Every month beginning in January followers of Nuttermother are invited to join the Nuttermother bookclub. There are no commitments, no social parties, just you, your book and the opportunity to talk about it with other followers on bookclub day.

*Please note: There are spoilers...

This review is from the NutterMother January Book Club

Brief plot synopsys:

Late one night, while exploring her father's library, a young woman finds an old book and a pile of yellowing letters all addressed to "My dear and unfortunate successor." These letters are the beginnig of a labyrinth inwhich the secrets of her father's past and her mother's mysterious fate intertwine with the mysterious origines of Dracula....

Was it just me or were the first 100 pages really hard to get into?

To be honest I got to a point when I was looking at the book, annoyed that this was the first book club pick, remembering all the great reviews I had read, and decided I needed to do something before I chucked it across it the room.

So…

I cheated.

Well, not so much as cheated like I read the cliff notes, but I did go down to the library and pick up the audio version. I feel so guilty…

No I don’t.

IT WAS THE BEST IDEA EVER!!!

I have never listened to an audio book before and in retrospect, had I tried it out while at university, I probably would have passed that Classical Purists 341 class…

Have you ever tried to read Ulysses? I didn’t think so.

So, the audio book – it was great. It brought an entirely new dimension to the novel, which in turn made me go back to the actual book, pick it up and carry on.

In general, I really liked the novel. It felt like a smart persons Di Vince Code. But by no means was it traditionally suspenseful; however I was always curious to see how the story would continue play out.

I have a few thoughts about some of the related themes throughout the novel, and the odd observation. My first is about this notion of curiosity, probably one of the leading motivators of the novel. Reading about that moment when the narrator found the strange Gothic text full of random personal letters, on her father’s quiet shelf, how can you not help yourself from nosily read through it?

Impossible! I would have been all over that like a dirty shirt.

Or those moments when the strange Gothic texts start to find you! How can you not be intrigued by its sudden appearance, and desperately want to learn more?

I started to wonder if this book was a lesson in curiosity, like the familiar proverb “curiosity killed the cat,” the more intent the characters were on discovering truth, the more harm would seem to come to them – or at least lurk behind a bookcase. It made me wonder, if none of them fell into this curious temptation what would have happened to them. We did met one character that plainly ignored his dragon book, although he did wind up with a catatonic fiancé….

Layering is the second theme that runs throughout the text. The layers of relationships shape the text. The Rossi/Getzi relationship needs to happen to have the Paul/ Helen relationship which would then facilitate the narrator’s story. Had Rossi simply ignored the dragon text, nothing would have happened.

But by layering the progression of these relationships and creating a dialogue in which all characters are roughly moving forward with the exact same motivation, one cannot ignore that idea, the layers are representing the idea that history does indeed repeat itself. Whether through people or circumstances, I believe this is Kostova’s strongest lesson of the novel. History will be doomed to repeat itself if we do not change the pattern.

The third theme is the title, The Historian and what its true definition is. The title specifically refers to Dracula; however, I think it is much more than that. Everyone, throughout the novel, is looking for a connection with the past, thus, each character is a Historian. Whether digging through their personal histories, in the case of Helen and the narrator, or society’s past, in the case of Paul and Rossi’s more scholarly approach, they all are represented in the title.

Dracula, identified initially as the Historian because he amasses great texts from the ages, is more or less just a symbol. He is the ‘living’ representation that history never dies; he represents all the terrible and shameful actions that society chooses to ignore or repress and as result, is doomed to repeat.

Perhaps that is why Dracula does not die at the end of the book, and the narrator is given her own copy of the dragon book, (I never thought Helen killed him, it was a too easy way for him to go) because we need to perpetuate this idea, again, of history repeating itself and Dracula is once again resurrected.

Interesting note – was it me or did all the relationships in the novel develop really quickly? Rossi and Helens mother, Paul and Helen, the narrator and Barley they felt like they took three days to develop into “love”.

Paul and Helens relationship felt a tad unrealistic, and my eyes rolled when he proposed. Granted, inevitably they needed to get together to include the presence of the narrator. Similarly, the narrator’s own romance with Barley was a bit rushed and was included in the novel only as a means of transitioning the narrator to womanhood, and to fulfill the role as protector in getting her to her father, and Rossi fell for his Romanian farm girl once he made the Dracula connection.

I also noted that – upon re-reading the preface, in the narrators list of thank-yous Barleys name is omitted – this is no surprise, as I never believed that this relationship was more than a romance that ended in the hotel room. There was that moment when he moved away from her and said, “Ah, you’re just a kid,” and instantly he emotionally removed himself from the narrator. On one hand I thought this was the most realistic relationship in the novel. However, once they “separated” Barley from the narrator, at least from my perspective he just became a tag along. As a result, I think this added to my skepticism of the confronting Dracula scene.

The odd climax of the story seemed very convenient and rushed. One minute Dracula was throwing a man across the room with super human strength and the next he’s been shot dead with a single silver bullet.

Pa-lease.

You’re telling me Dracula has outlived man, in a cave for over the past 509 years, to be killed in 2 seconds. It just didn’t feel plausible – yes, I know, silver bullet… I just would have thought he should have had some minions around to engage in more of a dramatic scuffle…

The conclusion of the text was wonderful. I believe, Kostova did an excellent job tying all her loose ends with a little hint of intrigue in the mix. Did the narrator get her dragon book from Dracula? Will we ever really know? It was a strong way to end a curiously suspenseful novel.

In retrospect this novel was more about the ride then the conclusion, on occasion Kostrova spent a little too much time showing off her own research then focusing on the progression of the story. However, it was well written, entertaining, hardly scary as some reviews made it out to be and I give it a strong 3.5 out of 5

NutterMother February book choice: The Help by Kathryn Stockett