Words, in their minds, were not fixed to things as a tendon is to a muscle. Every particle of creation, to them, was submerged in a flux of words. Everything was contiguous with everything else, the touching of one word or object setting up currents and mutations that seemed never to stop. They described the world by ceaselessly unsettling it... [p. 26]
The Maker of Swans is a beautifully-written but overly obscure gothic novel with strong fantastical elements. There are three protagonists. Mr Crowe was once the darling of the arts world, but is now sinking into a decadent and enjoyable decline: his narrative is told in the past tense. Clara, a mute girl who may be Mr Crowe's ward, lives in the same house, and leads a more or less independent life: her narrative is in the present tense. And Eustace, Mr Crowe's loyal retainer, may be more devoted to Clara than he is to his mysterious employer.
The novel opens with Mr Crowe's precipitous arrival, in the company of a glamorous young singer named Arabella and hotly pursued by Arabella's lover, who soon lies dead on the grass. A gun was fired, but he did not die from a gunshot wound.
Eustace is apparently accustomed to such occurrences. He tidies up, reproves Mr Crowe, and arranges the disposal of the evidence. But the night's events have drawn the attention of Dr Chastern, representative of a secretive organisation to which Mr Crowe may once have belonged. Crowe refuses Chastern's requests: Chastern abducts Clara, who until now has been wandering the house, leaving elaborate fantasies scribbled on hotel notepaper for Eustace's delectation, and tending a pair of abandoned cygnets by the lake.
There was too much that was unexplained (or, perhaps, that I did not recognise or understand). Clara's mirror-self, Eustace's longevity, Crowe's gift, the Order's purpose. The Maker of Swans is a meandering novel, looping back on itself, providing backstory well after the events which that backstory has shaped. It is a beautiful work but oddly shallow, like a pre-Raphaelite painting where all the figures have identically vague expressions. Eustace was the only character who truly came to life: Clara had glimmers of personality but seemed too distant, too inexplicable, to be truly engaging.
I will certainly read other work by this author, who writes so lusciously: but I will adjust my expectations regarding plot.
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