Book Review - 'The Bear and the Nightingale' by Katherine Arden

‘The Bear and The Nightingale’ by Katherine Arden

‘In a village at the edge of the wilderness of northern Russia, where the winds blow cold and snow falls many months of the year, an elderly servant tells stories of sorcery, folklore and the Winter King to the children of the family, tales of old magic frowned upon by the church.
But for the young, wild Vasya these are far more than just stories. She alone can see the house spirits that guard her home, and sense the growing forces of dark magic in the woods…’

This is the first in Arden’s ‘Winternight’ trilogy and, while I tend not to pick up series, I was willing to give this a go because of its premise, which gave a fantasy/fairy tale feel even though it’s marketed as historical fantasy.

I was delighted to find this and last week’s review, ‘Spinning Silver’, at the library.

The first chapter encapsulates most of the first sentence in the description, and that’s how I thought the story would be laid out.

The setting is a remote part of northern Russia, or Rus’ as it’s referred to in the story.

When the story begins, the main character, Vasya, hasn’t been born yet, but her parents, Pyotr and Marina, already have four children, three sons and a daughter.

The old lady, Dunya, more of a grandmother to the children instead of a servant, asks her young charges, ‘“What tale will you have tonight?”’

The children ‘set up a clamor… “Finist the Falcon!”; “Ivan and the Gray Wolf!”; “Firebird! Firebird!”’

Before Dunya can react, ‘the outer door clattered open and there came a roar from the storm without. A woman appeared in the doorway, shaking the wet from her long hair. Her face glowed with the chill… the fire cast shadows in the hollows of cheek and throat and temple…’.

It’s Marina who, realising Dunya is about to tell a story, announces the one she wants to hear: ‘“Tell the story of Frost, Dunyashka… the frost-demon, the winter-king Karachun. He is abroad tonight, and angry at the thaw.”’

Dunya is hesitant to tell that story: ‘In Russian, Frost was called Morozko, the demon of winter’, but he’s also called ‘Karachun, the death-god… king of black midwinter who came for bad children and froze them in the night. It was an ill-omened word, and unlucky to speak it while he still held the land in his grip.’

But she tells it anyway, ‘“… the story of Morozko, of his kindness and his cruelty.”’

In the next chapter, there’s another fairytale-like story, when ‘a ragged girl rode through the kremlin-gates, alone except for her tall gray horse. Despite filth and hunger and weariness, rumors dogged her footsteps. She had such grace, the people said, and eyes like the swan-maiden in a fairy tale…’

She gained the attention of the Grand Prince himself, Ivan I; although he was already ‘twice widowed, his eldest son older than [the ragged girl] … a year later he married the mysterious girl… The princess would not say where she had come from… The serving-women muttered that she could tame the animals, dream the future, and summon rain.’

Back in present time, some months later, Vasya is born and the story goes on from there, with a good amount of time spent on her childhood before progressing to her fourteenth year.

She is able to see the house spirits and those who dwell outside and can communicate with them, accepting them as part of life.

Apart from life in her home and the surrounding countryside, there are brief touches of politics set in Moscow.

Being a historical fantasy, Arden has included actual historical figures.

Historically, Rus was the largest kingdom in medieval Europe due to the vast amount of land it covered.

During the 12th century, the kingdom fractured and by the 13th century, it had split into principalities, multiple kingdoms each with their own princes.

In the middle of the 13th century, the Mongols overran and sacked the majority of Rus, and the princes eventually pledged allegiance to their Mongol overlords.

Mongols do feature in the story, but by reference only.

When Pyotr and his two oldest sons travel to Moscow, they interact with the Grand Prince of Moscow:
‘Ivan II was styled Ivan Krasnii, or Ivan the Fair. He was… perhaps thirty. His elder brother Semyon had ruled before him, but Semyon and his issue had all died of plague in one bitter summer.’

The actual Ivan II Ivanovich the Fair was born in 1326, became Prince of Moscow in 1353 until his death in 1359.

In her story, Arden has added a few fictional characters to his family.

Speaking of characters, there are quite a few to keep track of with some only appearing briefly.

Unfortunately, the main characters lacked depth; none stood out as memorable, apart from Alyosha, Pyotr’s youngest son, whose character underwent a believable change as he grew older.

And I found the Winter King/frost demon intriguing and would have liked more of him.

Pyotr is described as a boyar yet the seeming poverty of his village and the way the family lived didn’t give me that impression; boyars were highly ranked nobles, second only to the ruling princes, and they still had considerable influence during the time of Ivan II.

Not surprisingly, Vasya is an ugly girl; her older siblings call her ‘little frog’ because that’s what she reminded them of when she was a child.

