Historian is the novel 2005 debut of American author Elizabeth Kostova. Plot integrates the history and folklore of Vlad? EPE? and Count Dracula its fictitious equivalent. Kostova's father told his story of Dracula when he was a child, and later inspired him to transform his experience into a novel. He worked on the book for ten years and then sold it in a few months to Little, Brown and Company, who bought it for $ 2 million span.
The Historian has been described as a combination of genres, including Gothic novels, adventure novels, detective fiction, travelogue, postmodern historical novels, epistol episodes, and historical thrillers. Kostova intended to write serious literary works and see himself as the heir of the Victorian style. Although partly based on Bram Stoker Dracula , The Historian is not a horror novel, but a frightening story. It deals with the role of history in society and representation in books, as well as good and evil. As Kostova explains, "Dracula is a metaphor for evil that is very difficult to decipher in history." The crime caused by religious conflict is a special theme, and the novel explores the relationship between Christian West and Eastern Islam.
Little, Brown and Company greatly promoted this book and became the first debut novel to become number one on The New York Times bestseller list in the first week of sales. In 2005, this was a fast-paced debut novel in US history. In general, the novel received mixed reviews. While some praise the book description of settings, others criticized the structure and lack of tonal variations. Kostova received the 2006 Book Sense award for Best Adult Fiction and the 2005 Quill Award for Debut Authors of the Year. Sony has bought the film rights and, in 2007, is planning an adaptation.
Video The Historian
Ringkasan plot
The Historian make history and folklore of Vlad? epe ?, the 15th-century Count of Wallachia known as "Vlad the Impaler", and Count Dracula its fictional equivalent along with the story of Paul, a professor; his 16-year-old daughter; and their search for Vlad's grave. The novel ties three separate narratives using letters and oral accounts: Paul's mentor in the 1930s, written by Paul in the 1950s, and his own narrator in the 1970s. This story is told primarily from the perspective of Paul's daughter, who is never mentioned by name.
Part I
Part I opened in 1972 Amsterdam. The narrator finds an old book tied to a vellum with a dragon wood piece in the center that is associated with Dracula. When he asked his father, Paul, he told how he had found a handmade book in his study car when he was a graduate student in the 1950s. Paul brought the book to his mentor, Professor Bartholomew Rossi, and was shocked to discover that Rossi had found a similar handmade book when he became a graduate student in the 1930s. As a result, Rossi researched? Epe ?, the mythical Dracula that surrounds it, and the mysterious book. Rossi traveled as far as Istanbul; However, the appearance of curious characters and unexplained events caused him to drop his investigation and return to his graduation work. Rossi gives Paul his research note and tells him that he believes Dracula is still alive.
Most of the novels focus on the 1950s time line, which follows Paul's adventures. After meeting with Paul, Rossi disappeared; blood stains on his desk and his office ceiling was the only trace left. Certain that something unfortunate had happened to his counselor, Paul began to investigate Dracula. While at the university library, he meets a dark-haired young woman reading a copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula book. She is Helen Rossi, the daughter of Bartholomew Rossi, and she has become an expert in Dracula. Paul tried to convince him that one of the librarians tried to prevent their research into Dracula, but he did not know anything. Then, the librarian strikes and bites Helen. Paul intervened and defeated him, but he wriggled freely. The librarian was then hit by a car in front of the library and apparently killed.
After hearing his father's story, the narrator became interested in the mystery and began researching Dracula as he and his father traveled throughout Europe during the 1970s. Although he finally sent his home, he did not stay there. After finding a letter addressed to him that revealed he had gone in search to find his mother (who was previously believed to have died), he decided to find it. As gradually described in the novel, Helen is the mother of the narrator. The letters continued the story his father had told him. The narrator decides to go to a convent where he believes his father may be.
