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Just read the first chapter. So far, I'm interested.

I'm starting so slowly. I had guests, which meant cleaning instead of reading before they got here, and then hanging out instead of reading while they were here. But, I should be picking up the pace now that my life is back to normal.

I'm at about 10% (reading on my Kindle) and I am enjoying the set up. Candice mentioned that it was a bit slow going at the beginning, but so far I'm enjoying the pace. I think my favorite aspect of the novel at the moment is the idea that we sometimes forget how brutal the past was. We paint pretty words around war and destruction, like valor and bravery, and then tend to disregard the horror. We learn about these things in school, but we are so far removed from them that we can ignore them.

I like this quote from the novel, when the narrator realizes this: "For all his attention to my historical education, my father had neglected to tell me this: history's terrible moments were real." Or her father's similar realization: "If I had had any visions of the past, I had seen only their rose-tinted, sea-freshened faces...and rejoiced in the sturdy ingenuity of their buying and bartering. But history, it seemed, could be something entirely different, a splash of blood whose agony didn't fade overnight, or over centuries."

Wow. That sounds really good.

Theo wrote: "I'm starting so slowly. I had guests, which meant cleaning instead of reading before they got here, and then hanging out instead of reading while they were here. But, I should be picking up the pac..." I read this when it came out and for me, there were places where the prose was hypnotic, drawing me closer to something I really did not want to see.

Theo, this book is on my shelf for years now. It's one I hope to get to this year. Your description already entices me to start soon.

Karen wrote: "I read this when it came out and for me, there were places where the prose was hypnotic, drawing me closer to something I really did not want to see."

Yes! I completely agree.

I'm over a quarter of the way into the novel, and I'm continuing to enjoy it, but one thing is bothering me. The pacing is slow, but I think it works well with the story, it fits the narrative; however, I feel like the author keeps throwing in excuses for the pacing, like she feels the need to apologize to the reader, to explain why she chose such a languid pace. This quote, for example, "Why have I not told you all the facts of this history at a blow, to get it over with, to inform you fully? The answer lies, again, in my own weakness, but also in the fact that an abbreviated version would be exactly that--a blow."

One thing I'm loving about the novel is the author's way of describing places. The characters journey across Europe and each place they visit feels authentic. The author doesn't just describe scenery, she gives a real sense of place. It brings back my own memories of the places I've visited, and makes me feel connected to the ones I haven't. For instance, her description of Venice felt like she had pulled thoughts from my head. "I commented on this air of dilapidated celebration, and my father laughed...'Venice is famous for her stage show, and she doesn't mind if she gets a little run-down, as long as the world pours in here to worship her...Wait till evening and you won't be disappointed. A stage set needs a softer kind of light than this. You'll be surprised by the transformation.'"

Theo wrote: "I'm over a quarter of the way into the novel, and I'm continuing to enjoy it, but one thing is bothering me. The pacing is slow, but I think it works well with the story, it fits the narrative; how..." Sounds like you are really getting into it now. I thought the pacing was a device to evoke a time when events moved at a statlier pace than they do now and revelations came only after a lot of investigation.

I think you're right that the pacing sets you firmly in an older time period. I'm a librarian, so I really appreciate all the research being done in libraries and archives by the characters. I also think the pacing gives the novel needed weight. If someone were to give you a brief plot-based synopsis of the book, it would sound trite, if not plain silly. It's the pacing that makes this novel more than just a Dracula story because it sets the scene so completely that the reader is drawn into the story. The characters are fully realized, the settings feel real, etc.

Well, I've finished! I really liked it and found myself thinking about it even when I wasn't reading, which got a bit creepy the other night when I found myself in the stacks of the library where I work and stumbled across books about the Balkans, Ottoman Empire and even one book entitled In Search of Dracula: The History of Dracula and Vampires. Since the book asserts that Dracula goes after historians, librarians and archivists, I spent the next day or two waiting for my own dragon book to appear.

I also found myself thinking that this book read a bit like The Da Vinci Code, only much better written and at the end of the day, much more believable.

I just wanted to say that I'm happy someone in the group has read this book. I bought this and The Swan Thieves (by the same author: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59...) and I've read The Historian, but haven't read The Swan Thieves yet.

As much as I enjoyed the book, I did have one thing that nagged at me quite a bit while I was reading. I grew up in a poorer household (especially given the area that I live, where the average homes are half a million dollars) and it irked me how the narrator was a bit spoiled. I loved the descriptions of the towns and cities and landscapes, and yet in the back of my head I kept thinking, "she's just rubbing in her Harvard education and how much money she has to travel." Not fair to think, I know, but it's true.

Brenda wrote: "I did have one thing that nagged at me quite a bit while I was reading. I grew up in a poorer household (especially given the area that I live, where the average homes are half a million dollars) and it irked me how the narrator was a bit spoiled. I loved the descriptions of the towns and cities and landscapes, and yet in the back of my head I kept thinking, "she's just rubbing in her Harvard education and how much money she has to travel." Not fair to think, I know, but it's true..."

I've had that problem with certain books. It was my main problem with Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader for starters. "Common reader" my arse!

I LOVE this book! It's one of my favorites.

I first read this just about a year and a half ago. The style and consistency of the writing from beginning to end are only part of what captured my attention. When I read it for the first time it was in small increments due to other duties. It worked out quite well and I've read once more since then in a more typical (for me anyway) great chunks at a time. The type of story works either way.

I'm not going to repeat my entire review (which I'm sure everyone knows how to find if interested) other than to say I really enjoyed this new 'traditional' take on the classic Vampire story.

There is one theme in many of the comments both here and in other discussions about The Historian regarding the style and 'intent' of the narrator. To me is very reminiscent of 19th and pre-War 20th century academic prose. English academic prose. Not exact of course, but it does have many similarities. One less known or thought of thing for that time period was that academics had to travel and lived an almost ascetic lifestyle in order to be able to do anything regarding advancing their careers. The author brings out this subculture in a backhanded fashion that I really admire.