Read It: Deathless

Each morning for a few weeks, Bertie and I would catch up with Marya Morevna, 

heroine of Catherynne M. Valente's Deathless.

Please note that is not a review in so much as some thoughts about a book. I mention very few of the characters by name, and reveal even less about the plot of Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente. It is a novel I highly recommend for those who enjoy action, adventure, romance and folk lore. Yes, it is that bountiful a text...

I am very fortunate to teach a subject, English, in a school district that allows for a degree of leeway when it come to texts covered in class. I am not obligated to teach novels, poems or stories that I myself don't have an appreciation of. Though selections do need to be approved for class instruction, I also enjoy taking suggestions from my students, as well as letting them known what I am currently reading. I even occasionally share things with them for their own enjoyment. As a result, I have begun to seek out titles from genres I like with the thought of finding texts that might also be of interest to my "Young Adult" students. Happily, this has taken my reading in some unusual directions that I might otherwise not have been taken. Recently, while looking for books in the folk horror genre, I came across Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente.

More romance than horror, I have found the reading of Deathless over the last few weeks to be an incredibly satisfying journey and one, now that I have completed it, I look forward to sharing with my students. A beautifully written story of female empowerment using characters from Russian folklore, Deathless is that rare book that begs to have sections of it re-read before moving on. The imagery crafted by Valente is so lush, and the language so delicate and descriptive, that its reading was something to be savored rather than rushed. For much the same reason I don't enjoy binge watching newly discovered television shows, Deathless benefits from taking one's time with it. The introduction of  variety of Russian folk elements both slightly familiar, Koschei and Baba Yaga for example, and unfamiliar, the leshy and domovoi, had me pausing for more history as I read. It was rewarding to meet these new-to-me folk characters who, in the context of Russian folklore, have English literary analogs that aided, along with the text, in visualizing each character. In my imagination, Deathless plays like a mash-up of Howl's Moving Castle, The Hobbit, Wuthering Heights, and a textbook about the Russian Revolution. Not a boring textbook but one that paints a picture that is equal parts light and dark.

Digital image of a domovoi (Russian
 House Spirit) by LMaize, DeviantArt.
DeviantArt, n.d. Web. 10 Feb. 2015.

Whiel reading I could not help but dog-ear pages that held lines which I wished to return to, such as "Marya [the novel's protagonist]  pinned out her childhood like a butterfly" (23) and "... the woodsmoke hung gold and thick and the snow tested the wind with white fingers..." (171). There is so much beauty in Valente's words that even in isolation they connect. As part of the expansive larger narrative which includes magic bird-men, yarn soldiers and automobile horses, Deathless quickly coaxed me into it's world. Carefully following the multitude of characters and ideas seeded early in on come back around with greater significance was as rewarding as it was inviting me to a re-read in the future.

Late in the novel Marya's housemate, Kseniya Yefremovna, recaps our heroine's journey to date while describing a house on Decembrists Street as "a house they painted with all sorts of things from fairy tales, so that it would wonderful and people would bring their children to see it, just as we brought Sofiya today. You can see there a firebird on the door, and Master Grey Wolf on the chimney, and Ivan the Fool scampering over the walls, with Yelena the Bright in his arms, and Baba Yaga running after them brandishing her spoon. And that's a leshy creeping in the garden, and a vila and vodyanoy and a domovoi with a red cap. And there--they"ve put a rusalka near the kitchen window. Kseniya turned to Marya. "And Koschei the Deathless is there , too, near the cellar. …" (265) A guiding question returned to throughout Deathless is "Who is to rule?" As a writer I had not had the previous pleasure to read, it is difficult not to suggest after thoroughly enjoying Deathless, that it might be author Catherynne M. Valente.