Scan barcode
A review by nothingforpomegranted
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
3.0
I thought I was going to absolutely love this book—and, indeed, there were elements that I positively adored—but ultimately, it was a bit too fantastical for me.
Naomi Novik’s clever retelling of the Rumplestiltskin story features six alternating narrators, all written in first-person and somewhat difficult to keep track of on audio without paying close attention to the cues.
The first, Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of Jewish moneylenders, living near poverty and somewhat estranged from her mother’s family due to her father’s failure to pay back the dowry that he had lent out. When her mother gets sick, enterprising Miryem takes the moneylending responsibilities into her own hands, taking back the funds plus interest from her neighbors with minimal sympathy. It is through these house visits that Miryem meets our second narrator, Wanda.
Wanda lives in a small cottage with her two brothers and her father, the drunk, after the death of five baby brothers and, finally, her mother. Unable to resolve their debt when Miryem comes to the house, Wanda’s servitude is accepted as payment, though Miryem doesn’t realize at first that Wanda would be glad to work forever to avoid that house.
The book started to lose me after a couple chapters of switching between these two perspectives...still with most of it to go. In short, Miryem begins to receive secret silver presents in the woods from a Staryk—essentially a winter lord—along with requests to turn them into gold. Successful as she’s become at moneylending, Miryem enlists her friend Isaac to help her sell the silver pieces to the Duke. The Duke’s daughter, Irina, completes the trio of strong women who comprise the story, despite her timidity upon introduction. The Duke presents Irina with the silver jewelry, imbued with Staryk magic, and engages her in a politically advantageous marriage with the czar. Come to find out, the czar has been manipulated by a fire demon who made a deal with his long-dead mother to keep her family on the throne and requires Staryk blood to quench his thirst; indeed, the czar was interested in Irina primarily to feed her to the demon at night. Irina, upon discovering this, begins to disappear through her mirror every night, frustrating the czar and the demon, landing the the Staryk kingdom, to which Miryem too has been whisked away.
From there, the story delves into a deep fantasy that just didn’t do it for me at all The magical brawl between the demon and the Staryk king was hard to follow, and the collaborative plots between the three women were overly complicated and under explained, not to mention all the additional perspectives and plot twists that were introduced (though I did like Stefan, Wanda’s youngest brother). Furthermore, the sudden love stories between these characters who had antagonized and bargained with each other throughout the novel were unbelievable and disappointing. Such great female characters had been written and introduced and developed and strengthened only to have them fall for the men they had been forced to marry in the first place.
All of that said, I was thrilled by the portrayal of Miryem’s Judaism. It was so powerful to see this kind of representation and to read a narrative in which Judaism was central to a character’s experience without inhibiting their involvement in the wider world. Novik’s depictions of antisemitism were significant without being overwhelming, and I was so happy to see this content in a mainstream novel.
Reread: 2024
I read this again for the Enchanted Book Coven book club on Storygraph, and I’m bummed to admit that it ended up prompting me to leave the book club. I think this kind of fantasy certainly doesn’t work for me on audio, and I’m not wholly convinced it works for me at all. There were some parallels here to The Book of Esther, which I actually quite enjoyed, but I had a hard time keeping track of the characters and storylines, and I honestly didn’t feel particularly inclined to try harder.
The book club itself was great, and I loved reading along with other people’s comments in the readalong, but I realized I had so little to contribute!
Naomi Novik’s clever retelling of the Rumplestiltskin story features six alternating narrators, all written in first-person and somewhat difficult to keep track of on audio without paying close attention to the cues.
The first, Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of Jewish moneylenders, living near poverty and somewhat estranged from her mother’s family due to her father’s failure to pay back the dowry that he had lent out. When her mother gets sick, enterprising Miryem takes the moneylending responsibilities into her own hands, taking back the funds plus interest from her neighbors with minimal sympathy. It is through these house visits that Miryem meets our second narrator, Wanda.
Wanda lives in a small cottage with her two brothers and her father, the drunk, after the death of five baby brothers and, finally, her mother. Unable to resolve their debt when Miryem comes to the house, Wanda’s servitude is accepted as payment, though Miryem doesn’t realize at first that Wanda would be glad to work forever to avoid that house.
The book started to lose me after a couple chapters of switching between these two perspectives...still with most of it to go. In short, Miryem begins to receive secret silver presents in the woods from a Staryk—essentially a winter lord—along with requests to turn them into gold. Successful as she’s become at moneylending, Miryem enlists her friend Isaac to help her sell the silver pieces to the Duke. The Duke’s daughter, Irina, completes the trio of strong women who comprise the story, despite her timidity upon introduction. The Duke presents Irina with the silver jewelry, imbued with Staryk magic, and engages her in a politically advantageous marriage with the czar. Come to find out, the czar has been manipulated by a fire demon who made a deal with his long-dead mother to keep her family on the throne and requires Staryk blood to quench his thirst; indeed, the czar was interested in Irina primarily to feed her to the demon at night. Irina, upon discovering this, begins to disappear through her mirror every night, frustrating the czar and the demon, landing the the Staryk kingdom, to which Miryem too has been whisked away.
From there, the story delves into a deep fantasy that just didn’t do it for me at all The magical brawl between the demon and the Staryk king was hard to follow, and the collaborative plots between the three women were overly complicated and under explained, not to mention all the additional perspectives and plot twists that were introduced (though I did like Stefan, Wanda’s youngest brother). Furthermore, the sudden love stories between these characters who had antagonized and bargained with each other throughout the novel were unbelievable and disappointing. Such great female characters had been written and introduced and developed and strengthened only to have them fall for the men they had been forced to marry in the first place.
All of that said, I was thrilled by the portrayal of Miryem’s Judaism. It was so powerful to see this kind of representation and to read a narrative in which Judaism was central to a character’s experience without inhibiting their involvement in the wider world. Novik’s depictions of antisemitism were significant without being overwhelming, and I was so happy to see this content in a mainstream novel.
Reread: 2024
I read this again for the Enchanted Book Coven book club on Storygraph, and I’m bummed to admit that it ended up prompting me to leave the book club. I think this kind of fantasy certainly doesn’t work for me on audio, and I’m not wholly convinced it works for me at all. There were some parallels here to The Book of Esther, which I actually quite enjoyed, but I had a hard time keeping track of the characters and storylines, and I honestly didn’t feel particularly inclined to try harder.
The book club itself was great, and I loved reading along with other people’s comments in the readalong, but I realized I had so little to contribute!