The Bear and the Nightingale: A Novel (Winternight Trilogy, #1)

by Katherine Arden

Katherine Arden’s bestselling debut novel spins an irresistible spell as it announces the arrival of a singular talent with a gorgeous voice.
 
“A beautiful deep-winter story, full of magic and monsters and the sharp edges of growing up.”—Naomi Novik, bestselling author of Uprooted

Winter lasts most of the year at the edge of the Russian wilderness, and in the long nights, Vasilisa and her siblings love to gather by the fire to listen to their nurse’s fairy tales. Above all, Vasya loves the story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon. Wise Russians fear him, for he claims unwary souls, and they honor the spirits that protect their homes from evil.

Then Vasya’s widowed father brings home a new wife from Moscow. Fiercely devout, Vasya’s stepmother forbids her family from honoring their household spirits, but Vasya fears what this may bring. And indeed, misfortune begins to stalk the village.

But Vasya’s stepmother only grows harsher, determined to remake the village to her liking and to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for marriage or a convent. As the village’s defenses weaken and evil from the forest creeps nearer, Vasilisa must call upon dangerous gifts she has long concealed—to protect her family from a threat sprung to life from her nurse’s most frightening tales.

Praise for The Bear and the Nightingale

“Arden’s debut novel has the cadence of a beautiful fairy tale but is darker and more lyrical.”—The Washington Post

“Vasya [is] a clever, stalwart girl determined to forge her own path in a time when women had few choices.”—The Christian Science Monitor

“Stunning . . . will enchant readers from the first page. . . . with an irresistible heroine who wants only to be free of the bonds placed on her gender and claim her own fate.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“Utterly bewitching . . . a lush narrative . . . an immersive, earthy story of folk magic, faith, and hubris, peopled with vivid, dynamic characters, particularly clever, brave Vasya, who outsmarts men and demons alike to save her family.”—Booklist (starred review)

“An extraordinary retelling of a very old tale . . . The Bear and the Nightingale is a wonderfully layered novel of family and the harsh wonders of deep winter magic.”—Robin Hobb

• ISBN10: 1101885939
• ISBN13: 9781101885932
• Publish Date: 10 January 2017
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: Del Rey Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 336
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9781101885932

Reviews

[chymerra]

I am going to start this review off with a complaint. I dislike, actually dislike greatly, when a book’s blurb doesn’t match up with what the book is actually about. With this blurb, it does get it right at the end of the synopsis. It’s the beginning that is screwed up. See, Pytor wasn’t a new father when the stranger gives him the necklace for Vasya. Vasya was either 6 or 7 at that point and Pytor didn’t hold onto the necklace. The woman who raised Vasya after her mother died, Dunya, held onto the necklace. And she did know its reason. She was visited by the strange man in a dream and in that dream, she was warned to keep the necklace safe and to give it to Vasya when she was grown. I will be letting the publisher’s know when I go to submit the review.

Anyways, let’s get to the review…lol

The book starts off on a late winter night in northern Rus’ (Russia) in Pytor Vladimirovich’s house. Dunya and the children (Kolya, Sascha, Olya and Akyosha) were gathered around the oven and Dunya was about to tell the children a folktale about the frost-demon, the winter-king Karachun when their mother, Marina, came in from outside and joined in listening to the tale. Pytor was outside, assisting an ewe give birth to a lamb. When he finally came in, Marina told him her news. She was expecting another child and this child was to be like her mother….who was known as a witch-woman and had mysterious powers. She could tame animals, dream the future and summon rain. Pytor was understandably a little worried about the news. Marina wasn’t a young woman and he was afraid that she wouldn’t be strong enough for the birth.

He was right. Marina died shortly after giving birth to Vasilisa (Vasya) and what she predicted came true. Vasya was a headstrong, willful and almost feral. She wasn’t an attractive girl. Her eyes and mouth were too big, skinny with long fingers and huge feet. Her eyes were amazing

But the child’s eyes were the color of the forest during a summer thunderstorm, and her wide mouth was sweet

So a promise of future beauty.