Part II
Part II begins when the narrator reads a description of his father and Helen's journey to Eastern Europe during the 1950s. While on their way, Helen and Paul conclude that Rossi may have been taken by Dracula to her grave. They traveled to Istanbul to find the archives of Sultan Mehmed II, which Paul believed contained information about the location of the tomb. They happened to meet Professor Turgut Bora from the University of Istanbul, who also found a book similar to that of Paul and Rossi. He has access to Mehmed's archives, and together they find some important documents. They also saw the librarian who was supposed to be killed in the United States - he survived because he was a vampire and he kept following Helen and Paul. Helen shot the vampire librarian but missed her heart and as a result, she did not die.
From Istanbul, Paul and Helen traveled to Budapest, Hungary, to further investigate the location of Dracula's tomb and to meet Helen's mother, whom they believed might have knowledge of Rossi - both had met during her trip to Romania in the 1930s. For the first time Helen heard about her mother and Rossi's very warm romance. Paul and Helen learn a lot, for example that Helen's mother, and therefore Helen herself and her narrator, are the descendants of Vlad? EPE ?.
Part III
Part III begins with a revelation by Turgut Bora who leads the search for Dracula's tomb to Bulgaria. He also revealed that he was part of an organization formed by Sultan Mehmed II of the Janissari elite to fight the Dragon Order, an evil consortium later attributed to Dracula. In Bulgaria, Helen and Paul seek the help of a scholar named Anton Stoichev. Through information obtained from Stoichev, Helen and Paul discover that Dracula is most likely buried in Bulgarian monastery Sveti Georgi.
After much trouble, Paul and Helen discover the whereabouts of Sveti Georgi. Upon arriving at the monastery they find Interred's body in the basement and forced to move a silver dagger through his heart to prevent a full transformation into a vampire. Before he died, he revealed that Dracula was a scholar and had a secret library. Rossi has written a report about his imprisonment in this library and hid it there. Paul and Helen were chased to the monastery by political officials and by vampire librarians - all looking for Dracula's tomb, but empty when they arrived.
Paul and Helen moved to the United States, got married, and Helen gave birth to the narrator. However, he became depressed a few months later. He later confessed that he was afraid of the vampire bite stains he'd gotten earlier would infect his son. The family traveled to Europe in an attempt to comfort her. When they visited the monastery of Saint-Matthieu-des-Pyrà © nio-Orientales, Helen felt the presence of Dracula and was forced to jump off a cliff. Landing on the grass, he persisted and decided to hunt down and kill him to free himself from his threats and fears.
When the narrator arrives at Saint-Matthieu-des-PyrÃÆ' © nÃÆ' Â © es-Orientales, he finds his father. Individuals mentioned along the 1970s time line meet in a last-ditch effort to defeat Dracula. He seems to be killed by a silver bullet fired into his heart by Helen.
In the epilogue, which took place in 2008, the narrator attended a medieval conference in Philadelphia, and stopped at the library with a vast collection of material related to Dracula. He accidentally left his notes and the officers rushed out and returned them to him, as well as a book with a dragon printed in the middle, revealing that Dracula was still alive or one of his minions imitating his master.
Maps The Historian
Background and publication
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Kostova's interest in Dracula's legend begins with the stories his father told of vampires when he was a child. The family moved from the US to Ljubljana, Slovenia in 1972, while his father taught for a year at a local university. During that year, the family traveled throughout Europe. According to Kostova, "It was my childhood formative experience." He is "fascinated by [his father's Dracula story] because they... from history in a way, even though they are not about real history, but I hear them in these beautiful historical places." Kostova's interest in books and libraries also began earlier. His mother, a librarian, often took him and his sisters to the public library - they were each allowed to inspect 30 books and have a special shelf for their library books.
He listened to the recording of Balkan folk music as a child and became interested in tradition. Later, he sang and directed the Slavic choir while undergraduate at Yale University. He and several friends traveled to Eastern Europe in 1989, particularly Bulgaria and Bosnia, to study local music habits. The recordings they make will be stored in the Library of Congress. When Kostova was in Europe, the Berlin Wall collapsed, heralding the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe, an event that shaped her understanding of history.
