Review: Spinning Silver

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Naomi Novik's Uprooted was one of the most impressive (and lauded) fantasy books of 2015, giving readers an adaptation of Polish folktale Agnieszka Piece of Sky. Spinning Silver is a follow-up adaptation of multiple Slavic mythologies and a Grimm Brothers fairytale, and it tackles the difficult story/mythos of the Jewish moneylender, as well. Novik has spun a complicated tale with these narrative threads an I'm sure the fact that it is a less facile read than Uprooted is going to leave some readers disappointed. For me, however, this was a brave and wonderful story.

The premise of the story is that Miryem, daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, is forced to take over her father's business due to her father's mild-mannered ways and his tepid nature. Miryem's Jewish family lives in the mythical Lithvas, an environment of usually reserved anti-semitism (there were moments in this story in which I just gasped, let me tell you), enduring increasingly hard winters. A fairy road of sorts, attributed to the icy Staryks, frequently appears nearby their home. The Staryks are greatly feared, as they are very strong, possessive of their lands and animals, and have been known to kill mortals trespassing on their lands. A second and third principal character in the story are Wanda, a local girl pressed into service in order to pay off her father's debts with Miryem's family, and Irina, daughter of a minor Duke, living in the nearby town of Vysnia. (Vysnia is where Miryem's grandfather, a banker who is still is still sadly termed a Jewish moneylender by the locals, lives.) These three women's lives will intersect as the story reaches its climax.

Novik opens this book with a pragmatic retelling of the story of the Brothers Grimm's Rumplestiltskin/Rumpelstilzchen from the viewpoint of Miryem. From her perspective, it's just the usual tale of people trying to get out of paying their debts. Miryem is embittered about her father's ineffectual business acumen and she takes over the business when she is tired of going cold and hungry and sees her mother's health suffering because of her father's inability to recover the money he has loaned. She is bold and brave and clever, and in a way turns silver into gold by careful investment, keeping careful records, accepting trade for loan repayment. Once she is on a more solid financial footing, she becomes entrepreneurial, paying for good workmanship and coming up with good ideas for selling goods. These abilities don't go unnoticed. Villagers grow resentful that they are no longer dealing with a patsy moneylender, and the King of the Staryks grows intrigued by her business acumen after noting the family's change in fortune. Other beneficiaries of Miryem's good business sense include Wanda and her brothers, who enjoy good meals and a modest income they fail to report to their cruel and abusive drunkard of a father. Working for Miryem is literally a lifesaver for Wanda as working off her father's debt means she cant be sold off as a bride for a few goats and some bottles of liquor to some husband who will just abuse and batter her, working and birthing her to death like her own mother. She wants her own work and to delay marrying. Miryem and her family provide an environment in which she can see her own potential. Miryem generously trains her to keep the books and her mother dotes on Wanda and her brothers kindly, in thanks for the great help they provide in their work.

Irina's story begins when the King of the Staryk leaves a small leather pouch with silver for Miryem with an implicit task of turning silver to gold. She does this by traveling to Vysnia and having Isaac, a silversmith, make a ring of the fairy silver. They then sell it to the Duke, Irina's father, netting a profit. Irina, from the very beginning, is mesmerized by the silver. The King of the Staryk leaves increasingly large sums of silver for Miryem to change into gold as Isaac makes an expensive fairy silver necklace and a crown for Miryem, selling those to the Duke in turn. (The Duke wants to lure the beautiful but cruel young tsar, Mirnatius into wedding his daughter.) Eventually, Irina wears all three and finds they create a powerful glamour and an ability to cross into the land of the Staryk via a classic fairy roads mechanism of entering a mirror or mirror-like reflection. (We eventually will find out why this works for Irina.) Upon completion of these three transformations of fairy silver into profitable gold, the King of the Staryk takes Miryem as his fairy bride and I do mean he takes her, stealing her away in the world of the Staryk. And this is where the story gets complicated.

As soon as Irina marries the cruel young tsar we see that he is possessed by a ravenous and fiery demon. Miryem, meanwhile, is dealing with an ice fairy "husband" who kidnapped her, hasn't even properly married her, and is clearly repelled by her human and mortal nature. He refuses to give her either his name or her freedom. He sets her many seemingly impossible tasks and is horrified and puzzled that she can always complete them. In the cool and white Staryk world, just her touch is enough to turn Staryk silver into gold. The dynamic between these two Slavic kings is that of fire and ice, and while eventually the reader will be rewarded with the name of Mirnatius' demon (SPOILER: the Slavic black god, Chernobog), Miryem's Staryk King's name will remain a mystery to the reader unless you are an aficionado of Russian mythology. (I'll give you the name of this mythological figure below in a spoilered PS) Given that we have fire and ice, you can already predict confrontation between these two powerful men.

One of my only reservations about this novel is the aforementioned complicated narrative may seem too convoluted to some readers. However, this book gives us three marvelous, resilient female characters who are perhaps ultimately more powerful than the men in the story. I loved the exposition on the Jewish moneylender mythos and Miryem's cleverness, loyalty, and success. Wanda's resilience and strength and Irina's insight and bravery, complete the tale of three brave women succeeding against steep odds considering their world's unpleasant gender constraints on women's roles. This is a wonderful Young Adult fantasy.

P.S. (SPOILER: Readers curious about the name of the King of the Staryk can look into the story of the Slavic Frost King, Morozko, who is also a central figure in Katherine Arden's Winternight trilogy.)

I received a Digital Review Copy of this book from NetGalley and Macmillan/Del Rey in exchange for an honest review.

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