The Swan Thieves was a fantastic cure for insomnia, and gave me reasons to put down the book to check the junk mail folder of my email. It was an extremely disappointing read that did not provide suspense, surprise, intrigue, or even interest. There was a pretty decent 200 page book inside of the dense 600 page narrative that Kostova wrote. 
 I'll keep the recap of the plot brief since it is covered elsewhere: Robert Oliver, a successful painter described as a "genius" attacks a work of art in the National Gallery, and is hospitalized and undergoes treatment that is led by Dr. Andrew Marlow. Oliver refuses to speak to anyone, so Marlow is required to investigate and uncover the reasons for Oliver's silence and his surprising attack on a work of art. Interspersed in the modern-day action is the story, told primarily through a series of letters, of Beatrice De Clerval, a woman painter in 1870s Paris. Marlow meets Oliver's wife and ex-lover to learn more about Oliver's motivations and personality, reads the series of letters, and then investigates the link between the two (Oliver and Beatrice). I will not spoil the story, but everything is eventually resolved. 
 As her second book, The Swan Thieves is often, and easily, compared to The Historian (note: I enjoyed The Historian), but where the extensive narrative of The Historian worked in the book on Dracula, it failed in the story of one modern-day painter and his therapist. The Swan Thieves rotates the narrative among many voices (Marlow, Oliver's Wife Kate, Oliver's lover Mary, Beatrice's letters, and later her first-person account), but they are all too dry and extremely similar. The switches of narrators throughout the book seems unnecessary because none of the multiple narrators have unique voices. They all describe the act of painting similarly and they have the similar perspectives of art and Oliver. I am not sure if Kostova is attempting to show that art is universal and that all artists see life, and hence art, in the same way, but instead it gives the impression of homogeneity and uniformity. Only Robert Oliver is separated from the other artists in the story as a unique artist, but only because his personal opinion is kept from us with his unwillingness to speak and the constant reminder from other narrators that he is an oh-so-special genius. And the prose to describe how they all see the world, Sweet Fancy Moses. "I lay awake for hours in my twin bed next to the other, empty bed, feeling and hearing the spruces, the hemlocks, the rhododendron scraping at the partly open window, the verdant mountain out there in the night, the burgeoning of nature that did not seem to include me." 
 "When I rolled down my window, I could smell the mossy darkness, deeper than approaching twilight" 
 I have a moment now and then - as I peel an orange and take it from counter to table - when I feel almost a pang of contentment, perhaps at that raw color" 
 Okay, okay. I get it. Artists are special people who just see the world different, more vividly, than the rest of us. Do you have to be so prententious though? 
 The book also spends an inordinate, unnecessary amount of time on the individual background of each narrator. Marlow gives us a brief history of how he grew up in a family of ministers and a brief, yet pointless interlude of a visit with his now-elderly father. Both Oliver's wife and Oliver's ex-lover both, instead of explaining when and how they first saw Oliver's madness tell their entire history with him. Mary even start her story of Robert's madness by describing her entire childhood, "I would like to thorough with this story, so I'll begin with myself. I was born in Philadelphia...," which is completely incidental to the plot and totally pointless. While each narrator was giving long, arduous, and unimportant back-stories, they were simply ways to move the story along. 
 Finally, the biggest problem with The Swan Thieves was that the entire premise was that Oliver, the character driving the story, was unsympathetic and that the entire premise of his madness was dismissed at the simplest explanation. Robert Oliver is intially intriguing - a man who has descended into some sort of madness, who remains silent, unable or unwilling to explain his motivations. However, as the story progresses, we can only understand Oliver though those he affected, and we find out he is a phenomenal painter who is an uncaring, egocentric dick. I began to feel no sympathy for him as the story progressed. If Marlow never solved the issue of his madness, then the world would only have an asshole painter stuck in a sanitarium painting pictures of the same woman over and over, and...why should I care again? The story gave me no reason to invest in his rehabilitation. However, rehabilitate he does, through the most trite, uncomplicated way possible which is a farcical explanation of how mental illness is treated. Marlow finally unravels the mystery of the story and Oliver's madness (I will not spoil it, although it is pretty evident if you pay the slightest attention to the story), and after he reveals the secret to Oliver, Oliver speaks! He explains what happened and says he is now okay, and Marlow agrees to discharge him immediately. After months of silence, and a diagnosis of mental instability and mental health issues, Oliver speaks once and is magically cured! Frankly, it is an insult. 
 The Swan Thieves presents a verbose, prattling narrative, full of uncompelling characters that I could not invest in. It was a struggle to finish, and might have been better if was cut in half.