The Bear and the Nightingale

I shall tell the story of Morozko, of his kindness and his cruelty.

A solid fantasy with whimsy and terror, with struggle and loss, with ancient gods and good triumphing. Also it wasn't a super bleak fatasy revolving around war which can be challenging to find at times. I really liked the main character and the hinted at further strings of narrative have me very invested. Of course Scribd has removed the trilogy from their library for the time being. Guess I have to wait for it to become available on Libby.

This book was relatively easy to read and full of Russian Lore, although I couldn't say how accurate the lore actually is, but I felt I learned a whole lot about it, as well as getting a sense of Russian medieval culture.

The theme of the book is new ways vs old ways. The old ways include paying tribute to all the Domovoy, or household gods of the people. I think of them more as nymphs than "household god" in the same way that ancient near eastern cultures had. The new ways are russian orthodox christianity, and the main premise of the book is that the priest who comes to town and makes the people stop paying tribute to the Domovoy is actually destroying the fabric of their society because that weakens the Domovoy and then they cannot keep out the dark forces that seek to destroy men's lives.

Outside of the Domovoy, there are also two very important figureheads for the forces of order and the forces of chaos that have been warring with each other for millenia, one side for man and the other side against it. I found the aspects of these figureheads to be pretty interesting as well; kind of a different take on explaining, mythologically, how life works. I found this aspect of the mythology also very thought-provoking. I won't say more details about them here for the sake of not spoiling anything because I think it's better to discover who they really are as you go along reading it.

I enjoyed learning a lot about the Domovoy and other aspects of Russian lore. But by the end of the book I was tired of the one-sidedness of the old culture vs the new. No one representing the new religion have any redeemable aspects--they are just all terrible, terrible people. This kind of villain is uninteresting to me.

The heroine is unapologetically feminist, choosing her own path even though everyone around her tries to force her to either marry or go to a convent. This I enjoyed.

There were a few things that happen towards the end that are disturbing to me. I won't enumerate those because that would really spoil some very important plot details.

Overall...it's well-written, it's a good glimpse of Russian culture for the uninitiated, it's easy to read, and it has a pretty good protagonist. But the villains are not quite believable and there are a few disturbing things that don't jive with me. So I would rate this as a good book, and not one I regret reading, but still not one that I'm quite excited about. I would recommend it if you want to learn a good dose of Russian lore in a palatable format.

I really enjoyed this book. I've never read any Russian folktales or fantasy. One particular theme I enjoyed was the tension between the old religion and the new.

Two things I adored about this book: The inspiration the author used and the weather.

This is the type of story that I dreamed about as a child.In the long hours when I was in a library gulping down stories of Greek,Roman or Indian mythology I was sad that all the stories still felt strange and foreign to me. At the same time I used to listen to my grandmother as she warned me of things that take unruly children or sighed that we should not stalk around her like "lampiri". I learned that the wind from the south in winter always brings disease and that you should never pick up spilled salt with anything but your palm or your family will quarrel. In time I forgot some of these things but they never quite faded. This book will revive the memories of anyone growing up with a babuska and will feel charmingly new to those that did not.

Oh and the description of weather is just dreamlike, if you are like me,a person that loves winter this book will make you miss the season so much it hurts.

A somewhat conventional fantasy story based on Russian folklore. I especially liked the strong sense of place and time, and the descriptions of desperately cold winters in the forest. The pacing is a little off and Vasya, the main character, is a bit too much of the stereotypical Chosen One and Not Like Other Girls characters. Other seemingly important characters vanish midway through the book, which feels like an awkward setup for sequels. I enjoyed reading this, but there was not enough depth in it to really stick with me.