The Bear and the Nightingale: The Best Fantasy Book I’ve Ever Read
The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden
5/5 Stars.
No Spoilers.
This story takes you on a heart-wrenching journey into the human soul, waking it up and slapping it in the face with unsettling turmoil and angst of the human condition. In a Maleficent sort of way, your emotions are shocked and assaulted at what people will do in the face of love and hate. All of this, like Maleficent, without any traditional romance taking place. Easy to follow while being extremely complex in its plot and characters, this book is for anyone reading for pure pleasure and anyone who enjoys finding deep meanings in what they read.
This was a pure work of fantastical art, completely whole and delightful in its realistic characters, mythical creatures, and Russian setting. Much of it takes place in an ancient wood, in a poor household, but also transports to hidden worlds within the world. The character development was phenomenal, mystifying, and shocking throughout as good and evil are blurred and creatures and humans alike force you to assess the thoughts and behaviors of each to attempt to predict what they’ll do next. Katherine is truly masterful at her character development- she doesn’t tell us what they’re like — but shows us, slowly, in their decisions, priorities, and choices. Becoming immersed in their thinking, you grow to either love or hate these characters, and sometimes you’re not even able to put into words how you feel about them.
One theme in the story was how the Russian fairy tale prophesied various realities for each character. This really turned into a theme about morality and fate. The ironic nature of this book forces you to think about the meaning behind the outcomes, and how the characters’ true natures, not just the fairy tale, foreshadow their fates. I got the sense from the beginning that everything happening was part of a fate where each character had the free will to direct their own destiny, but succumbed to it nonetheless because of their inherent nature.
Katherine Arden builds each character layer by layer through dialogue and conflict, as the plot develops in complexity. Each person’s character is influenced by outside forces that are working to influence their fate. This book is also about the power of deception, and each person must discern what is real while choosing the path, good or bad, driven by the undercurrent of their motives.
What made this book so pleasurable was the author’s ability to focus my attention so much that I detached from my surroundings and the rest of the world faded away. I was caught up in the experience, and this was satisfying in itself.
This first novel left me wanting more of several things; the broader Russian setting, the history of Vasya’s mother, and the importance of the nightingale. All of these were briefly touched upon, but I’m hoping in the next novel we are able to get a broader scope of the characters and the world. If there was anything I didn’t like about this book- it was concerning the talisman (or necklace). Without going back to re-read I didn’t quite understand its magical power and was hoping for more of an explanation — although this may be explained further in the series.
I also would have liked more or of a broader world-building, but also think for the first novel in a series, it was enough to keep me engaged in the immediate setting as appropriate for the storyline. I have the next novel in the series, The Girl in the Tower, and The Winter of the Witch on hold at Barnes and Noble, and will be starting it as soon as I get my hands on it — even if I have to put a halt to my current reads.
