The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova
Jul. 1st, 2010 04:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rainwatersparkI read a little of The Historian before (I mean to finish it this summer, if I can), which I rather liked, except it creeped me out and was more than a little violent.
I don't quite know why I picked up The Swan Thieves after having read all the negative reviews on Amazon; sure enough, I gave up halfway and skimmed through to the end.
The highest praise I can offer this novel is that it's readable. Usually, books with long passages of description and long stretches of nothing much happening make me give up after the first chapter, but I managed to get halfway in this one before I was actually sick of it.
That being said, the main problem with The Swan Thieves is that it's way too long for its own good. My fingers kept itching for a pen to cross whole passages of irrelevant information out--heck, I think whole chapters could have been taken out. In particular, each of the three narrators like to spend at least a chapter talking about their backstories, where they grew up, what their childhoods were like, what their parents were like, etc. etc. The information was neither relevant nor interesting, and seemed to be a space filler.
Moreover, the first-person narration did not vary in tone for the three narrators--the dreaded lack of different first-person voices rears its head again. This generic first-person narration was bland, hardly conveying the unique personalities of the narrators, especially central character Marlow. And oftentimes, the narration was written in a way that no one speaks, or even thinks, in real life. The narrators have far too many instances of analyzing other people's personalities and ulterior motives, and they often spoke in stilted, overly formal prose.
Basically, there is far too much telling in the novel instead of showing. The first person narration sucks. And, there is too much description. Needless to say, I never felt emotional about any of the characters, and the extent to which I was caught up in the "mystery" (some mystery...) was only out of a detached curiosity, not genuine caring.
I recently learned that Kostova got $2 million for her debut novel, The Historian, not including revenue from book sales. I'm more curious than ever to read that book again, but for sure, The Swan Thieves is no where near worth that amount of money.
I don't quite know why I picked up The Swan Thieves after having read all the negative reviews on Amazon; sure enough, I gave up halfway and skimmed through to the end.
The highest praise I can offer this novel is that it's readable. Usually, books with long passages of description and long stretches of nothing much happening make me give up after the first chapter, but I managed to get halfway in this one before I was actually sick of it.
That being said, the main problem with The Swan Thieves is that it's way too long for its own good. My fingers kept itching for a pen to cross whole passages of irrelevant information out--heck, I think whole chapters could have been taken out. In particular, each of the three narrators like to spend at least a chapter talking about their backstories, where they grew up, what their childhoods were like, what their parents were like, etc. etc. The information was neither relevant nor interesting, and seemed to be a space filler.
Moreover, the first-person narration did not vary in tone for the three narrators--the dreaded lack of different first-person voices rears its head again. This generic first-person narration was bland, hardly conveying the unique personalities of the narrators, especially central character Marlow. And oftentimes, the narration was written in a way that no one speaks, or even thinks, in real life. The narrators have far too many instances of analyzing other people's personalities and ulterior motives, and they often spoke in stilted, overly formal prose.
Basically, there is far too much telling in the novel instead of showing. The first person narration sucks. And, there is too much description. Needless to say, I never felt emotional about any of the characters, and the extent to which I was caught up in the "mystery" (some mystery...) was only out of a detached curiosity, not genuine caring.
I recently learned that Kostova got $2 million for her debut novel, The Historian, not including revenue from book sales. I'm more curious than ever to read that book again, but for sure, The Swan Thieves is no where near worth that amount of money.
