Lucas Blogs About Spinning Silver
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| Oooh, shiny! |
So, what's this book's deal?
All right, so you like fairy tales, right?
I mean, I feel like fairy tales as a genre are too big to fail, I guess. Like whatever I think, they'll keep on going.
Well, I guess that's true. Anyway, this book starts with one of the characters explaining how a Rumpelstiltskin-like fairy tale is really about skipping out on your debts. And in a way this novel is an extended fairy tale about paying your debts.
That's not all of your synopsis . . . is it?
Of course not. Last year, I read Uprooted by Naomi Novik (who you may note is also the author of this novel), and I quite enjoyed it. It's a sort of fairy tale-like story about a young girl who becomes a wizard's apprentice in a somewhat fictionalized version of medieval Poland called Polnya. Meanwhile, Spinning Silver takes place in a somewhat fictionalized version of a later medieval Lithuania called Lithvas (at least, I'm pretty sure it's supposed to take place after the events of Uprooted). It follows several characters (but we'll say three really important ones) while they contend with fire demons and ice fairies (the Staryk). Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of Jewish moneylenders. Unfortunately, her father is a very good man, but a very bad moneylender, so while her family is happy, they often have to live quite leanly. Until that is, she decides to take on the task of collecting from her father's debtors herself. Within a few months her financial acumen has made her family more comfortable, if no more welcome, in their small town. Meanwhile, Wanda is the daughter of one of the Mendalstams' debtors, a farmer who drinks too much and habitually beats Wanda and her younger brothers Sergey and Stepon. One day when her father can't make a debt payment, Miryem suggests that Wanda work off her father's debt by helping the Mendelstams around the house, giving Wanda hope of a way out of her father's house. Meanwhiler, Irina is the daughter of a Duke, and is said to be the great-granddaughter of one of the Staryk, though she doesn't have any magic, or does she? Well, we'll see. Anyhow, their stories start to intersect more and more after a Staryk hears rumors of a girl who can turn silver into gold and leaves six silver coins at Miryem's door.
So wait, and all of this is just the beginning of the story?
Essentially, yes.
It's kind of a lot.
I know, also, there's the matter of the tsar.
The tsar?
Yes, Tsar Mirnatius. His mother was said to be a witch who had to be bound by holy chains and burned to death. Also, all of his older male relatives died under mysterious circumstances. Also, he's totally gorge!
I'm sorry, gorge?
Like short for gorgeous.
Oh.
Like he's a really good-looking guy. Anyway, there's some mysterious stuff going on with him, too.
Involving fire demons?
How'd you guess?
Process of elimination.
All right, so now that we've got the premise down, let's talk about what I actually thought of the book.
Things like that make me wonder why you keep me around.
Don't get down on yourself, Hypothetical Reader, apropos of our discussion of plot last week, let's start there.
I do recall this book being prominently featured in a photo of books with plots you enjoyed.
Indeed it was. I'll preface my comments by saying that the book does drag a bit in the middle (it's a bit too obvious that Novik is getting everything set up for the finale), but that everything pays off in (mostly) satisfying ways. The book is a fairy tale in the most literal sense (not just because there are fairies, but also because magic always has a price and follows very specific rules, stuff like that), but it's also a modern novel in that the story revolves around the characters' inner lives. And that's what kept me interested during what I'll term the "table setting" phase of the novel. Miryem, Wanda, and Irina are all intelligent, and capable young women who want more out of life than their roles (and medieval social mores) will allow. This tension, and the ingenuity with which they find ways to break out of their roles or work within them to achieve their goals endears them to the reader and helps avoid the kind of values dissonance that can creep in while reading actual fairy tales (I've been reading the original Beauty and the Beast for an upcoming Oddaptations. Spoiler alert: it kinda blows.).
So would you say it's a revisionist fairy tale along the lines of Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister or The Bloody Chamber?
There is a wide tonal disparity between those two things.
Fine, where would you include it on a spectrum including those two books?
Been a while since I read them, but I'd say it's somewhere in between. It's sort of like what if "Rumpelstiltskin "were told from the point of view of the miller's daughter who becomes a queen.
"Rumpelstiltskin" is from her point of view.
No, but like, what if it were narrated by her and focused primarily on how she felt about the various things that happen to her in the story.
Oh, I get it. So which one's the narrator?
All three. The whole thing is written in the first person (past tense) with the viewpoint switching between Miryem, Wanda, and Irina, as well as a few other characters like Wanda's younger brother, Stepon, Irina's lady-in-waiting, Magreta, and even the mercurial Tsar Mirnatius.
Isn't it confusing to juggle viewpoints like that?
