The Historian: tiny annoyance [books]

[marydell]

I'm reading Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian,  which is too tedious to be borne if you're expecting a moderately thrilling vampire novel, but is absolutely a delight if you're in the mood for a ruminative travelogue with a very occasional vampire sighting.

There is a scene in which two people, separated by a language barrier, have a conversation aided by translation dictionaries.  After days of communicating things like "meet me here in this same place at the same time tomorrow" by pointing, they spend several minutes searching through the dictionaries in order to communicate the word "shoulder." 

Mostly the characters are not stupid (which is nice), so that moment jarred me out of the story for a bit.

Comments

[celestialsoda.livejournal.com]

I'm reading Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian, which is too tedious to be borne if you're expecting a moderately thrilling vampire novel, but is absolutely a delight if you're in the mood for a ruminative travelogue with a very occasional vampire sighting.

HAHA, THIS.

Apparently Kostova got a ridiculous advance and took nearly a decade to write what is essentially a food & leisure guide for the bibliophile. Just...lemme know what you think of the ending.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

I have been warned that the ending is meh, but this was by someone who expected a thriller, so I still hope that I will like it.

I think the 10 years to write it preceded the 2 mil she got for it. I can see the 10 years on the page (and it feels like it takes 10 years to read it) so I don't begrudge her the pile of money, although I wish there was a little more plot. And the daughter is starting to be particularly tedious...not as interesting a character as her parents, by a long shot.

[lenora-rose.livejournal.com]

I'm with you on the "argh!"

The thing is, there's a spectrum for a lot of people, between what they would unthinkingly forget to do and what is just lacking in any common sense. On the good side, you get Indiana Jones bringing a gun to a swordfight. On the bad... you get this.

A lot of real people will do the "Oh, right. I can just access the internet on my cell and find the answer? Oops." thing; and yet, put it in a book, and a lot of teens who're growing up with cells, or anyone particularly embracing of new gizmos will roll their eyes.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have trouble with gizmo handling as it's done on TV, although in books I can generally force myself to overlook it. But I can't help getting all meta on structural stuff. This book is mostly very good on structure so my editor-brain was mostly quiet until this bit (I'll write a proper review once I've finished it. There are still trains in Europe that none of the characters have ridden, so I have a ways still to go before I reach the end).

This dictionary thing made me particularly argh-ful because the things they had so far communicated with pointing were a serious stretch. Like, "he held up five fingers. I understood this to mean he would be here for only five more days." And "she pointed to the ground, then to the sun. Indicating that I should meet me her in this place at the same time tomorrow." But when it comes to "I have a mark on my ________" pointing is suddenly right out.