Scan barcode
A review by thepurplebookwyrm
Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik
adventurous
hopeful
mysterious
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? N/A
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.25
Premise:
Spinning Silver centres on Miryem, a young Jewish woman who, at the beginning of the story, takes over her father's money-lending business as her family falls on hard times. She does such great work (better work than her too-nice father ever did), 'changing' silver coins into gold ones (meant for the family bank account, in the nearby town), she attracts the attention of a Staryk lord (a kind of fairy, essentially), who imperiously challenges her to turn his own silver into gold, within a certain amount of time.
The book also features three other points of view, but chiefly those of two other women: Wanda, a poor peasant who comes to work for Myriem in order to pay off her father's debt, and Irina, the daughter of a local lord fated to marry Mirnatius, the Tsar... and the fiery demon who inhabits him.
Spinning Silver thus broadly works as a loose re-telling, or re-imagining, of the Rumpelstiltskin fairy tale, set in Eastern Europe and mildly pulling from Slavic mythology.
Review:
To start off with some positives: I liked the fact this story was as female-centric as it was, and that it worked very well as a mythology-infused, fairy tale retelling.
On a world-building front, I most certainly enjoyed the fact Spinning Silver featured an Eastern European/Slavic setting, and that it pulled from Slavic mythology, for a pleasantly refreshing change! The novel's 'fairies', the Staryk, were also convincingly portrayed as non-human and otherworldly. Or rather... what I'll term 'sub or para-worldly', in the sense that they represented a different facet of the world, and Nature, rather than a completely separate sphere of being. And this is, in fact, more in line with what fairies, elves, the Sidhe, etc... are 'supposed' to be, so point there!
Speaking of Nature... I found the novel's highly atmospheric writing very compelling, and immersive. Novik's prose, for its part, flowed smoothly overall, though I can't say I found it evocative or inspiring in any specific fashion either.
Now onto some negatives: I'd say Spinning Silver was, more or less, equally character- and plot-driven, which was fine, but it lacked greater world-building, and certainly thematic depth beyond that. There just wasn't much there for me to engage with on an intellectual or emotional level, in terms of ideas, mythological referencing, or in terms of deeper character work, and greater character relatability. At most, I can say Spinning Silver showed a character experiencing anti-Semitic discrimination, and a sketch of intersectional oppression, since three of her four main characters were female and prejudiced in different ways. But I never got anything more than, well, a sketch, and would have preferred more substance and colour to be given to said sketch.
I'm also not entirely sure the story needed all its points of view, and this feeling honestly came as somewhat of a surprise, since I'm generally a fan of multiple POV stories. But it may precisely be because I felt the story lacked deeper substance; it didn't need so many 'character bones', as it were, given it's lack of 'meat' (stories are animals in this metaphor, apparently, lol). And the same kind of goes for the book's length. Not that it's a chonker either, mind you, but I'm not sure it needed to be as long as it was. Still, I'll allow its compelling atmosphere largely made up for this feeling of 'paddedness'.
I am, unfortunately, a little more miffed about Spinning Silver's ending, which felt rough and rushed to me. I basically had to 'reason' my way to it feeling like it 'fit', if that makes sense. Because sure, I suppose it could fit, in a roundabout way, but... it needed additional build-up. It really did. That being said, and despite that, the book's very last sentence, on its own, resonated perfectly.
Overall, then, Spinning Silver was a slightly more positive-than-not, but ultimately mixed bag for me, and my 2024 'reading run' remains, on the whole, decidedly average. #KindaSadgeBookwyrm
On the bright(er) side, however, I'll add that I liked Spinning Silver just enough to give Naomi Novik's work another go, and will thus probably check out Uprooted... at some undefined point in the future. 🙂
Spinning Silver centres on Miryem, a young Jewish woman who, at the beginning of the story, takes over her father's money-lending business as her family falls on hard times. She does such great work (better work than her too-nice father ever did), 'changing' silver coins into gold ones (meant for the family bank account, in the nearby town), she attracts the attention of a Staryk lord (a kind of fairy, essentially), who imperiously challenges her to turn his own silver into gold, within a certain amount of time.
The book also features three other points of view, but chiefly those of two other women: Wanda, a poor peasant who comes to work for Myriem in order to pay off her father's debt, and Irina, the daughter of a local lord fated to marry Mirnatius, the Tsar... and the fiery demon who inhabits him.
Spinning Silver thus broadly works as a loose re-telling, or re-imagining, of the Rumpelstiltskin fairy tale, set in Eastern Europe and mildly pulling from Slavic mythology.
Review:
To start off with some positives: I liked the fact this story was as female-centric as it was, and that it worked very well as a mythology-infused, fairy tale retelling.
On a world-building front, I most certainly enjoyed the fact Spinning Silver featured an Eastern European/Slavic setting, and that it pulled from Slavic mythology, for a pleasantly refreshing change! The novel's 'fairies', the Staryk, were also convincingly portrayed as non-human and otherworldly. Or rather... what I'll term 'sub or para-worldly', in the sense that they represented a different facet of the world, and Nature, rather than a completely separate sphere of being. And this is, in fact, more in line with what fairies, elves, the Sidhe, etc... are 'supposed' to be, so point there!
Speaking of Nature... I found the novel's highly atmospheric writing very compelling, and immersive. Novik's prose, for its part, flowed smoothly overall, though I can't say I found it evocative or inspiring in any specific fashion either.
Now onto some negatives: I'd say Spinning Silver was, more or less, equally character- and plot-driven, which was fine, but it lacked greater world-building, and certainly thematic depth beyond that. There just wasn't much there for me to engage with on an intellectual or emotional level, in terms of ideas, mythological referencing, or in terms of deeper character work, and greater character relatability. At most, I can say Spinning Silver showed a character experiencing anti-Semitic discrimination, and a sketch of intersectional oppression, since three of her four main characters were female and prejudiced in different ways. But I never got anything more than, well, a sketch, and would have preferred more substance and colour to be given to said sketch.
I'm also not entirely sure the story needed all its points of view, and this feeling honestly came as somewhat of a surprise, since I'm generally a fan of multiple POV stories. But it may precisely be because I felt the story lacked deeper substance; it didn't need so many 'character bones', as it were, given it's lack of 'meat' (stories are animals in this metaphor, apparently, lol). And the same kind of goes for the book's length. Not that it's a chonker either, mind you, but I'm not sure it needed to be as long as it was. Still, I'll allow its compelling atmosphere largely made up for this feeling of 'paddedness'.
I am, unfortunately, a little more miffed about Spinning Silver's ending, which felt rough and rushed to me. I basically had to 'reason' my way to it feeling like it 'fit', if that makes sense. Because sure, I suppose it could fit, in a roundabout way, but... it needed additional build-up. It really did. That being said, and despite that, the book's very last sentence, on its own, resonated perfectly.
Overall, then, Spinning Silver was a slightly more positive-than-not, but ultimately mixed bag for me, and my 2024 'reading run' remains, on the whole, decidedly average. #KindaSadgeBookwyrm
On the bright(er) side, however, I'll add that I liked Spinning Silver just enough to give Naomi Novik's work another go, and will thus probably check out Uprooted... at some undefined point in the future. 🙂
Content Warnings
Minor: Antisemitism and Sexism
The novel centres on female characters (one of whom is Jewish, in Early Modern Europe) who experience discrimination, and prejudice, on different levels.