Campfire Reads Review: The Bear and the Nightingale
“Beware the turning seasons, she thought the wind sighed. Beware…”
Author: Katherine Arden
Goodreads Description: (abridged) At the edge of the Russian wilderness, Vasilisa spends the winter nights huddled around the embers of a fire, listening to her nurse’s fairy tales. Above all, she loves the chilling story of Frost, the blue-eyed winter demon, who appears in the frigid night to claim unwary souls. After Vasilisa’s mother dies, her father goes to Moscow and brings home a new wife. Fiercely devout, city-bred, Vasilisa’s new stepmother forbids her family from honoring the household spirits. The family acquiesces, but Vasilisa is frightened, sensing that more hinges upon their rituals than anyone knows. As danger circles, Vasilisa must defy even the people she loves and call on dangerous gifts she has long concealed—this, in order to protect her family from a threat that seems to have stepped from her nurse’s most frightening tales.
I had a book of fairy tales when I was a kid. All I can remember about said book was that it creeped me out. It was full of illustrated monsters, witches, and other grotesque creatures with enormous teeth and vacant eyes. I sometimes forget that real fairy tales bear little resemblance to their Disney counterparts. The Bear and the Nightingale is definitely closer to a traditional fairy tale than a Disneyfied one. Instead of talking candlesticks and magic slippers, you get forest demons and Russian vampires. In fact, it’s downright terrifying in places, which I should have been prepared for but wasn’t.
“ [He] saw the empty traces and a great swath of scarlet splashed across the muddy earth… Dread settled over the village: a clinging, muttering dread, tenacious as cobwebs .”
I’d like to point out that the protagonist, Vasya, is a total badass. She can see demons, talk to animals, and she isn’t afraid to chase down evil spirits and show ‘em who’s boss. Her ferocity and wild independence doesn’t make her many friends, except for spirits and horses. When she has to choose between living in a convent and possibly dying in the snowy wilderness, she chances death.
“The walls seemed to shrink again; the fire burned up all the air, so that no matter how her lungs heaved, she could not draw breath. Terror overtook her, the terror of the wild thing in the trap.”
If I were her, I would have done the same. Vasya is wild, and wild things die in cages. I guess she was really putting her life at risk no matter which path she chose. It was up to her to decide what that death would look like.
“[Vasya’s] voice softened. “Perhaps there is magic in the forest…did you think of that?” Alyosha laughed shortly. “You are too old for fairy tales .”
Overall, The Bear and the Nightingale satisfied what I expected from a Russian fairy tale. It was one part fantasy, one part horror with an unexpected splash of badass feminist heroism. If that sounds like something you’d enjoy, I’d recommend reading it on a cold, snowy night. Just don’t open your door if you hear someone knocking…
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