The Historian
Written by Elizabeth Kostova
Published by Back Bay Books (2006)
December 5, 2009
My dear and compassionate reader,
It is with regret that I imagine you, whoever you are, reading the account I must put down here. The regret is partly for myself, for never has it been more real to me than in this moment that the journey which I’m about to speak of is sadly over. But my regret is also for you, my fellow follower of words, for if by reading this should you foster a desire to embark on the same journey—with the same book and with the same ecstatic excitement—then I only fear that fate would find you in the same state of frantic reading as I had been in, rushing to see the end with abstruse hunger but only to experience a momentary elation for the achievement and then have it quickly replaced by a more lasting thirst when the tale is finally told in full. I wish I had not allowed myself to be consumed by a rather horrible (though still perfectly human) tendency for impatience. The dreadfully thick spine of this bewitching book should not have troubled me any more than the trickles of blood that stain its cover (which, as it happens, never bothered me). After all, I at least was not the one being pursued by minions of the dark and it could not have brought me harm if I had taken a pace of less haste.
But let me not bore you with my sorrow. What you must know, my friend, is that this tale is as much a scholarly quest for the true nature of Vlad the Impaler—of Dracula, “son of the dragon”—as it is a worthy expansion of Stoker’s story about this ill-famed and ill-fated prince of darkness. Now if with you the word “Impaler” sounds more petrifying than the name Dracula itself, then surely you already have some knowledge of the horrors that went with the infamous title. It goes without saying that this story hails from the more sinister histories of our mortal kind, spanning from the atrocious battles of the medieval Balkans to the more recent terrors of the Cold War. But allow yourself no fear that the telling would be too menacing to bear. To the contrary, light—I observed—holds a powerful presence in this otherwise benighted narrative. Nearly every setting is described in breathtaking beauty as it bathes in the glorious shower of a morning sun or, in more than a few occasions, the quiet splendor of a deep-golden sunset. Then on top of this magnificent melody of adjectives are episodes of serendipitous romance from which you might be led to believe that passion is the progeny of peril. Only with casual hints of horror (like an innocent smudge compared to “the thumbprint of a murderer,” or Tuscan table wine described to be “the color of garnets, or dark blood”) is the spell briefly disrupted just so the reader may not forget that the mystery interred within these mesmerizing pages of Victorian prose and European cityscapes is really that of something far from lovely. If I had lost any measure of sleep since the time my fingers first grazed its pages, it would not have been the consequence of a terrible dream but rather of my refusal to put down the book before midnight. I’ve been told by a colleague about the ominous chill that crept up his back when the lights in his neighborhood suddenly failed for a short moment—just as he was reading a portion of the book where the same strange thing occurred in the story. Eerie as it was, I have come to believe that it was never in the book’s purpose to leave its reader with a constant feeling of being haunted. Here I make it only as an act of prudence to write this letter under the reassuring comfort of daylight.
It might wonder you, I imagine, why I chose to explain these things in manner of a letter. Let me assure you then that this form is by all means intended as a tribute, and on no account is this a kind of travesty, though of course my own modest abilities couldn’t even hope to match the entrancing flair of the real author’s pen. Much like Bram Stoker’s masterpiece, Elizabeth’s splendid book is presented like an epic memoir with pages of personal letters in a number of its chapters. The mystery itself begins with a letter—starting at the first scene when the beautiful young narrator finds herself pulling down an envelope of yellowing papers from her father’s shelf, each one opening with the peculiar greeting “My dear and unfortunate successor”—and from there our heroine’s adventure takes off. And it’s a most interesting facet of the story that as this curious daughter seeks to unravel the truth behind the letters, her father also narrates his own adventures (and misadventures)—either with his voice or with his pen—as he in turn had once traced the steps of his unfortunate predecessor. The result is three entwined stories of at least three different narrators from three successive generations all unfolding in parallel, with each one eventually culminating right after the other in a thrilling climax. And what makes it even more astounding is the seamless (and yet not at all confusing) transition between narrators, all of whom made excellent use of their “eye for atmosphere”, describing their travels in delightful detail as if to document the setting in which each piece of the puzzle—or, every so often, a new riddle—had been unburied. It’s like listening to a story about a person who told of another story about another person who had yet another interesting story of his own. I realize that in my foolish words this may sound like madness, but I hope you’d bestow me the benefit of belief when I tell you that what it is is truly wonderful. On a side note, it might interest you to know that like her perilously self-willed heroine, Elizabeth also listened to her father’s stories about Dracula when she was a young girl. Why fathers must ever speak of such tales to their little children is beyond my grasp, but in the book at least it had been the young lady’s own stubborn appeal. As to what result the telling of those tales has brought upon the author herself, perhaps the celebrated success of this tale of history and historians would be the perfect answer to that.
Now my dear friend, I feel I’ve already held you longer than any good reason should allow and I must therefore retire from this written discourse. If you are reading still, trust that by giving me a silent audience to this long and lonesome rhetoric you’ve already pleased my heart. I hope with all sincerity that these parting words would reach you in the finest of circumstances.
Yours in profoundest relief,
Mark David
Actually the list above is more about the authors I want to be familiar with than it is about the books I don’t want to miss reading next year. The age of “The Lost Generation” has always had an appeal to me so the indisputable writers like Hemingway and Fitzgerald are at the top of my have-to-read list. And I chose The Great Gatsby because it seems to be a good introduction to Fitzgerald, though I’m also very curious about his other novel Tender is the Night (what an inviting title, don’t you think?). I’ve also recently read from Susan Bell’s wonderful essay “Revisioning The Great Gatsby” that the book is a masterpiece of not just writing but of editing as well. The work done by Fitzgerald and his editor Max Perkins has been said to be “one of history’s most rewarding editor-writer collaborations.” As for Hemingway, well I can still remember watching the biographical film about the author entitle In Love and War when I was a kid, so now—as I am just a sucker for love stories in times of war and conflict—I’m also interested in reading his novel A Farewell to Arms. And I’m equally anxious to read For Whom the Bell Tolls. I’ll read all of them, for sure. It’s just a matter of when. As for Faulkner, they said you have to read his works several times over in order to understand them. I’m inclined to try reading only once, and find out how much I manage to absorb.
There’s three Russian (at least by birth) authors on my list because I’m also very much intrigued by how much readers seem to take their works in high regard, almost as if having read them can serve as a testament to one’s mental prowess. Tolstoy’s War and Peace is an obvious choice for me, even though I’m intimidated by its length. As for Dostoevsky’s writing, now that I’ve heard is really intimidating. But I’m still inclined to try. Of the three—and of the entire list, actually—it’s Nabokov’s Lolita that I’ve long had second thoughts about. The premise is surely controversial, if not provocative, and I’ve long seen it in all-time lists like that of 
The Godfather and Revolutionary Road are comparatively new. If anything, they’re certainly “modern” classics. Along with many in the list above, I originally planned to have Revolutionary Road as one of my entries for the 
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