I lean toward the logical and analytical as well, but I think that’s why I enjoyed this selection so much. It used a different part of my brain. I spent hours at an Advanced Accounting seminar for work the other day, and when I came home and picked up the book, I was like, “Thank God I don’t have to figure anything out.”
I have a plot point question—not magic-based (at least I don’t think so): Can someone please explain the palace intrigue that Irina was involved in? I was a little confused about what couple she had quickly paired up and married off, and why.
I enjoyed this book and the characters. I don’t read fantasy all the time, but there are many books I like in the genre.
I thought one of the strong storylines of this book was how people learned to accept others who were different from themselves. I couldn’t find the passage, but believe it was Stepon who expressed how his preconceived thoughts about Jewish people, was not at all what he felt for Panova and Panov Mandelstam. Miryem learned to love the Staryk. The Staryk learned to love Miryem. The story encouraged us to question what makes a person beautiful. Is beauty on the outside or inside? I thought it was well done.
I agree that the end was a little rushed. We were definitely asked to take a leap of faith as a reader when Miryem closed the mountain. I still enjoyed the story and smiled when the Staryk King asked Miryem’s parents if he could court their daughter. I enjoyed watching the Staryk King’s transformation. Like @ignatius, he was one of my favorite characters. His believed he was superior to mortals and that made him small-minded. His self-acclaimed superiority made it easy for him to kill a race he thought worthless. Miryem’s strength, intelligence, and kindness change his perception and beliefs.
@Mary13: Three potential rivals for the throne: Irina’s father, Ulrich, and Casimir. Banded together, they can overthrow the tsar. However, Irina’s father no longer has reason to do so: his daughter is tsarina. That leaves Ulrich and Casimir as threats. Irina quickly marries Ulrich’s daughter into the tsar’s family, making it less likely that Ulrich will revolt. By doing so she effectively removes Ulrich as problem. Irina then plans to rid herself of Mirnatius and, from her position as tsarina, marry Casimir. She keeps her status and takes away any threat Casimir presents. Even if it doesn’t work out, Casimir not only lost his allies but they would actively fight against him. Smart political move.
@caraid great summary and helps me better understand the themes, and I like the book more now.
This genre, is out of my comfort zone, and I struggled to like this book. I enjoyed the first half, more than the last half, which I admit after chapter 22 I skimmed the remaining chapters. The shifting narrations made the story’s progression so slow, because I had to endure, another point of view, sometimes interesting, sometimes exhausting.
@ignatius thanks for explaining Irina’s character, very complicated,
Like others, I constantly confused Miryem and irina.
Hated the descriptions of the tunnels, scenery and the mazes which made me think of computer games.
Turns out the author is a gamer, has a masters degree, and designs computer games, which made the last half of the book so challenging. Ugh. However, Spinning Silver could make a stunning movie, like Avatar.
There was also something about soulful glances between the rushed handsome bridegroom and possessed tsar. Once he was wed and “encouraged to be a dutiful husband,” those ceased as well. I think this may have been one more reason for the hasty marriage.
^ Thanks, @ignatius! I had seen those, but decided I preferred her apple oat muffin recipe to her questions. Maybe it’s because she kept spelling Miryem wrong? I shouldn’t be so judgmental. Here they are:
Why did Miryem believe she had to be cruel to be a good moneylender? Was she better than her father? At what cost? What kind of lender was her grandfather?
What did the Staryk king bargain to Miryam if she turned his magic silver into gold three times? How did she do it? Why did he believe she was capable of that magic forever after?
What was the connection between Irina, Mirnatius, and the squirrels? How did this show his true character early?
Why wasn’t Miryam sorry she had been hard to those who had borrowed from her father? Did they, as she said, want her “to bury my mother and leave my father behind to die alone….to go be a beggar in my grandfather’s house...they would have devoured my family and picked their teeth with the bones, and never been sorry at all”? What made them so greedy and unkind to her and her kind?
Instead of treasure, what did Miryam bargain with the Staryk for her rights? How did it confine the answers she would receive about his world and its rules, even from the servants?
How did the Staryk make bargains, if not with contracts and handshakes and other gestures?
Why was it so important for Miryam to celebrate Shabbat, and how did she force the Staryk to help her know when it was?
How did those who owed Miryam’s family money treat her or Wanda when they came to collect? How, in contrast, did they treat Stepon? Why? What made him decide to do so?
What were the two cabin locations, and how were they connected? By what objects and what people? What things were completed in the cabin to improve it?
Why did Irina care if the Staryk froze the kingdom? Whom was she concerned about? Why didn’t Mirnatius care about them?
How did Miryam change all three storerooms filled with silver into gold?
What did it mean in the magic world of the Staryk to give someone a gift versus a bargain? Why was that highly offensive to the Staryk king? Are there people in our world like that, who cannot accept a gift or give a gift? What makes them (or some of the characters in this book) that way?
Why did Irina keep coming back to Mirnatius instead of staying in the magic land of ice and snow? What was her plan?