That certainly is a potential pitfall, yes, but one that Novik deftly avoids by planting simple context clues in the first paragraph of each section.
For example?
Well, Miryem calls her father, "Papa," while Wanda and Stepon call their father, "Da," Magreta calls Irinia, "Irinushka," stuff like that. Also, there are several points where the characters are split up, so if at a certain point in the novel the narrator talks about being alone in a house with say, Sergey, then you know that the narrator is Wanda.
I gotcha. So, I take it this a recommendation?
Yeah, I liked Novik's previous novel, and I like this one, too. But I think we all know what LeVar Burton would say.
Probably some technobabble, maybe some complaint to Commander Data about how he can't get a date.
Bah-bem-BEMP!
Spinning Silver by Noami Novik, Del Rey hardcover edition, 2018, 466 pages, pairs well with Krupnik on a cold winter's night
Links:
Naomi Novik's website, if you're into that kinda thing.
One of the things you'll find on said website is that much of Novik's bibliography comprises a series of books that answer the question: "What if there were dragons involved in the Napoleonic wars?"
So wait, and all of this is just the beginning of the story?
Essentially, yes.
It's kind of a lot.
I know, also, there's the matter of the tsar.
The tsar?
Yes, Tsar Mirnatius. His mother was said to be a witch who had to be bound by holy chains and burned to death. Also, all of his older male relatives died under mysterious circumstances. Also, he's totally gorge!
I'm sorry, gorge?
Like short for gorgeous.
Oh.
Like he's a really good-looking guy. Anyway, there's some mysterious stuff going on with him, too.
Involving fire demons?
How'd you guess?
Process of elimination.
All right, so now that we've got the premise down, let's talk about what I actually thought of the book.
Things like that make me wonder why you keep me around.
Don't get down on yourself, Hypothetical Reader, apropos of our discussion of plot last week, let's start there.
I do recall this book being prominently featured in a photo of books with plots you enjoyed.
Indeed it was. I'll preface my comments by saying that the book does drag a bit in the middle (it's a bit too obvious that Novik is getting everything set up for the finale), but that everything pays off in (mostly) satisfying ways. The book is a fairy tale in the most literal sense (not just because there are fairies, but also because magic always has a price and follows very specific rules, stuff like that), but it's also a modern novel in that the story revolves around the characters' inner lives. And that's what kept me interested during what I'll term the "table setting" phase of the novel. Miryem, Wanda, and Irina are all intelligent, and capable young women who want more out of life than their roles (and medieval social mores) will allow. This tension, and the ingenuity with which they find ways to break out of their roles or work within them to achieve their goals endears them to the reader and helps avoid the kind of values dissonance that can creep in while reading actual fairy tales (I've been reading the original Beauty and the Beast for an upcoming Oddaptations. Spoiler alert: it kinda blows.).
So would you say it's a revisionist fairy tale along the lines of Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister or The Bloody Chamber?
There is a wide tonal disparity between those two things.
Fine, where would you include it on a spectrum including those two books?
Been a while since I read them, but I'd say it's somewhere in between. It's sort of like what if "Rumpelstiltskin "were told from the point of view of the miller's daughter who becomes a queen.
"Rumpelstiltskin" is from her point of view.
No, but like, what if it were narrated by her and focused primarily on how she felt about the various things that happen to her in the story.
Oh, I get it. So which one's the narrator?
All three. The whole thing is written in the first person (past tense) with the viewpoint switching between Miryem, Wanda, and Irina, as well as a few other characters like Wanda's younger brother, Stepon, Irina's lady-in-waiting, Magreta, and even the mercurial Tsar Mirnatius.
Isn't it confusing to juggle viewpoints like that?
That certainly is a potential pitfall, yes, but one that Novik deftly avoids by planting simple context clues in the first paragraph of each section.
For example?
Well, Miryem calls her father, "Papa," while Wanda and Stepon call their father, "Da," Magreta calls Irinia, "Irinushka," stuff like that. Also, there are several points where the characters are split up, so if at a certain point in the novel the narrator talks about being alone in a house with say, Sergey, then you know that the narrator is Wanda.
I gotcha. So, I take it this a recommendation?
Yeah, I liked Novik's previous novel, and I like this one, too. But I think we all know what LeVar Burton would say.
Probably some technobabble, maybe some complaint to Commander Data about how he can't get a date.
Bah-bem-BEMP!
Spinning Silver by Noami Novik, Del Rey hardcover edition, 2018, 466 pages, pairs well with Krupnik on a cold winter's night
Links:
Naomi Novik's website, if you're into that kinda thing.
One of the things you'll find on said website is that much of Novik's bibliography comprises a series of books that answer the question: "What if there were dragons involved in the Napoleonic wars?"
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