The Bear and the Nightingale

The Bear and the Nightingale, Katherine Arden, 322 pages

Vasilisa has grown up at the edge of the northern woods, listening to her nurse’s folktales through the endless dark of winter. But she has a secret: she can see the spirits the tales tell of – the domovoi who guards the house, the leshy who tends the trees, the vazila who minds the stables, the rusalka who lurks in the water for unwary waders. As Vasya grows, an ancient power stirs in the woods, turning the people from their old ways and filling them with fear, and only her strength and sacrifice can save them from themselves.

I am always a fan of new stories with folkloric underpinnings – Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising, based in British mythology, is one of my favorite series – and I enjoyed the Russian folklore elements of The Bear and the Nightingale. Vasya is a splendid heroine, and it was good to see her come into her own. However, I think the structure and pacing of this book is flawed, and there were some plot threads that weren’t resolved to my satisfaction. The beginning of the book dwells exceedingly long on the political climate, which is interesting, don’t get me wrong, but has basically nothing to do with the plot. Several of Vasya’s older siblings marry or join the priesthood and then completely disappear from the story. I know this is a trilogy, and presumably the politics and family drama will have a payoff later, but it’s unsatisfying in this book. Additionally, there’s a dire prophecy about Vasya’s fate (which of course I bookmarked for future reference) that does not play out at all – not even in a clever Oedipus way where it comes true in an unexpected fashion.

I would still recommend this book, which I thought was cool and generally well-written (in that I didn’t notice most of the flaws until afterwards and they didn’t significantly impair my enjoyment of the book), but I wish it were slightly better constructed.