It was when she was this age that she got lost in the forest outside her house and came upon an old man sleeping in the roots of a tree. Thinking, as any 6-year-old would, that she could wake him up and he would know the way to her father’s house, she shook him. Only to find out that he is a hideously disfigured man. One eye was missing, with the socket sewn shut and with hideous scars on that side of her face. Still, she invites him back to her house….if he can take her home. Then a truly supernatural thing happens, as she goes to take this stranger’s hand, a man on a white horse comes thundering to where they were, makes the old man go back to sleep and frightens Vasya…who ends up being found by Sascha, her beloved older brother.

It was after that escapade that Pytor decides to head to Moscow and get a wife for himself. He takes Sasha and Kolya with him. It was while he was there that he meets a mysterious stranger who gives him a beautiful jewel and tells him to hold on to it until Vasya gets older. If he doesn’t, this mysterious man will come after and kill Kolya.

Pytor does find a wife while in Moscow. His late wife’s half brother’s daughter…..who sees demons and is classified as mad by her father, stepmother and servants. Anna is her name and she quickly becomes my least favorite person in the book. After discovering that Vasya can talk to the household spirits (the domovois’ that took care of the hearth and helped with household chores, the vazila who helped with the stables and taking care of the horses) and with non household spirits, such as a rusalka (similar to a water nymph but with a taste for human blood), Anna would beat her to get her repent. Not that it did any good. Vasya only became more feral, more headstrong.

When Vasya turns fourteen, a new priest is sent to her village since the old one has died. Anna begs the Metropolitan to send a new one and they did. A young priest named Konstantin Nikonovich who is considered somewhat of an upstart and is sent there to straighten him out. Anna is thrilled because he is driving out the demons (aka the household spirits) that she seems. Vasya, not so much, and she resorts to leaving offerings for them where her stepmother can’t see them or in rooms where she doesn’t go.

It is also during that time that the mysterious man makes an appearance in Dunya’s dream and he demands that she give Vasya the necklace. Dunya makes a bargain with him to wait another year to give it to her. In that year, everything that can go wrong, does go wrong.

If you want to find out what happened in that year and the spectacular ending, read the book!!

I loved Vasya. She was a spunky girl who called it like it was and wasn’t afraid to stand up to anyone or anything. I did think, at one point, that her spunkiness was going to get her killed but it didn’t.

The end of the book is definitely a must read. It was fantastic and definitely a battle between good and evil. The very end of the book , though, is what got me and it made me smile.

How many stars will I give The Bear and the Nightingale: 5

Why: This is the first book that I have read that incorporates Russian fairy tales/folklore in a very realistic way. I don’t know a lot about Russian mythology and loved that the author included a glossary at the end of the book (even though I did use my in Kindle dictionary/translator)

Will I reread: Yes

Will I recommend to family and friends: Yes

Age range: Teen

Why: Sex (but not in detail, just mentioned in passing) and violence.

**I chose to leave this review after reading an advance reader copy**

[Beth C.]

What would you do if you had a gift, a gift that enhances your life and that of those around you, but they don't know it? A gift that, if discovered, might even get you killed? Vasilisa, the last-born daughter of a land-holding family in the depths of Russia, knows this dilemma all too well. When evil blooms on the backs of a tarnished priest and a devout woman, Vasilisa will be the only one to stand between the flames and her people. Will she make that choice, knowing it could mean her death at the hands of those people she is trying so hard to save? Or will she save herself and watch them all burn?

First, before anything else, this book has been compared repeatedly to Naomi Novik's "Uprooted". And just...no. They are very different books. If you *liked* Novik's book, then you may like this one as well, particularly the fairy tale aspect that they share. However, they really are quite different in atmosphere, story, and characters.

As for that story and those characters - Arden did a wonderful job evoking the dark, cold, lonely winter, and the terror that could bloom when "something wicked this way comes". She really does have a lovely writing style that lent itself beautifully to this tale. As for the characters, Vasilisa of course would be my favorite, followed by the fairy creatures who really made me wish that we still believed in them - or those like them - in this day and age. They are complex, interesting, and - in some cases - quite fun. The whole story reminds me of a fairy tale based on fairy tales - something meant to be read or spoken aloud, during the cold of winter, around a fire - maybe even with something hot in a mug to sip on. Of course, as with many of the older fairy tales, good does not always win, and there is always a price to be paid. The question is, who pays that price, and who wins in the end?

I would definitely recommend this book. It is the kind of book you could read again and again and find details that you missed the first, second, and even third time.