Dracula is a Dumbass
Aug. 22nd, 2007 12:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shipperxOkay, I have finally, finally slogged all the way through The Historian and my conclusion is that if Dracula in the story wasn't dumbass enough in his own right, he's an even greater dumbass for not murdering every other character in the book.
Look, over the years I've read my fair share of crap. I can even enjoy crap. (Hell, I read The DaVinci Code in one sitting and have been known to defend it on the basis of it working as a fast-paced chase-thriller and travelogue). It takes a very special kind of crap to inspire the urge to chuck a book across the room, and The Historian is that very special kind of crap.
First off, it's taken me around four months to finish the book, and the delay wasn't due to the length of the novel. It was due to the fact that about midway through it I swore that if one more character opened his or her mouth to have yet another stilted exposition dump I was going to throw the book on the floor.
So I did.
Of course, in childhood I developed some dogged determination to see most stories through to the end, so I eventually found the fortitude to go back to the cursed thing.
It didn't get better.
queenofthorns or someone (perhaps a book reviewer?) said "Who remembers what they had for dinner twenty years ago? Every character in The Historian." After having read that remark, I literally burst out laughing when I next ran across a scene in the novel where a character described the delicious meal they had a decade earlier.
In fact, I laughed a lot while reading the novel (at the unintentionally funny places because the author has no humor to speak of in the book). When Dracula finally, finally put in an appearance, I giggled. Poor Prince of Darkness, how did he become such a useless git? Snagging a quote from a review on Amazon (a review with which I heartily agree) here is one person's summation of the big plot reveal:
For most of the novel it felt like evil!Spike lurked around somewhere in my head complaining about Dracula dicking around with innocent bystanders and collateral damage while never actually doing anything to the people he was supposedly menacing. Meanwhile, in another space in my head, Scott Evil was jumping up and down with impatience saying he could kill these people with a gun shot in five seconds and Drac had gone 500+ pages and hadn't done anything more than piss people off and reveal his master plan (Dracula clearly never read the Evil Overlord's Handbook ).
And pulling out a couple of other quotes from the Amazon poster:
Everyone in this novel is a bookworm, for the same reason that everyone acts the same, thinks the same, and talks the same: because everyone in this novel is essentially one character, the author herself. Romanian peasant, Turkish professor, expat teenager--read a line of dialogue at random, and you'd never be able to guess who is who. When you pick up the book, it is often a bit confusing to figure out where you are...
I'll add that it's also impossible to tell when you are. The 1950s, 60s, and 70s are all 100% interchangeable. Gender and decade make no difference. Characters and their circumstances are exactly the same.
All in all, I have to give this book the prize for most annoying book I've read in a very long time. How did this book garner so much praise?Honestly, I cannot think of a single thing about it that made it a worthwhile read. I've read purple-prosed bodice rippers which were more entertaining.
Look, over the years I've read my fair share of crap. I can even enjoy crap. (Hell, I read The DaVinci Code in one sitting and have been known to defend it on the basis of it working as a fast-paced chase-thriller and travelogue). It takes a very special kind of crap to inspire the urge to chuck a book across the room, and The Historian is that very special kind of crap.
First off, it's taken me around four months to finish the book, and the delay wasn't due to the length of the novel. It was due to the fact that about midway through it I swore that if one more character opened his or her mouth to have yet another stilted exposition dump I was going to throw the book on the floor.
So I did.
Of course, in childhood I developed some dogged determination to see most stories through to the end, so I eventually found the fortitude to go back to the cursed thing.
It didn't get better.
queenofthorns or someone (perhaps a book reviewer?) said "Who remembers what they had for dinner twenty years ago? Every character in The Historian." After having read that remark, I literally burst out laughing when I next ran across a scene in the novel where a character described the delicious meal they had a decade earlier. In fact, I laughed a lot while reading the novel (at the unintentionally funny places because the author has no humor to speak of in the book). When Dracula finally, finally put in an appearance, I giggled. Poor Prince of Darkness, how did he become such a useless git? Snagging a quote from a review on Amazon (a review with which I heartily agree) here is one person's summation of the big plot reveal:
...we finally pry apart the gravestones (duly pausing to note how the dust of the centuries has settled just so on the fading inscriptions of the musty crypt) and learn the terrible truth of Dracula's horrible plan for the professor to--Dun-Dun-DUUUUNNN!--CATALOG HIS LIBRARY! (As Dave Barry would say, I swear I am not making this up.) As it turns out, the Prince of the Undead is a bit of a bookworm. Who knew?
I will add that said professor was horrified -- HORRIFIED-- and, in fact, suicidal over the prospect of becoming Dracula's librarian in addition to living forever to research and tend rare, first edition books! How could a research and book-obsessed historian contemplate such a horrific fate?! Why, thus far in the book (other than recounting the history of the actual Vlad the Impaler which is genuinely horrifying), vampiric Dracula's post-death crimes have involved randomly biting bystanders then letting them go to warn researchers away and to kill a cat. I shudder at the mind-blowing, untenable horror of it all.
::shudder::
I will add that said professor was horrified -- HORRIFIED-- and, in fact, suicidal over the prospect of becoming Dracula's librarian in addition to living forever to research and tend rare, first edition books! How could a research and book-obsessed historian contemplate such a horrific fate?! Why, thus far in the book (other than recounting the history of the actual Vlad the Impaler which is genuinely horrifying), vampiric Dracula's post-death crimes have involved randomly biting bystanders then letting them go to warn researchers away and to kill a cat. I shudder at the mind-blowing, untenable horror of it all.
