The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova

I read this book in a span of about two months starting in around september and just now finishing it yesterday. I read it in between writing my own stories, work, family matters, etc. and was amazed at how easy a read it was to get back into after each dry spell of not reading. I love how the perspectives and personal stories of each character mesh into eachother to bring out the whole story, and I especially love that the past is completely intertwined with the present. The artistic elements are fantastic and make me want to just pick up a paintbrush and envelope myself in the artists world. This book is not just a historical fiction novel or a love story to last the ages, it emulates how the life of one person, whether they are still living or long dead, can impact so many other lives and relationships. I completely reccomend this to anybody who loves an intellectually stimulating read.....an amazingly powerful read. Elizabeth Kostova touched my heart with her first novel and she has definitely and inifinitely touched it once more with this second. THE SWAN THIEVES is a beautifully written novel about a beautiful subject: ART. I loved it all the way from the beginning to the end. It was a miraculous journey of pages and I would not take back the experience of reading it for the world.

General Synopsis for The Swan Thieves:

 

Psychiatrist Andrew Marlowe, devoted to his profession and the painting hobby he loves, has a solitary but ordered life. When renowned painter Robert Oliver attacks a canvas in the National Gallery of Art and becomes his patient, Marlow finds that order destroyed. Desperate to understand the secret that torments the genius, he embarks on a journey that leads him into the lives of the women closest to Oliver and a tragedy at the heart of French Impressionism. Kostova's masterful new novel travels from American cities to the coast of Normandy, from the late 19th century to the late 20th, from young love to last love. THE SWAN THIEVES is a story of obsession, history's losses, and the power of art to preserve human hope.