The Bear and the Nightingale

Book Title: The Bear and the Nightingale

Author: Katherine Arden

Series: The Winternight Trilogy #1

Date Started: December 28th 2017

Date Completed: January 9th 2018

Genres: Fantasy, Adventure, Historical
Quality Rating: Four Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Five Star

Final Rating: Five stars

Review:

The Bear and the Nightingale is a traditional fairytale set amongst the frozen forests of historical Russia, rife with old wife's tales come to life and a headstrong, wild feminist heroine. Give me more. Now.

I'll be honest, when I started this book, I was a bit impatient. There's quite a lot of stalling at the start, and details of worldbuilding that I didn't care about. In the end, it happened to be one of the things I loved; there's so much vividness in every corner of Vasya's world. Even a winter kitchen is suddenly warm and full of life and secrets - but, frankly, I don't really care what kind of bread they're eating. I felt unnecessarily dense when the story felt like it wasn't moving. But the further in you get, the more interesting things become, and there was almost like a switch that was flipped somewhere about 40% through where I was totally sold.

All my favourite stories are those which turn our world on their head a little bit, whether it be through fantasy or the dark realities of human nature or something else. The Bear and the Nightingale blends traditional fairytales with historical Russia so self-assuredly that I could barely imagine this landscape without the little household spirits around Vasya's and the winter king in the forest. Arden clearly knows her stuff about Russian folklore and history, because it's weaved so beautifully and effortlessly. I feel like I've come out with a bit of a history lesson on my back, especially in terms of the Russian versions of many fairytale creatures I was already aware of. This is exactly the kind of book I would've cherished as a kid; I would've imagined myself to be Vasya and just sat rereading it for hours on end. Sadly, I don't think it's particularly accessible for younger readers since it's really dense at parts - I'm not patronising the reading ability of younger readers, but maybe their attention spans. It's a real shame. Like I said I would've adored it as a child.

Vasya is so true to the heroines of old fairytales. All we ever hear about in the mainstream is the princesses, or paupers who married a prince. But the wild girls that lived in little villages often go forgotten, when the whole point of fairytales was to teach lessons and morality; how can you learn those things if you can't relate to the people in them? The Bear and the Nightingale brought new life to these old tales, and Vasya is the driving force. She's bold, curious, adventurous and pious, but she's also a girl grown into a woman who chose to learn how to ride a horse and doesn't want to marry. And at that time, such girls were called witches and treated as such. Even though it's not the main focus, the representation of the persecution of women (both through Vasya and the other girls around her) touched me in a way that a feminist story hasn't in a while. This isn't to say we don't need all the feminist stories I consume - every little helps - but The Bear and the Nightingale showed such raw strength in a heroine living amongst it that I felt Vasya's turmoil along with her, and it became very personal.

The ending was a little messy but there are so many avenues left untrodden. It works as a stand-alone but, damn, I'm glad there's more of these coming. It's so funny, I read Holly Black's The Cruel Prince at the end of last year, and where that novel hit all the wrong notes for me, The Bear and the Nightingale struck everything perfectly. It's a novel about growing up, gaining independence and bravery, and the borders where the real world and traditional folklore meet - and done right.