By Elizabeth Kostova
This book mysteriously appeared among the pile of the undead – oops, pardon me; I meant to write “unread” -- texts littering my desk, so I chose it because it seemed to have an unworldly appeal for me. Well, actually, I’m prefacing this review with the foregoing as a bit of facetiousness. Our daughter left it with several others, and has asked me to tell her my reaction to it. So here goes.
I used the terms “mysteriously appeared” and “undead” to underscore two significant issues in this gothic novel: a most peculiar antique book is, without being requested, repeatedly thrust upon several of the characters, and consequently they are inexorably drawn to exploration of the “undead” – vampires. Their specific and mutual quest is to find the burial site of Vlad Tepes – Vlad, the Impaler, also known as the son of the dragon or “Draculya”. The historical Vlad is depicted, apparently accurately, as a patriotic and fierce warrior in his land’s battle with the Turks and as an unbelievably sadistic despot whose cruelty is contrasted with generous devotion to Christianity. The theme of the novel, of course, is that Vlad’s influence and presence extends beyond his death in the fifteenth century to the current time. I don’t want to betray too much of the plot here, but I think it might help us to understand the depths of his perversity as depicted by the author: beyond his blood lust, his sadism, his inability to hold a day job, and his other antisocial inclinations, the core of his depravity is exposed as a lesson to us in this forum – the fiend is a BIBLIOPHILE!
Despite similarity between this book and Bram Stoker’s 1897 Dracula in superficial content and the use of reportage via letters, the two works are substantially different. For one thing, whereas Stoker framed his story within the limited time span of his era, Kostova’s novel is presented as a look at the way the longitudinal study of years of documentation is used in academic historical research. Such research seems extremely tedious to me, but she is able to make it adventurous, much in the way used by Brown in his da Vinci Code. She also provides the reader an ongoing travelogue with lengthy and detailed descriptions of European cities, architecture, countryside, and cultural patterns. I found this occasionally boring and extraneous, but that may simply reflect my lack of appreciation of the finer things. As a more fascinating example, she elaborates in several instances on the nobleman’s clothing circa 1470 worn by Dracula (no black cape and formal evening wear), but her frequent allusion to his cone-shaped hat complete with a feather brought images of Robin Hood to my mind.
I do NOT like the written letter (epistolary) form of story telling; never have and never will, and Kostova relies on this style. I think my objection is that I don’t believe people, even academics, typically write letters with exquisite and florid detail, especially in the late twentieth century, and that makes the style unrealistic. Again maybe that’s just my primitive outlook.
Another criticism I have of this novel is that there are simply too many major characters, many with Eastern European and/or Middle Eastern surnames, to keep track of. Further, unrealistic coincidences abound; with the millions of people living in the areas described, it strains believability that almost every time one of the protagonists sits at a library or café table, a stranger with identical concerns and interests joins him (most, by the way, having possession of a copy of the mysterious book mentioned earlier).
In rereading this review, it would seem that I did not like the book. If that’s the case, though, why did I consume the 640 pages in a short time? O.K., I’ll admit it – the darn thing is absorbing and difficult to put down. Maybe I just wanted to find out what finally happens to Dracula’s Robin Hood hat.
One thing though. The novel is definite movie material with a Christopher Lee type as Vlad (type casting?) and Anthony Hopkins as the main protagonist. I’d almost bet that Kostova had this in mind as she wrote it.
Review by Ken West
I used the terms “mysteriously appeared” and “undead” to underscore two significant issues in this gothic novel: a most peculiar antique book is, without being requested, repeatedly thrust upon several of the characters, and consequently they are inexorably drawn to exploration of the “undead” – vampires. Their specific and mutual quest is to find the burial site of Vlad Tepes – Vlad, the Impaler, also known as the son of the dragon or “Draculya”. The historical Vlad is depicted, apparently accurately, as a patriotic and fierce warrior in his land’s battle with the Turks and as an unbelievably sadistic despot whose cruelty is contrasted with generous devotion to Christianity. The theme of the novel, of course, is that Vlad’s influence and presence extends beyond his death in the fifteenth century to the current time. I don’t want to betray too much of the plot here, but I think it might help us to understand the depths of his perversity as depicted by the author: beyond his blood lust, his sadism, his inability to hold a day job, and his other antisocial inclinations, the core of his depravity is exposed as a lesson to us in this forum – the fiend is a BIBLIOPHILE!
Despite similarity between this book and Bram Stoker’s 1897 Dracula in superficial content and the use of reportage via letters, the two works are substantially different. For one thing, whereas Stoker framed his story within the limited time span of his era, Kostova’s novel is presented as a look at the way the longitudinal study of years of documentation is used in academic historical research. Such research seems extremely tedious to me, but she is able to make it adventurous, much in the way used by Brown in his da Vinci Code. She also provides the reader an ongoing travelogue with lengthy and detailed descriptions of European cities, architecture, countryside, and cultural patterns. I found this occasionally boring and extraneous, but that may simply reflect my lack of appreciation of the finer things. As a more fascinating example, she elaborates in several instances on the nobleman’s clothing circa 1470 worn by Dracula (no black cape and formal evening wear), but her frequent allusion to his cone-shaped hat complete with a feather brought images of Robin Hood to my mind.
I do NOT like the written letter (epistolary) form of story telling; never have and never will, and Kostova relies on this style. I think my objection is that I don’t believe people, even academics, typically write letters with exquisite and florid detail, especially in the late twentieth century, and that makes the style unrealistic. Again maybe that’s just my primitive outlook.
Another criticism I have of this novel is that there are simply too many major characters, many with Eastern European and/or Middle Eastern surnames, to keep track of. Further, unrealistic coincidences abound; with the millions of people living in the areas described, it strains believability that almost every time one of the protagonists sits at a library or café table, a stranger with identical concerns and interests joins him (most, by the way, having possession of a copy of the mysterious book mentioned earlier).
In rereading this review, it would seem that I did not like the book. If that’s the case, though, why did I consume the 640 pages in a short time? O.K., I’ll admit it – the darn thing is absorbing and difficult to put down. Maybe I just wanted to find out what finally happens to Dracula’s Robin Hood hat.
One thing though. The novel is definite movie material with a Christopher Lee type as Vlad (type casting?) and Anthony Hopkins as the main protagonist. I’d almost bet that Kostova had this in mind as she wrote it.
Review by Ken West
2 comments:
After posting this I read some of the reviews of this book on AMAZON and was tickled to find general agreements with my criticisms and praises. And as to my last paragraph, a review in a commercial peridical dated 2004 mentions that a movie deal was already in the works.
Ken
OK, Ken, you hooked me!
I saw a copy in a used book store today and I bought it.
I am currently reading three other books right now, so it will have to wait its turn.
Watch for a later report...
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