The Wild Swans

Rating:
Summary: Imaginative, sensitive - a magical story
Review: This is an excellent book with many layers. The weaving of the two different stories is well crafted and yet the connections between the two are complex rather than simplistic. This makes reading the book much more interesting and dream like - as though each story was a dream of the other.

Woven throughout is example after example of how rigid religious and social structures can damage and destroy good, ethical, value driven individuals when those structures lack compassion and understanding.

I would recommend this book to anyone.

Rating:
Summary: Peg Kerr's The Wild Swan's is very moving and thoughtful.
Review: This novel is actually two stories woven together by images and thematic inferences rather than plot. Both stories are told in very spare, simple prose (though one feels distinctly more "modern") and I was intellectually engaged and certainly emotionally provoked throughout. I read the last hundred pages in one sitting, unable to tear myself from what felt like twice the attraction. It has been a long time since I have cried at the end of a book and although this alone cannot recommend your time, it is indicative of how much I grew to care about the characters and the troubling patterns of hate and intolerance throughout our history. I can see where critics would fault the not always subtle symbolism that connects each story, but the traditional purpose of stories like this Hans Christian Andersen's retelling was to warn, teach and ultimately transcend evil and danger. I think that Kerr captures and holds many universal and heartbreaking struggles within her fairy tale "net." More importantly, she will reach many people who might never have read one or the other story alone but when juxiposed with the more familiar, will open their heart in a whole new way. I was swept away and truly apreaciated the ride.

Rating:
Summary: Peg Kerr's The Wild Swan's is very moving and thoughtful.
Review: This novel is actually two stories woven together by images and thematic inferences rather than plot. Both stories are told in very spare, simple prose (though one feels distinctly more "modern") and I was intellectually engaged and certainly emotionally provoked throughout. I read the last hundred pages in one sitting, unable to tear myself from what felt like twice the attraction. It has been a long time since I have cried at the end of a book and although this alone cannot recommend your time, it is indicative of how much I grew to care about the characters and the troubling patterns of hate and intolerance throughout our history. I can see where critics would fault the not always subtle symbolism that connects each story, but the traditional purpose of stories like this Hans Christian Andersen's retelling was to warn, teach and ultimately transcend evil and danger. I think that Kerr captures and holds many universal and heartbreaking struggles within her fairy tale "net." More importantly, she will reach many people who might never have read one or the other story alone but when juxiposed with the more familiar, will open their heart in a whole new way. I was swept away and truly apreaciated the ride.

Rating:
Summary: The Wild Swans
Review: Two alternating narratives, one retelling the folktale The Wild Swans as if in the 17th century, and one about a young gay man in the early 1980's; one has a happy ending, and one is tragic.

It seems possible to me that the characters in the 20th century plotline are meant to be reincarnations of those in the earlier one -- based on name similarities and a statement made by one minor character. But if that's the case, some events are certainly left unexplained.

The sentence-level writing is painfully clunky at times, and overall the 20th century plot is better developed and more believable than the 17th, which doesn't seem to me to capture the necessary magic. Kerr skillfully portrays the tragedy of the early days of the AIDS epidemic. In general her characterization is competent.

In the first part of the book I was thinking "this would be great for teaching young adults about tolerance, but the universe is so benevolent it's not even believable." Obviously, it doesn't stay that way. In fact, the end of the 20th century plotline is so tragic that it has stayed with me in haunting fashion. It seems clear that Elias hasn't done anything wrong, but nevertheless he's doomed, and worst of all, the swans fly away from him in his dream: he is not only physically but thematically cursed. I'm not sure I understood what the author was trying to convey, but I certainly found the conclusion emotionally effective.

Rating:
Summary: Swept Away
Review: What a haunting an evocative beautiful book. I couldn't put it down. It was like reading two separate stories, yet they seemed interwoven. It takes incredible talent to work different plot lines, and different characters into one book and still keep the reader's attention.

I remember well the times she wrote about in the 1980s... We had friends who lived that carefree lifestyle, never realizing until too late the fatal error. Innocence woven into decadence! This book works!

Each story was so rich in content that you started each chapter with an "ah," here we go again... Such joy to return! I am blown away by this author and I will watch for her books in the future.

Rating:
Summary: Beauty and courage shine within this stunning work
Review: Wild Swans is a rare jewel of a novel -- the sort that only comes along every few years. Peg Kerr has intuited the mythic proportions of the struggle with AIDS, and framed that heroic and tragic struggle against insurmountable odds within the familiar -- but marvelously transposed -- fairy tale of the Wild Swans. Eliza's struggles to free her ensorcelled brothers resonates perfectly with Elias's desperate and baffled struggle for love. The echoes between the two stories are subtle and deft, and the characters exemplify courage and grace under pressure. And isn't that why we all read fiction? Few writers have the courage and wisdom to tackle such an uncomfortable subject. Peg Kerr challenges us to face what's ugly in our world and yet still find beauty. Take the challenge. Buy Wild Swans.

Rating:
Summary: An old tale gets new wings
Review: _The Wild Swans_ consists of two interweaving storylines. In one, a fairly straightforward retelling of the fairy tale "The Wild Swans", a young woman must weave coats of stinging nettles for her brothers to save them from an enchantment, all the while remaining silent until she has finished. In the other, a young gay man is kicked out of his house and is taken in by a charismatic musician. His new friend becomes his lover and introduces him to all his friends; they become his new family. Then they all start dying of AIDS. The two stories, on the surface, are nothing alike, but Kerr weaves them together in subtle and surprising ways, showing the common theme between them: that love may or may not conquer all, but it can keep hope and beauty alive even in tragedy. This book broke my heart and then fused it back together. Passionately recommended.

Rating:
Summary: An old tale gets new wings
Review: _The Wild Swans_ consists of two interweaving storylines. In one, a fairly straightforward retelling of the fairy tale "The Wild Swans", a young woman must weave coats of stinging nettles for her brothers to save them from an enchantment, all the while remaining silent until she has finished. In the other, a young gay man is kicked out of his house and is taken in by a charismatic musician. His new friend becomes his lover and introduces him to all his friends; they become his new family. Then they all start dying of AIDS. The two stories, on the surface, are nothing alike, but Kerr weaves them together in subtle and surprising ways, showing the common theme between them: that love may or may not conquer all, but it can keep hope and beauty alive even in tragedy. This book broke my heart and then fused it back together. Passionately recommended.