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

by Katherine Arden

'Frost-demons have no interest in mortal girls wed to mortal men. In the stories, they only come for the wild maiden.'

In a village at the edge of the wilderness of northern Russia, where the winds blow cold and the 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...

Atmospheric and enchanting, with an engrossing adventure at its core, The Bear and the Nightingale is perfect for readers of Naomi Novik's Uprooted, Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus, and Neil Gaiman.

• ISBN10: 178503104X
• ISBN13: 9781785031045
• Publish Date: 12 January 2017 (first published 10 January 2017)
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 8 April 2021
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Cornerstone
• Imprint: Del Rey
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 336
• Language: English

Reviews

[gmcgregor]

The evil stepmom is a storytelling trope that has roots in reality. In times and places where resources were scarce and women often died (usually of childbirth-related complaints) by early middle adulthood, a new wife who had children of her own looked out for the best interests of her offspring above any others. The most famous literary example of a wicked stepmother? Probably Cinderella. It's a story that's remarkably common around the world: China has a version. Iran has a version. And of course, there's the European takes on the tale that inspired the brothers Grimm. It's this familiar territory that Katherine Arden mines for her debut novel, The Bear and the Nightingale.

Arden gives us as our heroine Vasilisa, the youngest child of Pyotr and Marina. Vasya grows up with her four older siblings in a small village in Russia, bordering the kind of large and dark wood that a good fairy tale needs. After Marina dies in childbirth, the girl grows up half-wild, listening to old Slavic folk tales at the feet of her elderly nurse. But to Vasya, they're not just folk tales. She can see them, the spirits that populate Slavic mythology, and talk to them too. It's a trait she shares with her stepmother-to-be, Anna. But while rural-dwelling Vasya accepts this about herself, Anna, as a member of the urban nobility, is a devout Christian and thinks herself tormented by devils. Once she moves to the countryside after her marriage to Pyotr, the only place she can find peace is the church. She becomes obsessed with the handsome and vain priest, Father Konstantin, who is just as obsessed in turn with rooting out the local superstitions. There's a tinge of American Gods here, because the fading belief saps the strength of the spirits just when they're most needed in a battle brewing between the larger and more powerful forces of evil and of justice.

The characters that populate The Bear and the Nightingale are wonderful. Vasya is a delightfully high-spirited heroine, but what I enjoyed even more was that Arden didn't make Anna a simple bad stepmom. Instead, she's presented as scared, and her behavior towards Vasya is obviously rooted more in this fear than spitefulness. And even though the father in Cinderella stories often comes off as neglectful, Pyotr is a loving parent who has a hard time dealing with his first wife's death, his second wife's obvious mental health issues, and a daughter he doesn't know how to raise. And the world that Arden creates is rich and vivid. It's the first first-in-a-series that I've read in quite a while that's made me actually Google when the next entry is coming out because I want to continue along in the story Arden is beginning to unfold. I really enjoyed this book and highly recommend it!

[chrssym]

I truly loved this one.

[ibeforem]

This book had some red flags for me. First, it starts out with some folklore. I really just have no patience for folklore. My eyes glaze over and I start skimming. But I hung in and kept going!

Second, the genre lies somewhere between fantasy and historical fiction and magical realism, and magical realism and I have never gotten along well.

Nonetheless, I stuck with the story and really enjoyed it in the end. First, the setting was intriguing to me. It is set in what is basically Russia in the 13oos, at a time when tensions with the Mongols were high. Winter and the wilderness are serious business.

This is essentially the story of Vasya, whose mother dies after her birth and who can see all of the creatures (spirits? gremlins?) that help them throughout the house and the village. When Vasya is still a young child, her father goes to the city and returns with a young bride and a priest, both deeply religious and determined to disabuse Vasya of the notion that she can see these spirits. In the meantime, the village is dying, and Vasya may be the only one who can save them, with the help of a mysterious icy man.

There are a lot of themes to unpack here. The roles of women in society and in the home. The responsibilities that fall upon the eldest sons. And most of all, Christianity versus more pagan beliefs. Overall, religion is the bad guy here.

Though I enjoyed it, there were definitely some flaws. The pacing in the story is off. It really take forever to get to the meat of the story, and then the last act feels rushed. I wish we had spent more time with Vasya as a teen and less time with her as a small child. Also, the treatment of Anna, Vasya’s stepmother, was terrible. She is beat up not only by the story but by the author. I think she was needlessly turned into a villain, when really she was the biggest victim in the story.

This is meant to be the first in a trilogy. I may pick up the others, I haven’t decided yet.

[Briana @ Pages Unbound]

Initial Thoughts: 3.5 stars. Enjoyable, but definitely slow, and the climax was a let-down after all the build-up.

