My great annoyance towards the latter fifth of this book was that it came across as a novel promoting veiled evil with no redeeming qualities and was quite spooky. Nonetheless, when it was all read and done (pun intended) I gave it three stars for the interweaving of medieval Russian history and folklore, compelling storytelling, and a clearer theme of good vs. evil apparent towards the end.
I inherently dislike any kind of media or entertainment that tries to subversively and manipulatively persuade me to champion what is good over what is bad. The book initially seemed gratuitously creepy with the good portrayed as bad and ignorant and the bad portrayed as good and heroic. However, this was based on and stayed pretty true to Russian folklore and wasn’t an attempt to sell or promote a specific philosophy so much as a portrayal of the one possessed by a group of people in history. There was reason within their collective cultural experiences that their hopes and practices looked like this. This was teased out even more in seeing those traditionally championed revealed to be influenced by evil and those attacked and ostracized as wicked actually being the heroes. Indeed, I feel there are deeper elements and whispers of truths I believe and hold reflected even in that dark and distorted experience of reality. I now appreciate being exposed to and invited to step inside this story, even with such dark subject matter, and how it enlightened me to the shaping of the hopes, dreams, and fears of a group of people to better understand them now and the contrast and even comparison to my own beliefs.
I love a book that causes me to think more deeply and see beyond the surface of what is on the pages. This book did just that, even having me delve further into Russian folklore and the history and current day experiences of the Tatars. Unfortunately, I don’t personally like any form of media that gets so spooky or creepy that I can only read/watch it in the day so.....there’s that.
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