The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
My rating: 4/5 cats
this is a stunning debut that perfectly mimics the tone of a classic fairytale, but breathes new and exciting life into the familiar themes with lyrical writing, strong characters, and by weaving in elements of russian folklore, which were mostly unfamiliar to me, and therefore fresh and exotic.
quickplot first, then i will return to these three strengths in greater detail.
pyotr vladimirovich is a lord in medieval rus’, responsible for the well-being of several villages in the heavily-forested wilderness, subject to his late wife marina’s half-brother, the grand prince in moscow. he has five children, the youngest of which is a daughter named vasilisa/vasya, whose birth caused marina’s death. it was a risky, late pregnancy, but marina was determined to have her, knowing that vasya would be her only child gifted with the magical birthright held by her bloodline’s women. vasya grows up with a curious mind and a wandering nature – dressing like a boy, drawn to exploring the forest, and befriending the house spirits the villagers all leave ritual offerings for, in a long-standing superstitious tradition, but which only she is able to see. it’s a hard life, with food shortages during the long cold winters, and vasya’s latent power attracts the attention of morozko, an old spirit personifying the relentless cold known by many different appellations: demon of winter, death-god, frost demon, winter-king. when pyotr is in moscow arranging his daughter olga’s marriage, and unexpectedly finding himself married off to an equally-reluctant bride as a political favor, morozko is insulted by one of pyotr’s sons, whom he allows to live in exchange for the promise of vasya’s hand in marriage. this arrangement dismays vasya’s nurse dunya, who tries to put it off as long as possible, and it is more or less forgotten as time passes and more pressing concerns arise, specifically the influence of an ambitious priest, adored by vasya’s stepmother, who forbids the villagers to continue their practice of acknowledging the household spirits, which results in horrors only vasya has the power to prevent.
arden’s writing is the book’s strongest selling point: evocative, beautifully descriptive, imagery that pops with details alive enough to make you smell the smoke and feel the cold; it’s haunting, vivid, and poetic. when pyotr and his sons leave their village in order to meet with their royal relative in moscow, they encounter a city of smiling enemies and barbed favors described as lusty and squalid, like a fair woman with feet caked in filth.
occasionally, it can get a little too adjective-crazed:
Great trees threw sooty shadows onto the raw wood of the little church.
but for the most part, it is well-controlled .
character is also an easy sell – vasilisa, like all of the best fairytale heroines, is the inheritor of a great responsibility; the fulfillment of a prophecy that is equal parts burden and gift. her wildness is part of her appeal; power and freedom and all the beauty and mystery of nature: She looked like a wild thing new-caught and just barely groomed into submission. she doesn’t know the extent of her powers, or even that she has powers, but they can be felt by others, like her father, who understands that the ordinary roles available to women; wife and mother, would ruin something essential to her character.
“She is a handsome girl,” said Pyotr. “Though a savage. She needs a husband; it would steady her.” But as he spoke, an image came to him of his wild girl wedded and bedded, sweating over an oven. The image filled him with a strange regret, and he shook it away.
even the priest konstantin is drawn to her, despite his severity towards her, and laments the future he is nonetheless pushing her towards:
He saw all at once, as Pyotr had seen, the wild thing brought indoors, busy and breathless, a woman like other women. Like Pyotr, he felt a strange sorrow and shook it away. ..he thought again of years, of childbearing and exhaustion. The wildness gone, the hawk’s grace chained up…He swallowed. It is for the best. The wildness was sinful.
for me, the themes were equally fascinating – i’m always drawn to books focused on transitional periods; clashes between tradition and modernity, the old ways and the new. one of the best of these is Morality Play by barry unsworth, which is about a troupe of actors in the 1300’s who dared perform a play that wasn’t based upon biblical events and the uneasiness and backlash this causes. while christianity was by no means new to medieval rus’, the confrontation here between religion and tradition is devastating, made more so by the fact that the offerings to the house spirits, followed by the villagers as a tradition with no real belief behind them, turn out to be all that is holding the evil at bay.
a beautiful debut, and i’m very excited to see what else she’s got in the works.
