10. The Historian

By Elizabeth Kostova 

My god was this book ever a chore to read.  I think every reader has been burdened with a book that requires conscious plodding.  Trying to get through a few pages while in between more engaging books.  

My mistake was that I kept expecting it would get more interesting, or that the pace would pick up...  If I had known that The Historian would be such an arduous slog from start to end, I would have stopped sooner.  Much, much sooner.

Although the author is American (née Johnson, Kostova is her married name), the writing really seemed like it was translated awkwardly from another language to English.  It was also rather dull and long-winded; burdened with overly expository passages written in epistolary form as the novel is comprised of letters from a historian to his daughter. 

To this day (seven years later), I have no recollection of what I had read.  Something about a never-ending search for Dracula, which seemed to just drag on and on in more ways than one.  

Having read some Goodreads reviews, I was certainly not the only survivor reader with such feelings.  It’s disappointing really, as The Historian was heavily promoted and reviewed -  I remember being intrigued by its seemingly unique hybridization of genres: gothic, adventure, detective, travelogue, postmodern historical, epistolary epic and historical thriller.  I can tell you now that even though The Historian had all these elements, it was far from thrilling or adventurous.  There might have been some sparse action scattered here and there amongst the long-winded prose, and it was certainly epic in its tedium.  When it comes down to it, I don’t think I have ever come across a book that held so much promise yet delivered so much nothing. 

Thank the Devil I only spent a couple of bucks on this tome (another Chainon find), but I cannot get back the lost hours I spent on something on words that are now like tears in rain.