In what ways were the demon and Wanda’s father alike? Who were their victims?
Why did Wanda feel useless and unwanted in Vysnia? How did Panova Mandelstam respond to her fears and warn her about wolves in some men’s bellies?
What did those in the Staryk kingdom believe about gifts and thanks? Who was Miryam blessed to name, and why was that significant for both her and the mother of the child?
If the Staryk king didn’t make summer into winter, who did? And how?
Why was the name of the demon so important for binding it (and what was it)? Is this why the Staryk king never shared his name?
What gift did Irina give to Wanda and her brothers? Whom else was it shared with? Where did they choose to take it?
Power is a common theme in this book, even from unexpected characters. By not making a bargain with the demon, how did Irina gain power over it in the end? How did the prayers of Miryam’s people help her to “call forth” an object?
Irina wasn’t doing Ulrich’s daughter any favors with that match. I’m not sure that a fellow crushing so hard on the tsar will find it easy to be “a dutiful husband.”
@ignatius, thanks for the explanation in post #82.
I don’t really think Irina cared so much about the rushed bridegroom—more of the role he had to play. She just was thinking politically and stressed to the bridegroom the political importance of the marriage and an heir.
I had to return my copy of Spinning Silver but from memory, I thought it was the rushed handsome bridegroom and possessed czar who were exchanging sugnificant looks. Now that the demon is extinguished, Irina should live “ happily ever after,” as hopefully will the newlywed couple.
This may be the passage you were thinking of – in any event, it reinforces what you describe. So many of the relationships in the novel are about the errors inherent in first impressions – how we misjudge “outsiders” based on their religion or ethnicity or appearance, without knowing them at all.
@Mary13, that is the passage. Thanks for finding it.
Miryem brought on winter more quickly when she changed the two storerooms of silver into gold. I kept waiting for her to be horrified when she realized she was responsible. I was surprised when the story didn’t really go in that direction.
Was I the only one who thought Irina was destined to be the Staryk Queen?
The author made a point that she had Staryk blood, and was quite drawn to the wintery land she saw through the looking glass. And, the jewelry she wore, made from Staryk silver, gave her the power to move into another world & charm those who gazed at her.
I was so sure the story was going in that direction!
I liked the relationship Miryem developed with her “servants” and the way she stumbled thru figuring out their customs and social rules.
I was stumbling thru right along with her. Those customs are addressed in question 12:
As I understand it, giving a straight-out gift or doing someone a favor is unacceptable in the Staryk kingdom. Every service must be met with a “fair return.” The idea of merely thanking someone is frowned upon. Tsop tells Irina, “…we have always heard that in the sunlit world, mortals give thanks to one another to fill the hollowness where they fail to make return” (p. 320).
Side note for “Game of Thrones” fans: There is no word for thank-you in Dothraki.
By the way, that’s not the first time Spinning Silver made me think of GofT. The frozen Staryk kingdom reminded me of the world outside The Wall, with the Staryks as a kinder, gentler version of the Night King and his White Walkers.
Although come to think of it, not a whole lot kinder and gentler: There are several references to Staryk warriors murdering and raping residents of the sunlit world. Somehow, this doesn’t seem like something the more-or-less honorable king would condone.
Interesting! The scene where the Staryk king and Miryem’s family are madly searching the house for something that will lead him back to his own kingdom reminded me so much of a computer game – doors and drawers and shelves and boxes suddenly appearing, with colorful knick-knacks turning up everywhere. I would swear my kids had a computer game like that.
I had mentioned earlier than Naomi Novik draws from multiple sources in creating her fictional world. Irina’s method of travel reminded me of the way Orpheus gets to and from Hades in Jean Cocteau’s movie “Orphée.” Has anyone ever seen that? He uses magic gloves instead of silver jewelry, but it’s the same concept. Here’s a clip (it’s only about 90 seconds). The guide tells Orphée that the gloves will allow him to move through the mirror like water, and he does not need to understand, but to believe (which is good advice for the reading of Spinning Silver): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9PvyiEL6hw
Miryem asks: “What are the duties of a Staryk queen?” The King jeers: “Will you … wake new snow-trees from the earth?” … “Will you raise your hand and mend the mountain’s wounded face? When you have done these things, then truly will you be a Staryk queen. Until then, cease the folly of imagining yourself other than you are.”
Well, Miryem does those exact things by the end of the book.
Do you think Miryem was mean when she went to collect the loan payments? The people knew that they had borrowed the money. Her family didn’t have enough food money while many of them partied. I can’t understand why the questions referred to her being mean.
^ No, I don’t think she was mean at all. Stern–yes; cruel–no. She was collecting what was rightfully hers, following up on a bargain that was agreed upon by both parties. (Again, bargains. Miryem survived on them in the sunlit world and they will be an inescapable part of her life in the Staryk kingdom as well.)
Maybe it’s because she kept spelling Miryem wrong? I shouldn’t be so judgmental. Here they are:
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