The Bear and the Nightingale is a soothing, familiar story. Katerine Arden tells her narrative with beautiful delicate phrases plucked from gossamer and fey. It leans, like the works of Charles DeLint, on folk tales and sets them into reality although Arden’s reality is a foregone Russia in the place of DeLint’s modern Ottawa. It also compares favorably to Uprooted in how it deals with the idea of the modern fairy tale as told to adults… except I found The Bear and the Nightingale more pleasurable and more subtle.