Composition and publication
Five years later, in 1994, when Kostova was hiking in the Appalachian Mountains with her husband, she had flashbacks to moments of storytelling with her father and asked herself "what if the father rotated Dracula's story to her dazzled daughter and Dracula was listening "What if Dracula is still alive?" He immediately strikes seven pages of notes into his author's notebook. Two days later, he started working on the novel. At the time he taught English as a second language, creative writing and composition classes at universities in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, entered the writing program at the University of Michigan and completed the book when he received his Master of Fine Arts.
Kostova conducts extensive research on Eastern Europe and Vlad? EPE ?. He found a vampire killer tool at the Mercer Museum, which included pistols, silver bullets, crosses, wooden poles, and garlic powder.
While he was writing, he posted an East European map in his office and made charts to help him track the timeline of the book. Her husband, whom she met in Bulgaria, helped her with the relevant geographical and diction description. It took ten years to finish his novel.
Kostova completed the novel in January 2004 and sent it to a potential literary agency in March. Two months later and in two days submitting his manuscript to the publisher, Kostova was offered a deal - she refused. The rights to the book were auctioned and Little, Brown and Company bought it for $ 2 million ($ 30,000 is typical for the first novel by an unknown author). Weekly Publishers describes the high price as a result of an offer war between companies that believe they may have the next Da Vinci Code in their hands. One vice president and associate publisher said, "Given the success of The Da Vinci Code, everyone around the city knows how popular the combination of thriller and history can be and what that phenomenon can become." Little, Brown and Company sells its rights in 28 countries. This book was published in the United States on June 14, 2005.
Genres and styles
The Historian has been described as a combination of genres, including Gothic novels, adventure novels, detective novels, travel notes, postmodern historical novels, epistol epic, and historic thriller.
Kostova wanted to write a serious literary novel, with academic heroes, at the same time reminiscent of a nineteenth-century adventure. He was inspired by Victorian writers such as Wilkie Collins; His novel The Moonstone (1868), with its meandering plot and gathering gang, is a "prime model". The main literary ancestor of The Historian, however, is Bram Stoker Dracula (1897). For example, in The Historian and Dracula , the protagonist is fascinated and repulsed by Dracula. Both are told through a series of letters and memoirs. The Historian also includes many intertextual references to Stoker's work - Dracula even has a copy of his novel. However, Kostova formed Dracula into her own character. While Stoker's vampire is the focus of his novel, Kostova is on the edge. In addition, the fictional fictional Dracula and Vlad's historic "adds an evil and scary side" to the characters, according to scholar Stine Fletcher.
Regardless of its Gothic roots, The Historian is not overwhelmed with violence, nor is it a horror novel. Kostova aims to write the ghastly Victorian ghost story, and his realistic style is what creates this effect. Marlene Arpe from The Toronto Star praised Kostova's image in particular, quoting the following excerpt:
A smell emerges from its pages that are not just the delicate scent of old paper and cracked vellum. It was the stench, the terrible stench, the smell of old meat or rotten meat. I had never noticed it before and I leaned closer, sniffed, disbelieved, then closed the book. I reopened it, after a while, and again the smoke rising from the stomach appeared from its pages. Small volume seemed alive in my hand, but it smelled like death.
As Peter Beber wrote at The Boston Globe, "Instead of hypnotizing blood, Kostova modified the documents (manuscripts, maps, letters) and places that store them (libraries, archives and monasteries)." As a critic puts it, "the real horror lies in what Dracula might be." For example, narrator comments:
The thing that most haunted me that day, however, when I closed my notebook and put on my coat to go home, not my phantom shadow of Dracula, or the description of the origin, but the fact that these things - in fact - actually happened. If I listen too closely, I think, I will hear the screams of children, about the 'big family' who are dying together. For all his attention to my historical education, my father has forgotten to tell me this: the horrible moments of history are real. I understand now, decades later, that he will never tell me. Only history itself can convince you of such truth. And once you have seen the truth - really see it - you can not turn around.
