![]() These, say the handsome young priest who has been exiled to serve their household, are demons and deserve to be exorcised. Raised by a kind father, an anxious and spiteful stepmother, a wise nurse, and four older siblings, the feisty and near-feral girl-“too tall, skinny as a weasel, feet and face like a frog”-learns to talk with horses and befriends the household and forest spirits that live in and around the village. In a village in the northern woods where her father is the overlord, Vasya, a girl who has inherited her royal grandmother’s understanding of magic and the spirits that inhabit the everyday world, is born to a mother who dies in childhood. A story that shines in the gorgeous unity it manages to make of history and folklore concludes with a mishmash of affect and style, and an ending that undercuts much of its former power.Arden’s supple, sumptuous first novel transports the reader to a version of medieval Russia where history and myth coexist. There seems absolutely no reason, in the story as Arden develops it - or in the fairy tales on which she draws - for an epic battle to resolve with an unsatisfying twist, marked here and there with erratic and dismaying execution of fairy tale justice. Ultimately, it felt like a collection of beautiful plot coupons the book refused to cash in. Some of this looks like the required structural work of setting up sequels - sequestering important characters elsewhere and never revisiting them - but some of it is unnecessary hewing to the most common shape of fantasy stories. Unfortunately, the latter parts of The Bear and the Nightingale shear away much of what I loved about its beginning and middle. Whenever I reached for the book it was with the pleasant anticipation of settling into an experience. The work of a family - the work, ultimately, of surviving winter year on year - is lovingly detailed and deeply comforting to dwell in. Vasya has brothers and sisters who all love each other even as they tease and fight, a devoted father and a kind grandmotherly nurse who tells stories. I was equally delighted by her representation of family. Arden's weaving of folklore and fairy tale with a very solid evocation of feudal Russia is beautiful and deft. ![]() There was a great deal to love in this book. But something is waking in the woods, more terrible, threatening and hungry than the Winter King himself, and it's coming for Vasya and all she holds dear. Then Vasya realizes her new stepmother can see the spirits as well, but is terrified of them, calls them demons, and forbids Vasya any communion with them. She's alone in this, and keeps it secret - until her father remarries. Sure enough, Vasya can see spirits, the creatures of hearth, stable, lake and woods who populate the landscape as much as humans do. Vasilisa Petrovna is the youngest child of a wealthy boyar in the north of Russia, and heir to old magic: Her grandmother stepped out of fairy tale into marriage with a prince, and her mother died to give birth to her and the enchantment promised by her lineage. But I'm only the more grateful for The Bear and the Nightingale in consequence: I love winter with all my December-born Canadian heart, and I love stories that make me feel the full mythic majesty of it even when the weather's wounded and limping into spring. I'm writing the review now in the kind of unseasonable thaw that makes one want to grab climate change denial by the ear and rub its face in the slush. I read this book of winter nights and northern forests at the turn of the year snow swirled, ice glazed the trees and bent bare branches low. Your purchase helps support NPR programming. ![]() Close overlay Buy Featured Book Title The Bear and the Nightingale Author Katherine Arden ![]()
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