I just wish I loved the rest of the book as much.Three young women: Miryem, a Jewish moneylender’s daughter Irina, the unwanted daughter of a Duke and Wanda, a peasant girl – stand up to three different men (the Staryk (Winter) King, the demon-possessed Tsar, and her own father, respectively), and in doing so, gain power and discover their own strength, courage, and self-respect. I loved all the Jewish references in Spinning Silver. It's a shame, because I loved the Spinning Silver short story and I was so excited for a fantasy protagonist who was Jewish and named Miriam (or close enough). Still, a too-thin plot stretched to fit a novel is a lot more onerous to read than a too-full plot crammed into a single book. Uprooted, one of my absolute favorite books of all time, had far too much plot that got hastily shoved into the final third of the book.
It's not the first time Novik's struggled to fit her plot into novel-length form. All those unnecessary POVs pad the book, taking a fairly short plot and stretching it to novel length. What these additional narrators do add is page count. They shouldn't share the top billing and they shouldn't be narrators.
It's Miryem's story, and Irina and Wanda should be important secondary characters. This isn't a story shared by three protagonists. Even the other protagonists, Irina and Wanda, are far less interesting and compelling than Miryem. Novik gives the book a whopping six POVs, most of which are completely unnecessary. This is perhaps most glaringly obvious in the use of multiple narrators. Novik begins to lose steam about a quarter of the way through, and her take on Rumpelstiltskin becomes increasingly less creative and interesting as the novel continues. There's simply not enough plot in Spinning Silver for a whole novel. Sadly, when Novik turned Spinning Silver into a novel, she lost the conciseness. The short story was a really clever spin on Rumpelstiltskin, keeping certain fantasy elements while coming up with more realistic and grounded explanations for other elements (Miryem can't literally turn silver to gold rather, she's very good at trading). The short story version was concise and packed a good punch. I can't help but feel that Spinning Silver was far better off when it was a short story in the collection The Starlit Wood. But the icy Staryk that haunt the woods soon hear of the young woman who can change silver to gold, and they don't exactly understand metaphorical language. Fed up with being cold and starving, Miryem hardens her heart and takes up the moneylending business herself, soon turning a tidy profit. Miryem is the daughter of a moneylender who can't bear to actually collect his dues. Naomi Novik's fairytale spree continues with Spinning Silver, a twist on the Rumpelstiltskin story. "To be warm instead of cold? To be rich and comfortable? To have a daughter who can turn silver into gold?"
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