His tone and novel structure put him in a serious literary tradition that became the goal of Kostova. For example, alternating time lines are suggestive of A. S. Byatt's Possession (1990) and the assimilation between academia and the occult shows Arturo Perez-Reverte The Club Dumas (1993). Although many reviewers compare The Historian with Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code thrower 2003, Kostova says her book â € Å"is part of a tradition where literary crafts and experiments are in its form as important as the action... the only overlap is the idea of ​​people looking for something in history. I'm still surprised when people make this comparison, I'm so thankful my publisher never pushed it. "In addition, the only real historical figure in his novel is Vlad Eee and he changed the names of several locations" fearing some readers might confuse fantasy and reality, as they have with Brown novels ".
The reviewers praised Kostova's fertile description of the fascinating setting and cities and countries of Europe through which the stories go: Amsterdam, Slovenia, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, France, Oxford, Switzerland and Italy.
Themes
The history and questions about his role in society include The Historian . In particular, the novel argues that knowledge of history is power, especially as it is written in the book. Titles can refer to one of the main characters, including Dracula. As Nancy Baker explains in The Globe and Mail, her novel is "about love books" and the knowledge and comfort they offer on character - even Dracula himself is a bibliophile. As a critic puts it, this novel is specifically about the love of science. The essence of this novel is the exploration of the "power and price of scientific obsessions". As Paul explained in the novel:
It is the fact that we historians are interested in what some are reflections of ourselves, we prefer not to check except through scholarship media; it is also true that as we explore our own interests, they become increasingly part of us. Visiting American universities... I was introduced to one of the first German Nazi German historians. He lives in a comfortable house on the edge of the campus, where he collects not only books on his topic but also the official china of the Third Reich. The dogs, two very large German shepherds, patrolled the front yard day and night. Over drinking with other faculty members, he told me uncertainly how he hated Hitler's evil and wanted to expose them in the most likely detail to the outside world. I left the party early, walking carefully past the big dogs, unable to repel my disgust.
The novel explores both good and evil questions and as Jessica Treadway states in The Chicago Tribune , it "appeals to a thorough examination of what constitutes crime and why it exists". For example, Dracula at one point asked Rossi:
History has taught us that human nature is evil, so sublime. Neither perfect nor evil. Why do not you use your great mind to serve what is perfect?... There is no holiness like the purity of historical suffering. You will have what every historian wants: the history will come true for you. We will wash our minds clean with blood.
As Kostova explains, "Dracula is a metaphor for evil that is very difficult to decipher in history." For example, he proved to influence Eastern European tyrants and support national socialism in Transylvania. He is "vainglorious, vengeful, [and] vicious". As described by Michael Dirda at The Washington Post, the novel conveys the idea that "Most of the worst nightmares in history result from obsolete adherence to authority, a high-minded elegance that quietly outperforms our humanity alone. " This is a vampire figure that Kostova expressed this, because "our fear of Dracula lies in the fear of losing ourselves, releasing our identity as human beings". In fact, the narrator is never mentioned in the novel, suggesting, as a critic puts it, "that the search for the dark side of human nature is more universal than specific to the concrete character".
Religion is also the dominant theme of The Historian . Dracula is a Christian and, as Beber explained, "Most of the scary things in this novel are suggestions of misguided Christian practices and conspiracy monks." Kostova himself notes that the world is still "destroyed by religious conflict", hence the historical fiction on the topic is relevant. Part of the novel in Istanbul, for example, highlights the extent to which the real Vlad hates the Ottomans, waging a holy war on them. More specifically, Amir Taheri in Asharq Alawsat argues that the novel highlights the relationship between the West and Turkey. The West, burdened with the burden of "dead" in the past (represented by vampires) needs Turkish (and possibly Muslim world) help to recover. As Taheri points out, one of the most interesting characters in the novel is Professor Bora, a Turkish professor who is part of an ancient Ottoman society dedicated to defeating Dracula. Taheri emphasized that the novel highlights that "Western civilization and Islam have common enemies represented by 'vampires' such as postmodernism in Europe and obscurantism in the Muslim world".
