Liz Cultivates | L.M. Fern

I finally finished Naomi Novik’s Spinning Silver, and gang . . . it was SUCH a good read.

Spinning Silver is a retelling of the Rumplestiltskin fable, focusing on characters often faced with powerlessness at the hands of other people and their journey toward finding their own power. It follows Miriam, the young daughter of an unsuccessful money lender who decides to start collecting on her father’s loans and becomes quite adept at it; Wanda, who is trying to escape her abusive father; and Irina, the daughter of the local Duke, who through a series of events ends up married to the Czar — and discovers something unthinkable about the ruler of their country.

One day, coming home from a journey into town to visit her grandfather (a prestigious money lender), feeling confident in her skills after taken over her father’s books, Miriam boasts to her mother that she could turn silver into gold if she wanted! This becomes the albatross around her neck, however, because a faerie creature from another world, a Staryk, has heard her — and expects her to make good on her boast. If she can make silver into gold three times, he says, he will marry her and make her into a queen among his people.

Well, she does so, by forging the silver he gives her into jewelry that she then sells to the Duke for gold, and then the Staryk King makes good on his promise… and the story is just starting from there.

At its core, Spinning Silver is a story about power… and not just the physical kind. It’s about the power of names, the strength of cunning women.

I wasn’t exceedingly familiar with the story of Rumplestiltskin, except for vague recollections of a girl who spins gold, and whatever the character from the popular television series Once Upon a Time got up to (he was my favorite character on that show, but the property took some decidedly creative liberties with the concept). The story appears in the 1812 edition of the Grimm brothers’ collection of fairy tales. The original tale involves a young woman whose miller father boasts that she can spin straw into gold — and when a king locks her in a tower, demanding for her to do so in return for marrying her, she makes a deal with an impish creature to use magic to spin the straw into gold (because of course she cannot do this). The first time, he asks for a necklace. The second, a ring. The third, he bargains for the only thing left to the girl: her future firstborn child. Eventually, the girl-turned-queen has to discover the true name of the imp (Rumplestiltskin) before he will let her be.

Novik’s retelling contains a version of most of these elements — a boast of turning silver to gold, magical jewelry, a discovery of true names — but the beauty of the story is in the details that she has added and spun into a gorgeous tapestry of magic, political intrigue, danger, found family, and cunning. The prose is gorgeous, and Novik weaves an intricate tale of what it’s like when disparate worlds collide in not-so-nice ways. The throughline of Jewish culture and tradition provides excellent imagery and commentary, as well.

Not to mention the production value of the audio book is absolutely stunning. This was my first true audio book (that I didn’t DNF). I think I listened to eight straight hours of it in one day.

5/5 for me — this is a must-read!