Talk:The Historian/GA1

GA Review

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Better late than never?

I am (finally) getting to this review - apologies for tardiness.

The text is elegantly written, with some exceptions primarily in the plot summary; it is well referenced, neutral and stable; and all images appear to be in order. It appears comprehensive and suitably focussed, with the possible exception of the coverage of awards won (see below).

Specific points

Lead: "The novel is concerned with questions about history, its role in society, and how it is represented in books..." It is not immediately clear what "it" is in this sentence. I had to read it three times to realise the word referred to "history", when I kept trying to figure it meant "the novel", even though such a reading would not make sense. Redraft?
- Grammatically, "it" clearly refers back to "history". Pronouns refer back to the last noun in the sentence. However, I have rewritten the sentence. It now reads: The novel is concerned with history's role in society and how history is represented in books, as well as the nature of good and evil. Awadewit (talk) 01:28, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Lead: "to land at number one on the The New York Times bestseller list..." I read the expression "to land" as meaning that it was in the number one position on the first week it was included. If that is not what is meant, please revise.

I checked the source. It says "When it was published in the U.S. last year, The Historian became the first debut novel to hit No 1 on The New York Times bestseller list", so it has the same ambiguity. I'll have to check the NYT bestseller lists themselves. I will come back to this. Awadewit (talk) 01:28, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I checked the NYTimes lists - the very first week it was published it was at #1. Awadewit (talk) 04:12, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Plot summary: "As a result, Rossi researched Vlad Ţepeş,..." As a result of what? There is no explanation of why two people finding the same book would logically lead to a sudden impulse to research the inspiration for Dracula stories. Nothing here suggest this was "a result" of anything.

Clarified that the books were handmade and thus it was strange to encounter two of them and that the woodcut was connected to Dracula. Awadewit (talk) 01:28, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Plot summary: "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 graduate work." This sentence is strangely at once specific and vague. "Curious characters"? How do these "cause" him to drop his investigation?

There are a lot of subplots in this book that it is not worth elaborating on in a summary. This is an example. Awadewit (talk) 01:28, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Plot summary: "During her father's story, the narrator begins researching Dracula and she and her father travel across Europe." Huh? The father's story was in the 50s; how can she travel with her father in the 70s, "during" the 50s?

"Part I opens in 1972 Amsterdam. The unnamed sixteen-year-old narrator finds an old vellum-bound book with a woodcut of a dragon in the center. When she asks her father Paul about it, he tells her how he found the handmade book in his study carrel when he was a graduate student in the 1950s. Much of the ensuing novel is told as a story, either orally or in letters, from father to daughter." - The events happened to her father in the 1950s, but he is telling them to his daughter in the 1970s. How can we make this clearer? Awadewit (talk) 01:28, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

An aside

I haven't read this novel, so I'll just say this, and we can discuss what this means for the article: the plot summary, written in perfectly sound english though it may be, pretty much makes no sense to me. Now, I'm guessing this is down to the slightly baroque structure of the book and its reflexive plot. Nevertheless, how is a lay encyclopedia reader going to make sense of this? My rather radical suggestion is this: rename and reduce the plot summary to a bare paragraph, that tells us the themes, characters and settings of the book but does not, in a literal manner, attempt to summarise the plot.

I'm not prepared to throw out the plot summary just yet. Could you explain a bit more what was difficult to understand? I doubt that nothing made sense. Let's try to work out what did make sense and what did not. Your points above, for example, were very good. Awadewit (talk)

Back to specific points

Composition and publication: There is something odd about the idea that recordings made two decades ago "will be" deposited in the L of C. Why future tense?

The source says "will". Awadewit (talk) 01:35, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Lead, and Genre and style: he only term with which I am not familiar in this article is "epistolary". I know it is linked, but might it need explanation, or a less technical near-equivalent?

I hate to substitute this word because it is the exactly right word. If that is the only link people have to click, I am ok with that - they will learn a new word. Besides it is so cumbersome to say "a epic in letters". Ew. Awadewit (talk) 01:35, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I will let this bit of wikipedagogy through :-) hamiltonstone (talk) 02:44, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Genre and style: "For example, in both The Historian and Dracula, the protagonist is both..." Can one of the uses of "both" be eliminated?

Done. Awadewit (talk) 01:35, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The awards are listed at the end of the "reception" section without commentary, which seems strange. Were not the winnings of these awards themselves events that drew comment from reliable sources?

I didn't see all that much commentary and this is a pretty typical way of listing lesser awards. These are not the Nobel Prize in Literature or anything. Awadewit (talk) 01:35, 25 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Fair point that they may not have got much third-party coverage, but i sitll feel it is very strange to have some awards listed without any reference at all in the body text. Did not the judges / awarders of these prizes themselves make some comments about what they thought of the winning work? If so, that is deserving of treatment in the text just as are the words of other reviewers (as is currently done). By way of example, I've just done this for Danie Mellor. hamiltonstone (talk) 02:44, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps, but I did look through hundreds of sources on LexisNexis and other databases and I didn't see anything. I'm afraid I don't have time to look this up now - my dad just had open heart surgery. Cas, if you want to look further, please do. This is also the format I used for Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and The Time Traveler's Wife, which are both featured. Awadewit (talk) 14:57, 28 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

That's it. Good work. hamiltonstone (talk) 12:24, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I am needing to sleep, and need a fresh head to explain and figure out what to do about the plot. And it really is Awadewit's baby, but I will have a look tomorrow. Casliber (talk · contribs) 14:33, 23 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

plot summary again

Begin with a general introduction. A couple of sentences that state a few key points.

