Vampire book review
Jan. 26th, 2006 04:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
winterElizabeth Kostova, The Historian
It's 1972 and a young girl finds a book in her father's library - a blank book with a single plate of a dragon holding the words "Dracula". When she asks her father about it, in bits and pieces she learns the story of her father, mother and grandfather, and the search that directed their lives - a search of ancient manuscripts and old Balkan monasteries, a search that leads them back five hundred years to the winter of 1476 and a monastery on an island. And the story has not finished yet.
This is a book I can recommend to any Dracula fan in general, as well as to fans of Victorian novels. The structure is parallel, intricate and layered, the descriptions are gorgeous and the Dracula lore is lovingly presented. The plot moves slowly, but surely, and there's a real atmosphere of elegantly presented danger, a restrained Victorian kind without gore or gratuituous horrific imagery. It's a quiet book for reading when you have a headache and need to go somewhere else entirely. Plus, while Dracula is mostly present in spirit, his appearances are lovingly described and dovetail with my inner!Vlad in intensity and cruelty and vision.
It's not perfect - the pacing is off at times, and the ending in particular suffers a bit. Some characters aren't explored as much as they could be, and other plotlines disappear into the void. But still, a lovely read if you're into vampires, especially a certain Wallachian prince.
On a random note, the Polish translation is pathetic at times. It takes a special talent to take a wandering monologue by a character who's a famous expert on eighteenth-century English literature, have him mention Pope, and then translate the next thing he says as "Rape of the PADlock" ~_~
It's 1972 and a young girl finds a book in her father's library - a blank book with a single plate of a dragon holding the words "Dracula". When she asks her father about it, in bits and pieces she learns the story of her father, mother and grandfather, and the search that directed their lives - a search of ancient manuscripts and old Balkan monasteries, a search that leads them back five hundred years to the winter of 1476 and a monastery on an island. And the story has not finished yet.
This is a book I can recommend to any Dracula fan in general, as well as to fans of Victorian novels. The structure is parallel, intricate and layered, the descriptions are gorgeous and the Dracula lore is lovingly presented. The plot moves slowly, but surely, and there's a real atmosphere of elegantly presented danger, a restrained Victorian kind without gore or gratuituous horrific imagery. It's a quiet book for reading when you have a headache and need to go somewhere else entirely. Plus, while Dracula is mostly present in spirit, his appearances are lovingly described and dovetail with my inner!Vlad in intensity and cruelty and vision.
It's not perfect - the pacing is off at times, and the ending in particular suffers a bit. Some characters aren't explored as much as they could be, and other plotlines disappear into the void. But still, a lovely read if you're into vampires, especially a certain Wallachian prince.
On a random note, the Polish translation is pathetic at times. It takes a special talent to take a wandering monologue by a character who's a famous expert on eighteenth-century English literature, have him mention Pope, and then translate the next thing he says as "Rape of the PADlock" ~_~
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A friendly counter-review....
Date: 2006-01-26 08:53 am (UTC)Hated it, hated it. Awful.
Only the most obvious character development happened, the plot was so bland that it had me predicting wild and crazy ideas, for surely it couldn't be that boring, could it? And normally I enjoy books with oodles of historic fact and pseudo-fact, but this book made me want to barf. I enjoyed Blood Canticle more than this book, and I hate Blood Canticle to no extent.
The only reason I didn't throw it across the room right away was because Vlad was kicking ass without even being there. He was setting up to be an excellent villain. And then the end of the book ruined that. What a let down.
...but thank you for the review anyway. :D I like to hear what other people think, and I'd only heard from a few about this book.
Re: A friendly counter-review....
Date: 2006-01-26 09:29 am (UTC)Plus, the final scene totally made up for any lameness of the plot ending IMHO :)