The Swan Thieves

Summary (from the publisher): This richly told, beautifully imagined novel takes us on a journey into the lives of the women left behind by the renowned painter Robert Oliver.

After attacking a canvas in the National Gallery of Art, Oliver maintains a stubborn silence, prompting his psychiatrist, Andrew Marlow, to embark on an unconventional pursuit of the answers his patient won't provide. As Marlow is pulled deeper within Oliver's troubled mind, he uncovers a tale of love, betrayal, and artistic obsession, and finds surprising possibilities in a package of nineteenth-century love letters. Does the key to unlocking Robert Oliver's mystery lie in a tragedy at the heart of French impressionism?

Across centuries and continents, from young love to last love, Elizabeth Kostova deftly explores the painter's universe - passion, creativity, secrets, madness - and conjures a world that lingers long after the final page has turned.

Review: This novel tells the story of present day Robert Oliver, though not in his words, but through those around him. Robert is a successful painter, albeit with a failed marriage and a failed extra marital affair, when in the grip of madness he attempts to attack a painting in the National Gallery of Art. For the eleven months following, he refuses to speak, leading his psychiatrist Andrew Marlow to seek out the answers to his obsession and irrational acts by contacting Robert's ex-wife Kate and former lover Mary.

As Marlow delves deeper into Robert's history, the woman that reoccurs in Robert's painting obsessively begins to figure deeper into the story. "Her face I knew already, and I saw it dozens of times around the room, smiling, serious, painted in different sizes and different moods. Sometimes she wore her hair piled up on her head, sometimes with a red ribbon in it, or a dark hat or bonnet, or a low-cut dress, or her hair down and her breasts bare" (142). It becomes obvious to Marlow that this woman may have something to do with the letters that Robert reads compulsively - letters written by a Beatrice de Clerval in the late 1800s. It seems that Robert is obsessed with a woman who died long ago - a fellow painter, but one whom he couldn't possibly have met, "Learning that Robert was obsessed with a woman whom he'd never seen alive caused me much greater unease - it was a shock, in fact." (442).

As Marlow unravels the mystery of the woman in Robert's paintings, the narrative begins to shift in time, alternating between present day and the late 1800s and the perspective of Beatrice herself. Slowly, the mystery of Beatrice's life and art - and why she stopped painting so suddenly and finally despite her great talent - are revealed. The title is taken from one of her last, and "surely Beatrice's greatest painting, The Swan Thieves" (484).

Painting is such a central element to this novel. Not only Robert but his psychiatrist Andrew Marlow, his ex-wife Kate, his young lover Mary, and his greatest obsession Beatrice are all also painters. In addition, this novel has been called a novel of obsession, but it could be argued that it's more than one person's obsession. Multiple characters seem obsessed with Robert, perhaps most especially Andrew Marlow. Marlow reveals to the reader that he has never gone to this extent - or broken some many patient confidentiality rules and told so many lies - as he has in order to uncover the truth of Robert's obsession. Not only that but he travels to other states and even other countries in pursuit of the truth. And he begins a personal relationship with Mary, Robert's ex-lover, which is surely deeply unprofessional, seemingly initiated (at first at least), because of the appeal of someone that used to know Robert.

This was a propulsive read that kept me swiftly moving forward, because just like Marlow, I too wanted to know who the woman from Robert's paintings was and what had happened to her. Although her story was interesting and compelling, the final conclusion for Robert is the same at the end of the novel as the reader knows on opening the text - he was mentally unbalanced and became obsessed with a woman he didn't know. Although Beatrice's story is fascinating, it's hard to imagine why she became such a pivotal force in Robert's imagination.

Stars: 3