I've been meaning to write this for a while now, but between laziness and busyness I haven't gotten around to it until now. I regret doing so, because this is probably one of my favorite books now.
The Swan Thieves is a most glorious book, even though a lot of people didn't seem to like it in the reviews that I've read. (I only read 2 or 3, though) Like Kostova's first novel The Historian, she writes a pseudo-history story. It begins with a man, a psychiatrist, getting a phone call asking him if he'd be interested in taking on a difficult patient. This psychiatrist is a painter, and the man they want to transfer is a painter himself who attempted to slash the famous painting Leda and the Swan by Gilbert Thomas in a museum. Intrigued, Doctor Marlowe takes on the case. Robert Oliver refuses to speak to him, but gives him permission to talk to people that were in his life previous to his hospitalization. This leads Marlowe, slowly, to talk to Oliver's ex-wife slowly uncovering the mystery that is Oliver's life. Marlowe finds out that Robert Oliver has an obsession with a woman- not his wife- that he draws and paints constantly with such life. She could walk right out of the paper if she so chose to. Kate, Robert's ex-wife tells Marlowe about his girlfriend that he left her for as well. Marlowe tracks her down, and she begins to tell him her story, and who Robert Oliver was to her. Doctor Marlowe becomes obsessed with this strange painter, and the strange woman in the painting. He finds more connections; more leads, always running to another location to hear more. Always wanting and needing more of this story. He almost becomes as obsessed as Robert Oliver himself was with the woman in the paintings and drawings.
Intertwined in the modern day story of Robert Oliver is an older story. A story of a female painter during the French Impressionist painting age. Robert had letters between this woman and her uncle, and dispersed between the chapters are these letters, uncovering a beautiful story, that doesn't seem important or relevant until you close the book after you finish. Absolutely wonderful.
I think the reason I liked this novel so much was because Elizabeth Kostova researches so much into what she wants to tell her readers. She puts everything she has into her story. This novel was all about paintings. French Impressionists and their art. Real art intermingled with paintings and artists that she made up. I've been painting for about a year and a half now, nowhere close to a professional artist in any way, so reading about these paintings, the methods, the classes that they took and taught, pulled me in. It all sounded so wonderful. This is why I am now taking a painting and drawing class. Because of a fictional novel. If a book can encourage you to want to change your life for the better, especially if it's a fiction novel, then it's a damn good one. Every single time I picked it up to continue reading it I was left with the urge and need to go outside and paint a landscape. Only problem; I don't know how. I wouldn't even know where to begin, and it wouldn't be done well, which would disappoint me severely. Taking these classes are fun and get me some extra credits that I need, but above all they're inspiring me to become a better me.
That is why The Swan Thieves is one of my favorite books now. It improved me.
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