Inner Voices and Elizabeth Kostova
Title: The Swan Thieves
Author: Elizabeth Kostova
Publisher: Little, Brown
Genre: Fiction
Length: 561 pages
There are writers whose voices fall in step with some inner voice of my own. They have a seamless and perfect tambour that has no problem intertwining and conversing with the language of my soul. F.Scott Fitzgerald
Elizabeth Kostova is not one those writers.
Her stories are so fascinating. I have every desire to read everything she’s ever written. But making that desire a reality is a struggle. I find myself saying “Just get through this chapter so you can find out what happens next,” both in The Historian and The Swan Thieves.
Therefore, as I’m reading The Swan Thieves, I feel as though I am not the right person to review her books. Kostova is talented and inspiring: such captivating stories! such a high word count for a debut novel! (The Historian was a little over 241k words) such interesting ideas! But she just doesn’t speak to me.
When I come across books like these I become exceptionally curious. I’d like to know who she does speak to, what’s the difference in our brains? Is it a geographical dialect issue? Do I not follow her phrasing because my inner voice is either southern, British, or some indistinguishable ‘Yankee’ and she speaksMichigan? I don’t know, I’ve never been toMichigan. Please read it yourself and come discuss with me, I’d like to find out!
Anakalian Whims 