Our discussion of The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden

The Bear and the Nightingale (Winternight Trilogy #1) by Katherine Arden

At the edge of the Russian wilderness, winter lasts most of the year and the snowdrifts grow taller than houses. But Vasilisa doesn't mind—she spends the winter nights huddled around the embers of a fire with her beloved siblings, 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. Wise Russians fear him, her nurse says, and honor the spirits of house and yard and forest that protect their homes from evil.

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.

And indeed, crops begin to fail, evil creatures of the forest creep nearer, and misfortune stalks the village. All the while, Vasilisa's stepmother grows ever harsher in her determination to groom her rebellious stepdaughter for either marriage or confinement in a convent.

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. Goodreads

Below are a sampling of our comments:

• A character list, with each person’s many names, would have been helpful
• The nightingale of the title referred to Vasya’s horse… at first it seemed that the nightingale that the frost demon was recruiting to become Vasya’s horse may have been related to Vasya’s mother, but it turned out the nightingale was related to the frost demon’s white horse
• The story was so magical that the nightingale as horse idea made sense
• The bear was reminiscent of the Celtic bear in Brave, Mor’du
• The bear and the frost demon are brothers, but what are the two sides? Why are they fighting each other?
• The frost demon is peaceful death and the bear is frightful death
• The story covered 16 years and it didn’t drag along, not like classic Russian novels
• Is Vasya under the frost demon’s spell? When he kisses her (page 298), may have been the beauty falling for the beast scene
• Anna had sight but no training. She was sheltered and kept away from folktales, so she interpreted the house spirits as demons. She was an evil stepmother, but a sympathetic one
• Anna had no choices in her life, like all the other women of the time
• The priest was a creepy, egomaniac, hunchback of Notre Dame-type
• It would be disappointing if Vasya set out to see the world and only got as far as the frost demon’s house, but good if she was just swinging by to pick up her loot to finance her trip

Please add any additional thoughts or comments you may have about The Bear and the Nightingale. We gave this title the codes MYT, REL, AGE, HOME & LIT with an average rating of 4.7.