"The plot blends the history and folklore of Vlad Ţepeş and his fictional equivalent Count Dracula." (ie. repeat this, or similar, from the lead).
The novel blends narratives in two/three time periods: the mentor of the narrator's father in the 1930s; the narrator's father's travels blah blah in the 1950s; the blah blah in Amsterdam in the 1970s, etc. (this can be cannibalised from the current last sentence of the first para of the plot summary)

Excellent idea - I've added the following to the beginning of the plot summary: The Historian interweaves the history and folklore of Vlad Ţepeş, a fiftheenth-century prince of Wallachia known as "Vlad the Impaler", and his fictional equivalent Count Dracula together with the story of a professor, his daughter (the narrator), and their quest for Vlad's tomb. The novel ties together three separate narratives: that of the professor's mentor in the 1930s, that of the narrator's father in the 1950s, and that of the narrator herself in the 1970s. Awadewit (talk) 19:04, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Incidentally, in doing this, we need to be told who Vlad Tepes is - a WIkilink in my view won't cut it with a crucial element of the story - this can also be done using text from existing first para. Only after the above has been done should the existing plot summary then proceed, the current first para becoming a second para.

"..she is going to publish the definitive work on Dracula to punish him for deserting her." Reads as though Dracula deserted her.
- Fixed pronoun. Awadewit (talk) 19:10, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"During her father's story, the narrator begins researching Dracula and she and her father travel across Europe." This needs to be rephrased to differentiate between story in the sense of the pages of the the book, and story in the sense of her father's relating of his account. Also shoudl make explicit that it means "While her father is telling/writing her his story,..." Actually, I can't make sense of this sentence at all. Explain it again?
- Revised: While hearing her father's story, the narrator becomes interested in the mystery and begins researching Dracula as she and her father travel across Europe. Awadewit (talk) 19:10, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Helen and Paul conclude that Rossi might have been taken by Dracula to his tomb." Be more explicit in your structure. This should begin "During their travels in the 1950s..." Don't rely on the end of hte previous para - I certainly didn't make the link at first.
- Clarified. Awadewit (talk) 19:10, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Rossi intended to marry Helen's mother, but he was later drugged and forgot the entire incident." OK, that's wierd. But is it actually relevant to hte plot? Can we omit this sentence? The text already reads rather disjointedly. Ditto "Because the trip takes place during the 1950s and Hungary is behind the Iron Curtain, Helen's Aunt Éva must put elaborate political machinations into place to allow Paul access into and travel around the country." This does not appear relevant.
- Removed the second one - the first explains why he wasn't persuaded that Helen was his daughter. Awadewit (talk) 19:15, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Helen's Aunt Éva again helps them get into the country; however, throughout their trip, they are shadowed by political representatives of the government and they must constantly maneuver to speak only when such people are out of earshot." Again, doesn't appear relevant in the scheme of things.
- Removed. Awadewit (talk) 19:15, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"...Dracula is a scholar and has a secret library. Rossi has written an account of his imprisonment and hidden it in the library." He hid his book in Dracula's library???
- He was imprisoned there - clarified. Awadewit (talk) 19:15, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The first mention of "Saint-Matthieu-des-Pyrénées-Orientales" gives no explanaiton, whereas the second mention tells us about it being a monastry - can this be re-jigged to a more logical order?

- Fixed. Awadewit (talk) 04:07, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"...is compelled to jump off a cliff. She survives and decides to hunt him down and kill him." Sounds odd put this way. Someone surviving a cliff-jump immediately puts the reader in mind of the supernatural, or that Helen is a vampire. Is that the intention?

- No - there is nothing supernatural about it. I don't know how to fix this - suggestions? Awadewit (talk) 04:07, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Not really. I thought about it but didn't come up with anything. So that's fine. Everything else has been improved. We're done here, thanks. hamiltonstone (talk) 04:40, 17 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

These are just the points where I felt able to put my finger on the problem. There are others where I just didn't like the prose for some reason i can't explain, but, frankly, I blame the book, not the wikipedia editors! If my wife's lukewarm opinion of this book had not dissuaded me from reading it, your helpful summary certainly has. Dan Brown with pretentions :-)) Sorry - I guess you are fan of it to go to the trouble of writing this article, but there you are. I'll keep an eye out. hamiltonstone (talk) 10:04, 9 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Thanks for your insightful suggestions - they were very good. I'll try to finish this up tomorrow. Thanks also for your patience. Awadewit (talk) 19:16, 15 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]