Author: Elizabeth Kostova
I just headed over to amazon to pick up a picture for this review, and I was dreading the act of clicking on The Swan Thieves link, because I didn't want to see how many stars readers had given the book. You see, The Swan Thieves (like her previous book, The Historian) is one of those novels that is so gripping that I want to stand on street corners and press copies of it into the hands of passersby. It's 600 pages long. I started the book on Sunday morning and finished it this afternoon. I know now that many Amazon readers considered it "boring" and "plodding" and "painful" but I found the novel as entertaining as John Grisham and as smart as Ian McEwan, with a liberal sprinkling of French Impressionism thrown in for good measure.
Robert Oliver, a renowned painter, ends up in a mental hospital after trying to destroy a painting in Washington DC's National Gallery. Andrew Marlowe, the psychiatrist assigned to Oliver's care, also happens to be a painter, and although he has a reputation for being able to "make a stone talk" he can't get Oliver to talk about why he landed in the hospital, so he has to do detective work, which leads him to North Carolina, Mexico, New York City and France, and into relationships with the women, living and long-dead, who shaped Oliver's consciousness.
Every few months, I come across a book that's so entertaining I don't want to put it down. Every few months I come across a book that's so smart, I'm impressed by the author's skills as a researcher and writer and want to soak up more of her genius. It's rare that the smart and the entertaining come together in the same book, but (for me, at least) The Swan Thieves is the best of both worlds.
3 comments:
off to Amazon. hope I can find a 99 cent copy. ;)
I'm so glad you featured this book because I've reviewed this book on Amazon but was apprehensive based on the reviews. Found your blog through great reads and in my opinion of the books I've read your reviews are spot on. I will be on the look out for The Swan Thieves as soon as I finish Let The Great World Spin.
awesome! sounds like my kind of book. i'll DEF. have to check it out! i've been following your blog for awhile, by the way, and read many books due to your fab reviews. and i love to read AND run as well! we have lots in common. :)
noticed you also know Afton Parker - our husbands are cousins, so we see each other at family things here and there. she's a great friend! keep up with your awesome reading/running goals! you're such an inspiration to me.
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