In her teens, she’s still talked about as lacking in looks yet, strangely, men can’t stop staring at her.
‘In truth, Vasya was still awkward, but she had begun growing into her face. The bones were still rough-hewn and overlarge, her mouth still too wide and full-lipped for the rest of her. But she was compelling: the moods passed like clouds over the clear green water of her gaze, and something about her movements, the line of her neck and braided hair, caught the eye and held it.’

She’s written as the exact opposite of all the other women in the village:
‘The look she threw [him] was not the simper or shy glance of a maiden; it was transparent as sunlight, bright and curious.’
‘Vasya looked [him] full in the face: she was more like a warrior unblooded than a house-bred girl, and [he] was staring in fascination.’

As for the stepmother, I don’t understand why Arden treated her the way she did.

To avoid spoilers, all I’ll say is, once you read what the stepmother experienced growing up, it’s easy to see why she reacts the way she does.

But to keep in line with the ‘evil stepmother’ trope, most of her dialogue tags are ‘shrilled’, ‘shrieked’, ‘screeched’, turning her into a one-note character.

One thing that repeatedly took me out of the story was having to stop each time I came across a randomly inserted anglicised Russian word to look up the meaning in the glossary at the back of the book; here are a couple of examples:
While talking to his second son, Pyotr says, ‘“Go wary of the living ones, synok, because they are dangerous.”’

And, immediately, I’m thinking, what’s a ‘synok’ – according to the glossary: ‘an affectionate diminutive derived from the word ‘syn’, meaning ‘son’’.

‘Pyotr heard him in the dvor before the palace, calling the men, calling for his horse.’

Again, I pause my reading to flick to the glossary for the meaning of ‘dvor’: ‘yard or dooryard’.

Usually, I’m not a big fan of too much description, but I would like some just to get an idea of what the surroundings are like.

Not much was said of the palace in Moscow, which seemed a wasted opportunity to give the reader a feeling of the grandness of the place.

Also, apart from struggling to visualise Pyotr’s house, I couldn’t get a handle of the layout of the village either.

Nothing of note seemed to happen as the book drifted from chapter to chapter until we got closer to the end when there seemed to be a headlong rush to the finish.

I can’t remember if it was around the halfway point of the book or a little after but, seemingly out of nowhere, horror elements are introduced, which surprised me out of the story.

My initial impression of Arden’s writing is she writes well with good imagery; these descriptions are near the beginning of the book:
‘… oven was a massive affair built of fired clay, taller than a man and large enough that all four… children could have fit easily inside. The flat top served as a sleeping platform; its innards cooked their food, heated their kitchen, and made steam-baths for the sick.’

The house, which is quite big though I couldn’t get a sense of the actual size of it as Arden didn’t give much description of it, is divided into the summer half and winter half:
‘The winter half of the house boasted huge ovens and small, high windows. A perpetual smoke trickled from its chimneys, and at the first hard freeze, Pyotr fitted its window-frames with slabs of ice, to block the cold but let in the light.’ – I found that an intriguing idea, slabs of ice to block the cold.

‘… firelight from his wife’s room threw a flickering bar of gold onto the snow.’

My early impression of her writing changed with lines like:
‘Pyotr was drawing on red-heeled boots. He slewed around to stare at his son and nearly tripped.’

‘Her eyes took up half her face.’

Personally, I think her descriptions of nature are the standout ones when they’re not overdone.

I might have been willing to overlook most of all I’ve said but for the one thing that completely put me off the book.

Arden’s treatment of Christianity, still seen as a new enough religion in the time her story is set.

I understand in many parts of the world around the time Christianity was growing, it was not readily accepted, and there was a ‘rivalry’ between the ‘old gods’ and the new religion.

But it doesn’t mean Christianity always has to be placed in the position of ‘bad guy’; it is possible to write this in a way that respects both sides, instead of taking the lazy way.

It wasn’t unheard of for Christianity to exist alongside the old ways to make it easier for the people to be more accepting of it.

Arden, however, has set the house and nature spirits against Christianity; while the latter makes everyone and everything miserable, the house spirits, when happy, ensure everything works well, which makes the people more relaxed.

What sealed my thoughts on this was one scene depicting the image of Christ turning demonic, an act perpetrated by the evil force threatening the village.

Personally, I’m tired and yes, angry, that Christianity is always portrayed in such a manner yet none of the other major religions are.

Like last week’s book, ‘Spinning Silver’, I was so looking forward to reading this and really wanted to enjoy it.

Alas, it was not to be.

Needless to say, I won’t be reading the rest of the trilogy.

But, as with all my reviews, these are my thoughts, and it’s not for me to say, don’t read it; that’s for you to decide.