::shudder::
For most of the novel it felt like evil!Spike lurked around somewhere in my head complaining about Dracula dicking around with innocent bystanders and collateral damage while never actually doing anything to the people he was supposedly menacing. Meanwhile, in another space in my head, Scott Evil was jumping up and down with impatience saying he could kill these people with a gun shot in five seconds and Drac had gone 500+ pages and hadn't done anything more than piss people off and reveal his master plan (Dracula clearly never read the Evil Overlord's Handbook ).
And pulling out a couple of other quotes from the Amazon poster:
Everyone in this novel is a bookworm, for the same reason that everyone acts the same, thinks the same, and talks the same: because everyone in this novel is essentially one character, the author herself. Romanian peasant, Turkish professor, expat teenager--read a line of dialogue at random, and you'd never be able to guess who is who. When you pick up the book, it is often a bit confusing to figure out where you are...
I'll add that it's also impossible to tell when you are. The 1950s, 60s, and 70s are all 100% interchangeable. Gender and decade make no difference. Characters and their circumstances are exactly the same.
...perhaps we should be thankful that, with all the sightseeing, the plot scarcely ever has a chance to make an appearance, because it seems mostly to consist of contrivances and chance meetings that even a Victorian like Bram Stoker would have blushed at.
That woman checking out Stoker's 'Dracula' in the library just as the professor's student is starting his research?
The professor's long-lost daughter.
The Turkish fellow sitting down to dinner at the next table?
A lifelong Dracula fanatic and amateur historian. And his English is excellent on account of his day job as a professor of English Lit.
The English historian at a random academic conference in Budapest that our heroes attend as a cover-story to score visas to Hungary?
The proud recipient of yet another of those antique dragon-books.
For me, the point at which I wanted to be sporked was when the author tried to 'hang a lantern' on the unbelievable coincidences by having the protagonist point out to the guy in Budapest that it was a surprising coincidence that he too secretly studied Dracula. I (I think possibly literally) said, "Why the hell is that surprising when every character in the book is secretly studying Dracula? When something is ubiquitous, it's not coincidental!"
*ahem* I said I became annoyed while reading this, right?
Oh! And let me not forget one of the most infuriatingly dumb sequences in the book. Professor Rossi travelled to Romania where an innocent peasant girl (and decendant of Dracula!) -- who only spoke pigeon English and only spoke to Rossi twice gave him her virginity after which he promptly asked her to marry him, but he first had to leave the country for some odd reason... only he never returned... and she was pregnant.
Okay, he played her, right?
No.
He was waylaid and killed, right?
Nope. Not that either.
The reasoning for his action is explained some twenty odd years later when his illegitimate daughter is in Budapest with Rossi's protege (who she has fallen instantaneously in love with!) and, while in one of the countless restaurants or bars, he is given a drink called amnesia. It's repeated twice in case the reader didn't pick up the significance. The illegitimate daughter has the sudden epiphany that OMG! Her father simply forgot! (This despite the fact that Professor Rossi apparently remembered everything else, that her hook-up/fiance/husband didn't actually get amnesia from his drink, or the fact that when she finally met her father for the first time, he mistook her for her mother!).
That woman checking out Stoker's 'Dracula' in the library just as the professor's student is starting his research?
The professor's long-lost daughter.
The Turkish fellow sitting down to dinner at the next table?
A lifelong Dracula fanatic and amateur historian. And his English is excellent on account of his day job as a professor of English Lit.
The English historian at a random academic conference in Budapest that our heroes attend as a cover-story to score visas to Hungary?
The proud recipient of yet another of those antique dragon-books.
For me, the point at which I wanted to be sporked was when the author tried to 'hang a lantern' on the unbelievable coincidences by having the protagonist point out to the guy in Budapest that it was a surprising coincidence that he too secretly studied Dracula. I (I think possibly literally) said, "Why the hell is that surprising when every character in the book is secretly studying Dracula? When something is ubiquitous, it's not coincidental!"
*ahem* I said I became annoyed while reading this, right?
Oh! And let me not forget one of the most infuriatingly dumb sequences in the book. Professor Rossi travelled to Romania where an innocent peasant girl (and decendant of Dracula!) -- who only spoke pigeon English and only spoke to Rossi twice gave him her virginity after which he promptly asked her to marry him, but he first had to leave the country for some odd reason... only he never returned... and she was pregnant.
Okay, he played her, right?
No.
He was waylaid and killed, right?
Nope. Not that either.
The reasoning for his action is explained some twenty odd years later when his illegitimate daughter is in Budapest with Rossi's protege (who she has fallen instantaneously in love with!) and, while in one of the countless restaurants or bars, he is given a drink called amnesia. It's repeated twice in case the reader didn't pick up the significance. The illegitimate daughter has the sudden epiphany that OMG! Her father simply forgot! (This despite the fact that Professor Rossi apparently remembered everything else, that her hook-up/fiance/husband didn't actually get amnesia from his drink, or the fact that when she finally met her father for the first time, he mistook her for her mother!).
All in all, I have to give this book the prize for most annoying book I've read in a very long time. How did this book garner so much praise?Honestly, I cannot think of a single thing about it that made it a worthwhile read. I've read purple-prosed bodice rippers which were more entertaining.