Reception
Little, Brown and Company spent $ 500,000 to promote The Historian . In what the Weekly Publishers call "carefully calibrated advertising campaigns", 7,000 preliminary copies were sent to booksellers, and in January 2005 Kostova embarked on a book promotion tour six months prior to the publication of the novel. He met a book retailer who, impressed with his presentation, bought many books. As an article in The Age explained, "By the time it arrived at the bookstore, The Historian has made news several times". Immediately after the book was published in June, Kostova went on a 15-city tour, including book signing and reading, which prompted further media reports on the subject. She appeared on ABC Good Morning America on June 28th, and there are stories about the novels at USA Today , Entertainment Weekly and Newsweek
The Historian is the first debut novel that landed at number one on the New York Times bestseller list in the first week of sales, and in 2005 was the fastest reverse debut debut in US history. This book sells more copies on its first day in print than The Da Vinci Code Ã,â € "70,000 copies sold in the first week alone. By mid-August 2005, the novel had sold 915,000 copies in the US and had gone through six prints. (For comparison, according to Publishers Weekly , only ten fiction books sold over 800,000 hardcover copies in the US in 2004.) Little, Brown and Company also released the Dracula edition of in September 2005 with an introduction by Kostova, thinking her readers will want to investigate her original novel after reading hers. Kostova is one of the few best-selling female authors, but her popularity is unusual because it is founded on a literary novel.
The novel review is "best, mixed". Some reviewers note that Kostova described her novel arrangements well; Laura Miller of Salon.com, for example, writes that "Kostova has the genius to awaken the place". Malcolm Jones from Newsweek wrote that the novel was "very fresh and informal". Baker praised Kostova's prose, saying that it "has a relaxed grace". Francis Atkinson of The Age praised the "Gothic sensuality" of the novel. However, some people think the book is too long, or criticize the lack of Kostova tonal variations; Janet Maslin writes in The New York Times that the book is "contemplative" and has a "fickle narrative structure". Jane Stevenson of The Observer agrees, noting that some of the time lines and novelists are not sufficiently differentiated. Some reviewers have complained that the climax of the novel is disappointing and that Dracula is not scary.
According to Paul Wagenbreth of The News-Gazette, the fundamental weakness of the novel is that after a slow buildup, there is a final evasion of the complete rendering of the animal's nature... There is a strange detention here as it is in place other than a view that really investigates the seductive charm of vampires, especially sensuality at its core. "Susanna Sturgis, agreeing, writes in the Women's Book Review that her plot was dragged and that" readers lose interest "in the core mystery of the novel. Ong Sor Fern of The Straits Times criticized Kostova's depiction of women, writing that her unnamed female narrator "feels more dull and colorless than the idealized Stoker's woman, Mina Harker." Sturgis criticized Kostova's characterization in general, arguing that the main character seemed more like a "bodyless tour guide". Polly Shulman of Newsday also argues that the book "failed [s] to wrestle with the supposed theme: evil, death and history". He saw "a little terror from this period" in the novel and a bit of tension between Eastern Islam and Western Christianity.
Awards
Adaptations
Audio book
The 12-hour audio book, released by Time Warner, is narrated by six different actors (Joanne Whalley, Martin Jarvis, Dennis Boutsikaris, Jim Ward, Rosalyn Landor and Robin Atkin Downes). Boutsikaris' voiced Paul has been called "flat" while the Weekly Publisher complained that it was "indifferent and impersonal". They also chose Dracula's voice for criticism, writing that "the accent and the delivery are exactly the stereotypical vampire sounds used by everyone from Bela Lugosi to Sesame Street's the Count." There is swelling orchestral music at the beginning and end of each chapter, which is approved by reviewers.
An unadorned 26-hour audio book, released by Books on Tape (a division of Random House), is narrated by Justine Eyre and Paul Michael. According to Book List , they "did a wonderful job of voicing various characters with European accents ranging from the Netherlands, France and Germany". Noting that this book is perfect for audio because it is told in the letters, they praise Eyre's "earnest and innocent" tone in voicing the narrator and Michael's "clear characterization".
Movies
In 2005, prior to publication, Sony purchased the movie rights for the novel for $ 1.5 million , but has yet to go into production.
References
External links
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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