The Historian
In the 21st century, writing a novel set in the present day (or near enough to it) and featuring the character of Dracula is nothing if not a challenge. The figure has become so ingrained in popular culture that the author really only has two options: (a) pretend that the last century or so of Dracula-inspired literature, cinema and all-round pop culture never happened and, in doing so, make the characters of your novel seem incredibly out of touch, or (b) acknowledge that Bram Stoker, Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee et al did indeed happen, and run the risk of becoming incredibly self-conscious (in the Scream mould) in the process. With The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova does something rather interesting, acknowledging the existence of Stoker’s book, the Lugosi film and so on, but spending a minimum amount of time with them and instead attempting to combine Dracula with an actual historical figure, the 15th century Romanian warlord Vlad the Impaler, from whose surname, Drâculea, comes the name of the fictitious vampire.
This works for two reasons. First of all, the origin of Dracula’s name is already widely known, although the extent to which Stoker based his character on the historical figure has been greatly exaggerated. This gives Kostova’s use of Vlad the Impaler a certain degree of authenticity. Secondly, Kostova has invested considerable effort in establishing a network of fictional historical sources, events, characters and places, portrayed in a manner that makes them seem genuinely credible. (Occasionally, she oversteps the mark: sitting down to read an entire chapter which served as fictional historical paper turned out to be every bit as mind-numbingly tedious as my experiences with the real thing.) The author manages to cross-cut between at least three separate storylines spanning more than half a century without it ever becoming confusing (although I did, at times, become rather aware that I was essentially ready chapter after chapter about people reading about people reading about people). Apparently, the novel took ten years to write; based on the complexity of the narrative and the ordered manner in which it is presented, I can well believe it.
Unfortunately, it would be something of a stretch to claim that I was thoroughly gripped by the book from start to finish. The amount of time it has taken me to finish it since I began it shortly after finishing Casino Royale, back in February (!!), should serve as some indication of the extent to which my interest in it dipped and peaked. Sometimes I found myself genuinely engrossed in the narrative, but on other occasions I actually considered the prospect of sitting down to read another chapter to be an unnecessary chore. The book is 700 pages of fairly tense text, and, despite being unkindly referred to by some pundits as “The Dracula Code”, based on its narrative similarities to The Da Vinci Code, it moves at a snail’s pace for the most part. A page-turner this is not, and I wonder how on earth Sony Pictures are planning to adapt the narrative for their upcoming movie adaptation.
Part of the problem is that none of the characters are all that vividly depicted. The unnamed narrator, a teenage girl who finds herself traversing 1970s Europe searching for her missing father (whose disappearance has something to do with the legend of Dracula), is pretty much a blank slate. This may be partly down to the fact that, for the most part, she is underused, serving as little more than a means of relaying the content of her father’s letters to the reader, but the various individuals whom she meets, or about whom she reads, are either similarly ill-defined or else exaggerated caricatures of stock figures. Kindly but stuffy English professors, excessively polite Turkish academics and wizened Slavic women living in huts are in abundance, and it’s hard to really care about any of them, or visualise them as real people. There are also some serious problems with the pacing as, after moving incredibly slowly for around 650 pages, the final climax (actually, make that a series of climaxes) is crammed into the remaining 50 and wrapped up in the space of a couple of chapters. Considering the complexity of the material that precedes it, the eventual encounter between Dracula and the narrator feels a bit anticlimactic.
In the end, it’s difficult to know where I stand as regards The Historian. Do I regret reading it? No, but at the same time I’m acutely aware that I would probably have been able to read at least two more engaging novels of similar length in the same space of time. With a good book, as with a good film, I tend to sit and think about what I’ve just experienced once I’ve read the final page or watched the final line of the credits scroll to the top of the screen. Last night, when I finished The Historian, I shut the book, switched off the light and promptly fell asleep.
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