Tuesday, July 24, 2007.11:04 PM

The Historian

"My dear and unfortunate successor..."

Am currently on the 261st page of this book and it's been the cause of my many late nights. Shan't attempt to write a review on it since the story is just unravelling...and I'm not even halfway through yet! Anyone who likes history, Europe and thrillers might want to read this. It's basically a novel based on some historical facts, one historical character - Vlad Tepes III aka Dracula - and the rest are just fiction. It's simply amazing how many years the author spent on her research just to write this book. 10 years!!! She was curious about Bram Stoker's reasons for writing a novel based on the name of this historical character...most people probably still do think that Dracula is merely a fictional character. No. He was a Prince from Wallachia (now part of Romania) in the 15th century...

Actually, some people compare this book to Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code...well, I can see the similarities - some historical facts interwoven with fiction and is based in Europe and America too. There's word that there're already talks on making this into a movie__too. Translations of this book currently stands at 35 languages...a mighty number for a fresh writer.

Anyway, reading about Byzantine, the Ottoman Empire, Vlad Tepes III, Romania made me do some googling and see what I found out about Vlad Tepes III - Dracula...

"Vlad's father was under considerable political pressure from the Ottoman sultan. Threatened with invasion, he gave a promise to be the vassal of the Sultan and gave up his two younger sons as hostages so that he would keep his promise...

Vlad suffered much at the hands of the Ottoman, and was locked up in an underground dungeon; however, his younger brother, Radu, caught the eye of the sultan's son (Homosexuality in that time already!). Radu was released and converted to Islam, before being allowed into the Ottoman royal court...

These years were influential in shaping Vlad's character; he was often whipped by his Ottoman captors for being stubborn and rude. He developed a well-known hatred for Radu and for Mehmed, who would later become the sultan. According to McNally and Florescu, he also distrusted his own father for trading him to the Turks and betraying the Order of the Dragon oath to fight them...

There are several variants of Vlad III the Impaler's death. Some sources say he was killed in battle against the Ottoman near Bucharest in December of 1476. Others say he was assassinated by disloyal Wallachian boyars just as he was about to sweep the Turks from the field or during a hunt. Other accounts have Vlad falling in defeat, surrounded by the bodies of his loyal Moldavian bodyguards (the troops loaned by Prince Stephen remained with Vlad after Stephen Báthory returned to his country). Still other reports claim that Vlad, at the moment of victory, was accidentally struck down by one of his own men. Vlad's body was decapitated by the Turks and his head was sent to Istanbul and preserved in honey, where the sultan had it displayed on a stake as proof that Kazıklı Bey was dead. He was reportedly buried at a monastery located near Bucharest, yet the exact place of his burial remains unknown, as excavations at Snagov monastery, usually mentioned as his final resting place, have found no human remains...

Outside of Romanian folklore the reputation of Vlad Ţepeş is considerably darker. Vlad III Ţepeş has been characterized by some as exceedingly cruel. Impalement was Ţepeş's preferred method of torture and execution. His method of torture was a horse attached to each of the victim's legs as a sharpened stake was gradually forced into the body. The end of the stake was usually oiled, and care was taken that the stake not be too sharp; else the victim might die too rapidly from shock. Normally the stake was inserted into the body through the anus and was often forced through the body until it emerged from the mouth. However, there were many instances where victims were impaled through other bodily orifices or through the abdomen or chest. Infants were sometimes impaled on the stake forced through their mother's chests. The records indicate that victims were sometimes impaled so that they hung upside down on the stake.[5]

As expected, death by impalement was slow and painful. Victims sometimes endured for hours or days. Vlad often had the stakes arranged in various geometric patterns. The most common pattern was a ring of concentric circles in the outskirts of a city that constituted his target. The height of the spear indicated the rank of the victim. The corpses were often left decaying for months..." taken from Wikipedia.

for more info on Vlad III/Dracula, go to here...

.:. 0C o m m e n t s.:.