The Blood Countess

Rating:
Summary: The one is intense, even by Codrescu's standards.
Review: Whether based on fact or not, this book presents a lot of questions on the nature of evil, and what turns human beings into monsters. Was it the age she lived in, what she saw and experienced, especially as a child, her loneliness, madness, or a combination of all of these? Give human beings enough pain and suffering, whether individually or as a whole, and they will dish it out themselves, in bigger and better amounts; is that what Codrescu seems to be saying? The author touches on this as being part of the very nature or Eastern Europe, ingrained forever. Unfortunately, this was not developed further. Perhaps that was the purpose of the modern day subplot, which by itself made no sense. Codrescu brings us through Hell, but never tells us why. What was his point...? DO NOT read this book if you upset easily

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Summary: Bloody COOL!
Review: The Blood Countess has got to be the bloodiest book ever written and published! I highly recommend this book to everyone.

Rating:
Summary: great story
Review: This is a pretty good book! I actually finished it in a day

Rating:
Summary: Execellent story, couldn't put it down.
Review: although some of the details and characters of the book were changed from true accounts I enjoyed the book. I found it hard to set down. I was somewhat disappointed in the ending. You spend all this time listening to this man tell the story to a judge then are left out of the verdict.

Rating:
Summary: Very good - excellent narrative skills
Review: I read this book about 3 years ago. The author is Hungarian(I believe), but currently living in New Orleans. His narrative skills are very captivating. He pulls you into the book almost as quickly as Anne Rice. The book is based on historical fact, and yet you feel as if you are there while reading it! If you like vampire stories - a definate must read!

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Summary: For a reporter this man has no ethics.
Review: Perhaps it isn't fair to blame the author for trying to pass off The Blood Countess as some sort of well-researched novel. It isn't. And though it is perhaps unforgiving for me, as a fellow author, to take him to task for this, it is insulting to myself, to Ray McNally, to Radu Florescu and to others who have delved into the life of the Countess Bathori. Sadly, the actual facts would have made much jucier--and much better--reading.

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Summary: Where's the beef???
Review: A surprizingly disappointing rendition of a potentially exillarating story. I have read articles and other short stories written by Godrescu, and I expected so much more... (Good thing I didn't pay full price.) The story within story set up didn't impress me, but he could have been worked it better. Historical details were Ok, perhaps one day I'll visit Hungary. The gory details were lacking. There wasn't enough anything - not enough gore, not enough history, not enough sex, not enough horror, not enough details; just not enough! To the Author I say: "Read one of Gary Jennings books."

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Summary: Made me sorry i bought this trash!
Review: Although I was caught up in this trashy novel trying to pass itself off as history, I did enjoy the author's style of story telling. I only got half way through, when I scolded myself for wasting too much time on this garbage. Nothing but glossy porn.

Rating:
Summary: Juicy read but not much else
Review: Sex and violence become indistinguishable in this perverted, albeit addictive, novel. I was embarresed to get so caught up in it; I only read it in private, so no one would come up to me and say "Hey, whatcha readin'?" The last thing I wanted to do was explain that once there was this countess who sexually tortured and murdered young girls, and oh yeah; she also sleeps with her aunt, dwarves, a big cat, her servants, and of course her husband. This girl also liked to watch people getting slowly and excruiatingly killed, a hobby she developed as a child. Then, in the present time, there's her desendant, who also gets excited by pain, both his own and others. He is terrified by his legacy, and in his final act of masochism, he begs a judge to throw him in the slammer and swallow the key. All of this, in case you were wondering, is drawn out for us in explicit, gory detail. While I guiltily enjoyed reading this well written trash, I felt kind of sick afterwards, and promised myself I would never again succum to such overwrought, voyeristic and sensational fiction again. So far I've kept my promise. By the way, I wonder if my half gleeful enjoyment, half throw-up reaction to this book has to do with the fact that I'm a female. I would love to get a male friend to read this, to see if he got at all sickened by it. Mabey I'm just a tittering girl who is too easily grossed out. On the other hand, this book is pretty disgusting. My rating of 1 is a sort of "golden turkey" award; this book is so bad, it's good

Rating:
Summary: Turned off.
Review: Turned off What begins as compelling and titillating finally wears the reader down with all the overstuffed banality of pornography. While it may be argued that the surfeit of sex and violence is precisely the point in capturing the excesses of so gross a personage as Elizabeth Bathory, I question why the author felt he also had to explore the kinks of the modern day narrator and his companions, all of whom seem to flirt with an obsession for sex and violence reminiscent of their twisted ancestor. The implication that they are all somehow reincarnations of Elizabeth and her victims, or possessed by their evil spirits, seems a contrivance, and the idea that we are supposed to glean some meaningful historical significance out of this, or some revealing message about the current political state of affairs in Hungary and central Europe is a real stretch. Although Mr. Codrescu's style is fluid and precise, ultimately The Blood Countees had the faint odor of authorial self-indulgence about it and it left me feeling overwhelmed, exhausted and turned off. Malcolm Logan [e-mail]