The Historian

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An unnamed narrator finds a vellum bound book in her father’s study that has a dragon as its centerpiece. Curious, she begins to ask questions. Paul is hesitant at first, but aware that he must eventually share the story to his daughter, and so he does in several installments. He begins with the disappearance of his thesis adviser professor Bartholomew Rossi and how his tale is similar to his own, starting with the discovery of a dragon notebook among their pile of books while doing research at the library. What comes next is curiosity paving the way for a deeper research on the lore of Vlad the Impaler, the notorious 15th-century prince of Wallachia who had a penchant for horrendous torture methods. When Paul suddenly disappears just like Rossi, his daughter races against time as she tries to track her father, who is later revealed to have gone away in search of his wife Helen, the narrator’s mother, all while a supernatural presence consistently stalks them in the background.

The sticker on the first page says I bought this book in 2006, which means it has been almost two decades since the only time I ever read the novel. 20 years is a long time to forget storylines and plot twists, which worked well to my advantage because I was able to tackle the narrative with a renewed curiosity that had me flipping through the pages like mad on my way to discovery. The Historian was published in the early aughts back when such a formula of storytelling was all the rage. Remember The Da Vinci Code? This novel is no different, but Kostova does a great job in keeping us, her readers, entertained.

What formula is this, you might ask? There is a male academic doing research about a prominent historical figure. There’s a conspiracy theory that is raising eyebrows. There is a female character who appears out of nowhere to serve as obligatory love interest as well as, conveniently, the missing link to the puzzle through her connection to the historical figure in question. Have the two lovebirds travel around, city to city, country to country, in search of clues and voila! You have a bestselling novel that is screenplay ready when Hollywood calls. So why is The Historian not a film or a TV series yet?

According to Trust Me Bro sources, the film rights were secured by Sony as early as 2005, the same year the novel was published. So why haven’t they produced a movie adaptation yet? That is anybody’s guess. Sony seems too busy churning out subpar popcorn flicks, about characters in their Spider-Man universe who are not Spider-Man, to give a damn. While The Historian was a legit bestselling novel when it was published, almost twenty years have passed for people to still care, not to mention how Hollywood continues to be saturated by vampire narratives since time immemorial. Do we really need more vampires at this point?

As for Kostova’s storytelling style, she is not a fan of long and dragging chapters, which means what we get are brief ones that total to 78 chapters not including the epilogue. That’s a whopping 816 pages all in all which are, luckily, not hard to read because of all the intrigue involved. What might end up being confusing to the reader, however, are the three storylines running parallel to one another, many subplots of which tend to mirror the other. This is achieved mostly through letters being read by the narrator as well as outright narrations from father to daughter. What you end up with is a multi-generational tale that is engrossing but not as detailed as you would want it to be.

If there’s one thing that this novel accomplishes, it is the renewal of interest in Count Dracula, both the myth and the actual history. Bram Stoker started it all with Dracula and there hasn’t been a shortage of related narratives piggybacking on the success of that story ever since. What Kostova does with The Historian is offer her own version of the lore through readable prose, even though she does not necessarily add more to the rich vampire lore that she is operating in. If anything, she just adapts whatever plot devices are already there.