will not be my last. Written in a mostly epistolary format of letters, its pace is very Victorian-esque -- slow-paced at times, and then speeds up with incredible intrigue and page-turning anxiety.

The narrator, whose name we never learn, is a young sixteen-year-old girl in 1972, living in Amsterdam with only her father.  Her mother is gone from their lives, and her father, Paul, travels on business frequently.  Late one night, the narrator uncovers a book of incredible interest -- the pages are blank yet for a woodcut image of a dragon.  When her father returns, he is resigned and saddened by her discovery, and there begins the unfolding of an adventure to uncover the location of Dracula, Vlad Tepes of Wallachian history, the Impaler.

_________________________________________________________________________________________ But this book is about so much more than Dracula.  In this story, vampires are not sexy young people that are dreamy and moral.  Dracula and his minions are truly evil. _________________________________________________________________________________________ 

Few things also creep me out as the sight of a drawing of thousands of people that Vlad impaled.  The images that swirled in my mind as I read this book were eerie, freaky, horrifying.  Elizabeth Kostova weaves an incredibly layered story of fear, horror, and most of all, history.  What follows is a journey to so many places within Europe, and discussions about food, local customs, and cultures.  Not to mention, more than likely you may feel a sudden urge to immediately schedule a trip overseas.

At On the Ledge Readalongs, we had quite a fabulous group of followers -- twenty-four brilliant bloggers joined the fray, reading and posting responses to questions when they could.  Since it's a fairly large book of almost 700 pages, each week was broken into 100 pages and subsequent questions and discussion occurred.  Now, I'm no professional readalong coach, and people either love or hate a readalong, but oh man, for me, it was fun to read about all of the different pieces that were brought up in the book, like the amulet to ward off the Evil Eye, the food from different cultures (check out the post by clicking here), and the places that the characters visited!

The site thus evolved into each post listing a few questions, and then moving into a passage from the book that was incredibly descriptive in the location that the characters were traveling to, or a particular saint that was mentioned, or a meal that sounded so amazing that it was bound to make the reader drool -- so pictures were added to each post to help diversify the experience even more so and bring in our other senses along this reading experience.  The monasteries and amazing locations that the characters visited were even more incredible to learn that the actual places were even more jaw-dropping.  Check out the pictures by clicking here.  Below are some of my favorites, and I added the passages from the book so that you could see the stunning visual descriptions and how they correspond to the actual places.

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"Some communications between us needed no interpreter, anyway.  After another glorious ride along the river, we crossed what I later learned was Széchenyi Lánchid, the Széchenyi Chain Bridge, a miracle of nineteenth-century engineering named for one of Budapest's great beautifiers, Count István Széchenyi.  As we turned onto the bridge, the full evening light, reflected off the Danube, flooded the whole scene, so that the exquisite mass of the castle and churches in Buda, where we were headed, was thrown into gold-and-brown relief.  The bridge itself was an elegant monolith, guarded at each end by lions, couchants, and supporting two huge triumphant arches."  (Chapter 39)

Széchenyi Chain Bridge

Guarding Lions at Széchenyi Chain Bridge

Topkapi Palace, Turkey 

Hagia Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey

Interior of Saint Irine

"If my first glimpse of Stoichev's house had filled me with sudden hopelessness, my first glimpse of Rila Monastery filled me with awe.  The monastery sat in a dramatically deep valley -- almost filling it, at that point -- and above its walls and domes rose the Rila Mountains, which are very steep and forested with tall spruces."  (Ch. 61)

Rila Monastery, Bulgaria

"The great wooden doors of the gate were open, and we went through them into a sight I can never forget.  Around us loomed the striped walls of the monastery fortress, with their alternating patterns of black and red on white plaster, hung with long wooden galleries.  Filling a third of the enormous courtyard was a church of exquisite proportions, its porch heavily frescoed, its pale green domes alight in the midday sun.  Beside it stood a muscular, square tower of gray stone, visibly older than everything else in sight.  Stoichev told us that this was Hrelyo's Tower, built by a medieval nobleman as a haven from his political enemies.  It was the only remaining part of the earliest monastery on the site, which had been burned by the Turks and rebuilt centuries later in this striped splendor." (Ch. 61)

Rila Monastery Courtyard

I want to thank everyone who joined and participated ESPECIALLY Tedious & Brief!  If you haven't had a chance to visit his site, please do!!

Most of all, many had their first experience with this book -- and I encourage anyone who hasn't tried it to pick it up, and for those who tried and didn't like it -- give it another chance!  It might be even better by checking out the On the Ledge Readalongs site to help round out the experience!

And for those interested in another readalong -- hang tight, there might be another one around the corner...

Happy Reading!
Coffee and a Book Chick