[Joséphine]

May 5, 2017

Further thoughts: In the end, I didn't refer to the ebook. Instead, I listened to the last quarter all over again. I'm glad I did because that was the best part of The Bear and the Nightingale. I think what caused me to miss so many details was that by the time the action unfolded, my mind had switched to passive listening. So while I picked up on the turn of events, I didn't fully grasp just how dark the atmosphere had become.

For what it's worth, I thought The Bear and the Nightingale was a creative retelling of the Russian fairy tale, Father Frost. Katherine Arden wove the fairy tale right into the beginning to ensure even readers unfamiliar with the tale might come to appreciate it. However, it took exceedingly long for The Bear and the Nightingale to get to the heart of the fairy tale.

Three-quarters of the book relied primarily on atmosphere. During that time, the characters didn't develop much beyond their archetypes either. We watched the main character grow up from birth till she was of marriageable age. I wish that part would've been more condensed since the details of her childhood had very little to do with the overarching plot. Some magic happened, family dynamics established, and a long list of characters introduced, which despite the beautiful writing seemed to go on and on. If not for that imbalance, I would've liked The Bear and the Nightingale a great deal more.

_________

May 2, 2017

Initial thoughts: Three-quarters of the book was premised on fairytales and folklore, and a huge dose of atmosphere. It's only towards the end that the plot unravelled. I think I lost some threads during those last chapter while listening to the audiobook. Will refer to the ebook and re-read those chapters before I come back to rate and review The Bear and the Nightingale.

[layawaydragon]

Review to come.

[Leigha]

A young woman is charged with saving her village, but it could cost her life.

I wanted to love this book. I wished it with my whole heart. While I did enjoy it better than some other books I've read recently, it didn't live up to my expectations.

The number one problem is pacing. The book begins with Vasilisa born in her small, rural village in medieval Russia. The other characters are introduced throughout the novel organically. Most major characters have their own POVs so their motivations are always clear. But then a curious thing happens. The last hundred pages of the novel Vasilisa goes on this journey, completely changing the narrative of the story. New characters, new settings, and new backstories are introduced. It felt like the book languished in the first act before rushing through the second and third acts.

Despite the pacing issues, the novel has so many things to love. Vasilisa is a great character. Her love for her family and her village is heart warming. The setting, particularly the Russian folklore, is wonderfully mixed into the story.

tl;dr An interesting tale featuring a strong heroine, Russian folklore, and a rushed ending. 

[Kait ✨]

​I had been highly anticipating this book because I love love love all things Russian and it didn’t disappoint. It’s very familiar and evocative of classic fairytale storytelling, but is fresh via the Russian folklore elements and Arden’s strong characterization and lyrical writing. Arden’s passion for Russian culture, literature, and folklore is evident on every page and I feel that she really did it justice in making it come alive anew.

I was pleasantly surprised by the themes at play in this book. The protagonist, Vasya, struggles to balance her faith in the spirits with a new priest’s strict teachings, as well as the community’s discomfort with her “masculine” or unconventional traits (horseback riding, wandering in the forest, dressing like a boy, etc.). I would love to reread this and delve more into the gender and religious issues at hand here, especially because the strictest figures in the book both acknowledge the beauty and freedom in her wildness:

“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.

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.

It’s reminiscent of [b:Uprooted|22544764|Uprooted|Naomi Novik|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1495022714s/22544764.jpg|41876730] by Naomi Novik in terms of its atmosphere, and also reminds me of [b:The Star-Touched Queen|25203675|The Star-Touched Queen (The Star-Touched Queen, #1)|Roshani Chokshi|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1446058438s/25203675.jpg|44916095] by Roshani Chokshi in terms of writing style. Sometimes, like Chokshi’s writing, it gets a little too adjective-heavy, but that didn’t detract from my love of Arden’s style overall.

100% recommend this to fantasy and historical fiction fans, even fans of magical realism. It’s the kind of book that will be immediately apparent if it’s for you or not, so you may want to check out the first chapter, which is available on Arden’s website.

[nightingalereads]

4.5 stars

This book is magical and beyond anything I had expected. Arden's writing completely sucks you into her Russian fairytale-inspired fantasy. Her tale is so original and rich that it was only after I finished reading that I recognized all the Cinderella elements that she interwove into the book. Vasya is one of my favorite new protagonists. She's "different" without being a "special snowflake", and I loved how she could be both strong and vulnerable. The elements of Russian folklore were also fascinating to read about, and Vasya's relationship with the frost demon Morozko was beautifully subtle yet promising. If you love fantasy and Russian folklore, I highly recommend picking this first book up. I predict this series will become one of my favorites.

