The Swan Thieves: A Novel

by Elizabeth Kostova | Literature & Fiction |
ISBN: 0316065781 Global Overview for this book
Registered by wingKateKintailwing of Burke, Virginia USA on 4/28/2013
Buy from one of these Booksellers:
Amazon.com | Amazon UK | Amazon CA | Amazon DE | Amazon FR | Amazon IT | Bol.com
2 journalers for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by wingKateKintailwing from Burke, Virginia USA on Sunday, April 28, 2013
Bought this at the dollar store a few months ago with a themed release in mind.

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS A FEW POSSIBLE SPOILERS!!!

I really, really wanted to love this book, because I thoroughly enjoyed The Historian.

I guess my main problem with this book was that I could never quite figure out what was going on, so it always felt like I was sinking in quicksand with nothing to hold onto. And I'm sure that the author wanted me to not quite know what was going on-- that was the big mystery central to the story, wasn't it? It was the thing that kept me listening. But after a while, after, maybe, 10 discs, I was just annoyed as heck that I wasn't any closer to figuring it out. The connection to Beatrice was obvious. But was he channelling her? Was he somehow imagining that he knew her? Was there some kind of weird time travel going on? Was she projecting her life to him in her dreams (she was always talking about her dreams). Was she aware of the connection between them? Was she having the same sort of thing where she would start painting him just as he was painting her? I thought that would be amazing. Alas, none of that came to pass. Robert Oliver just really liked her work and fixated on her. Boring compared to all the possibilities that were rushing through my mind after 17 LONG discs of wondering.

Also, I really didn't care for the main character, the detective. Marlow might have been cool, but he lost me during his first trip to the art museum where he starts describing one of the museum employee's body and thinks about having sex with her. And then, minutes later, he's doing to same thing regarding a woman he's standing next to in the gallery (okay, so he ends up actually having a relationship with her later). And then not long after, he goes to talk with his patient's ex-wife and immediately starts by describing her breasts. Yeah. Made me lose interest in the guy from the start.

Okay, so the story has to do with art. And in that respect, I was captivated. We saw art from so many different angles and in so many different ways. New artists, occasional artists, art professors, art students, artists from a century ago, art collectors, families of artists, etc. For 17 discs we lived and breathed so many aspects of the art world. If I didn't already appreciate art, I'm sure the book would have made me do so. It was not only well-researched but well-described. I was absolutely in love with that aspect. It was so vivid and real.

Which brings me to the story. The main story is about Robert Oliver, a painter who attacked a painting in the National Gallery of Art (a painting which doesn't actually exist, I'm sad to say). A psychiatrist (who happens to paint a little as a hobby) is brought in to figure out why he attacked it. We hear bits of the story from people who know Oliver, because Oliver doesn't speak much (or at all) in present day, mostly his ex-wife and his ex-girlfriend (who the psychiatrist later befriends and sleeps with). We also get the story of Beatrice, a French painter from the late 1800s we find out that Robert Oliver is obsessed with. She struggles with her identity as a female painter in that time period and is self-conscious about her work. The stories in the two time periods run parallel for a while, but (as I said) there isn't enough insight into either until the end.

And that's where my main complaint comes in. IMO, The Swan Thieves painting should REALLY have been introduced long before. When we find out near the end that it exists and is amazing, it's not at all as powerful as it could have been because I hadn't known about it before that. There was no emotional pull for me. And the big moment where Marlow gets to see the painting fell flat for me because I didn't care a bit about the painting that was, in fact, so important that it is the title of the novel.

The ending actually infuriated me. When I saw Elizabeth Kostova at the National Book Festival this September, about a week after I had finished the book, I was really tempted to go up to the mic and ask her what exactly Marlow thought he was thanking Robert Oliver for (thank you for going crazy? thank you for passing your appreciation/obsession on to me? thank you for your girlfriend who's now my girlfriend?). But I thought that might, you know, spoil the ending for everyone else (almost all the questions were about The Historian).

The story was slow for me. The characters were a little flat. But the description of the art & art world and the appreciation for art was beautiful. It was certainly worth reading the book just for that.

Released 10 yrs ago (4/28/2013 UTC) at National Gallery of Art - West Building in Washington, District of Columbia USA

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

Planning on releasing this outside the museum where parts of this book are set.

Welcome to BookCrossing!


Making a journal entry here lets me know the book has been found and is safe in your hands. The book is yours now! Read it, give it to a friend, pass it on, or keep it forever--it's your choice.

If you pass it on to someone or leave it "in the wild" for someone else to find, please make another journal entry or release notes here to explain that it's travelling to find another home.

You can remain anonymous on the website or join BookCrossing. Joining is free, safe, and spam free and you'll get an e-mail every time a new person finds this book. You'll be able to watch it move around and find out what other readers thought of it.

I hope you enjoy the book. Happy reading!

Journal Entry 3 by Koobs39 at Washington, District of Columbia USA on Thursday, June 20, 2013
Anna (Norwegian/British) and Lars (German) picked the book up from the steps of the National Art Gallery in Washington on a recent holiday trip to the US at the end of April. It was brought it back to London and after a brief sojourn on a bookshelf it was read and enjoyed as pleasant downtime in a frantic working week. We will be releasing this little treasure back into circulation shortly (the plan is to do so at or by the National Gallery in London as that feels rather pleasingly symmetrical). Definitely worth a read (and I seem to have fallen for it more than the previous book lover!).

Are you sure you want to delete this item? It cannot be undone.