[Liz (Bent Bookworm)]

~*Full review and comments on The Bent Bookworm!*~

There was a time, not long ago
When flowers grew all year
When days were long
And nights star-strewn
And men lived free from fear

Just to clarify: The Bear and the Nightingale (TBATN) is NOT a YA book. I’ve seen it pop up on several lists as such, but it is not. It’s also NOT historical fiction, though it is heavily inspired by historical, medieval Russia. It is adult fantasy that reads almost entirely like historical fiction until Part II, where it starts to feel like magical realism historical fiction…so let’s just keep it simple and say fantasy. Could some teenagers read it and appreciate it? Yes, but the style is very different from most YA, and some of the content is definitely adult (marital rape and a little graphic violence). This obviously didn’t deter me from ADORING it, but I thought the slight genre-confusion I’ve been noticing was worth a mention.

In Russian, Frost was called Morocco, the demon of winter. But long ago, the people called him Karachun, the death-god. Under that name, he was king of black midwinter who came for bad children and froze them in the night.

Feels:

I am in love. With everything. With the world, with the characters, with the woods, the village. With Vasya. A little bit with Alyosha. I wept with Vasya and her family. I saw the spirits as Vasya did. I felt the fear of the villagers. I felt the pain and confusion of a young child with a wild, free spirit in a world that didn’t accept her. The writing in TBATN is astounding. Lyrical, whimsical, and utterly entrancing.

Characters:

“I am only a country girl,” said Vasya. “I have never seen Tsargrad, or angels, or heard the voice of God. But I think you should be careful, Batyushka, that God does not speak in the voice of your own wishing. We have never needed saving before.”

Vasya, the main character, is my sister from another mother. I swear. Her love of nature, her stubborn refusal to accept the fate others wish to push on her, her refusal to be broken. I already said I love her but it bears repeating. The story spans from right before her birth to the time she is 14 years old. She doesn’t have an easy life, but she has to be one of the most resilient people I’ve ever met. Bent, at times, but never broken.

“All my life I am told how I will live, and I am told how I must die. I must be a man’s servant and a mare for his pleasure, or I must hide myself behind walls and surrender my flesh to a cold, silent god. I would walk into the jaws of hell itself, if it were a path of my own choosing.”

Now no joke, there are quite a few characters in this story. However, they are all so clear and distinct I was never confused. Not once. Not even with the Russian names. I did have to realize in the beginning that everyone had a given (fancy) name and a called (shorter, plainer) name, but since Arden stuck mostly to the called names it wasn’t hard. Also, each character experiences a growth arc in the book. No matter how minor, they show some growth and change – sometimes for good, sometimes for bad! That is an incredible feat and after reading so many books with such flat minor characters – amazing.

Romance – guess what? There is none. None. None, none, none, NONE! It’s such a beautiful breath of fresh air. There IS marriage. There’s also sex – and by sex I mean marital rape. It’s not graphic, but it’s obvious. I feel it’s treated as well as such a thing CAN be – these are medieval times, and in those times women were no more than property, no matter how highly valued that property. The women themselves often never questioned the right of their fathers and husbands to barter with them and then use their bodies for their own pleasure – it was a husband’s right and a wife’s duty! *insert much sarcasm* It definitely effects the entire dynamic of the story.

Plot:

TBATN is not a fast-paced book. It’s a slow burn building up to more and more – and it’s TOTALLY worth the read. All the details are beautiful and intriguing, and they really add to the mystery and overall atmosphere. The characters are really the driving force, and all the drama and suspense are very slow to build but after spending several chapters getting to know the people and the country I was already so invested I already knew I was in for the haul. Things really start to pick up with the arrival of a new priest in Vasya’s village. There is a struggle between the new Catholic church and the old spirits of the land and as things start to happen at first NOTHING is explained. Everything just kept building and building and there’s even a little mini-climax at one point (which was EXTREMELY satisfying), but things just keep going! Not only did it keep going, it picked up speed and I was completely wrapped up in the story.

As previously stated, there is no actual romance in TBATN. It doesn’t need it. There’s also not an entirely happy ending. It is…heartrending, yet hopeful at the same time. There’s no actual cliffhanger, but so much room for additional stories, and Vasya’s fate and path seem far from decided.

Worldbuilding/Setting:

Phenomenal. It truly has a historical feel to it. I’m not all that well-versed in Russian history or mythology, but the detailed notes on language and history at the end, as well as the comments I’ve read from people native to that part of the world seem to bear out that thought as well. The descriptions allow you to fall through the pages into the story, and it really feels like a full sensory experience. When the mythological creatures begin to appear, it feels so amazingly right.

Rating/Further Notes:

5 stars. I don’t have any more words for how beautifully savage this book is. I can’t wait to see what Katherine Arden comes up with next. I’ve heard rumors this is the first of a trilogy, but in her author Q&A page I only see mention of a sequel. I’ll be buying whatever she comes up with!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

2019 - Still in love with this book and this entire series.
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