#stepon

In Stepon’s first POV in chapter 11, the first two paragraphs (page 156, US hardback edition):

“I like goats because I know what they will do. If I leave the pen open, or there is a loose post, they will get out and run away…I can understand goats. I tried to understand Da, because I thought if I did, hew would hit me less, but I didn’t ever manage it, and for a long time I didn’t understand Wanda, because she was always telling me to go away, but she would make me food along with everyone else and give me clothing sometimes. Sergey was kind to me most of the time, but sometimes he wasn’t, and I didn’t know why about that, either.”

He doesn’t get social stuff! He gets the animals more than people because animals are predictable and make sense to him. His Da is always angry and abusive and nothing changes that. Wanda resents having to take care of him and resents loving him but does anyway and he doesn’t get it. Sergey is nicer but not always and tells Stepon the truth about their Mama but Stepon doesn’t get why sometimes Sergey is short tempered with him. He gets why the goats do what they do. There isn’t a question there, no difficult waters to navigate.

In Stepon’s chapter 13 POV (page 205, US hardback edition):

“Someone else had lived in the house also, I remembered Wanda talking about them, but I couldn’t remember their name. It made me feel strange trying to remember when the name didn’t come, because names always came when I wanted them to. […] If I found them then I could just have asked what their name was and I would stop feeling strange.”

My boy Stepon never forgets a name! He knows the names of everyone he’s ever met or heard of and it’s weird and bothers him when he can’t.

Also chapter 13, (page 205-206):

“It was the day after market day in the fourth week of the month, so that meant Wanda was going to collect from the two villages down the cart-track going southeast from town and the names to collect from were Rybernik, Hurol, Gnadys, Provna, Tsumil, and Dvuri. I said the names over to myself on the way because they made a nice song in my head. When I got there I knocked on all the doors I saw and asked their name and if they said one of those names then I held out the basket…Then I brought the basket to Panova Mandelstam and told her, “I am not too younger after all.” She looked in the basket and then she was very upset. I didn’t know why, but then Panov Mandelstam put his hand on my shoulder very gently and said, “Stepon we should have explained. It is very important not to make any mistakes when collecting, and to keep a careful account. Do you think if you try very hard you can remember and tell us exactly where you went, and who gave you each thing?” “Yes,” I said. “This is the day of the month Wanda goes to Rybernik, Hurol, Gnadys, Provna, Tsumil, and Dvuri,” and then I pointed to each thing and told him who gave it to me. I thought Panova Mandelstam was still unhappy afterwards, but she gave me some dumplings with a thick sauce with carrots and potatoes and real chicken meat in it, and a cup of tea with two big spoons of honey, so I must have been wrong.”

The MEMORY on this kid!! He knows his sister’s schedule by heart and knows what’s okay to accept for payment! He makes little songs out of what he needs to remember! Again he’s not sure how to understand the emotions of the people around him, misinterpreting Panova Mandelstam’s upset at him going out to work for them and putting himself in harm’s way as being upset with him for maybe messing up the accounts.

Stepon’s chapter 14 POV (page 231, US hardback edition):

“..One of them yelled “How does it feel to have killed your own father?”

They ran away into the trees and didn’t wait for an answer but I thought about it the rest of the way. I wasn’t sure if I had killed my father, because I had only wanted him to not hit Wanda with the poker; I hadn’t wanted him to fall over me. But he had fallen over me and that was part of why he was dead, so maybe it didn’t matter that I hadn’t wanted it. I didn’t know.

I did know that it felt good ot be living with Panov and Panova Mandelstam. I had stopped feeling hungry even a little bit. But anytime I thought about Sergey and Wanda, even if I was sitting at the table, I felt like I had swallowed stones instead of food.”

I’ve decided to leave out the rest of Stepon’s thoughts about what would be better, if Sergey and Wanda were with him and the Mandelstams or not for the sake of space, but it continues to prove the point I want to make. He’s analytical! This isn’t a kid who can lie to himself even for the sake of comfort. He could give himself the scant distance from his father’s death that “I didn’t want him to die” could buy him, but he knows he can’t. He was there, his father tripped over him, and his brother and sister are gone now. He doesn’t know if he will see them again, and this is still likely the best outcome because he isn’t hungry and frightened and cold anymore. But he still wants his brother and sister and would rather be cold and alone in the woods looking for them than “live with the stones in [his] stomach.”

Continuing Chapter 14, this time page 232-233:

“..but he said it too kindly, the way you say nice things to a goat when you are trying to get it to come so you can tie it up. It did  not mean he wanted to hurt me. He only wanted to keep me in a good safe warm place so I wouldn’t die in the snow somewhere. But if I stayed in this place, I would never see Wanda and Sergey again… “Sergey and Wanda were going to go to Vysnia. They wanted to ask someone for work.” I had to think about it because he was someone’s grandfather, and I didn’t know who the someone was, which was strange. But I did know the grandfather’s name. “Panov Moshel.”

This time I had to cut it off because if I include Panova Mandelstam realizing Miryem is gone I’ll make this post about that instead. But! Stepon is coming in again with his goat analogies, which I love. He’s picked up some great ways to tell how people are feeling but he’s steadfast, and again with his excellent memory. He can’t remember Miryem right now, but he can remember he grandfather’s name, even though he overheard that when Wanda and Sergey were just talking as he collected the nut from their Mama’s tree. He still remembers!

Stepon’s POV in chapter 15 (page 254):

“Are you warm enough Stepon?” Panova Mandelstam asked me. I said I was because however warm I was, that had to be warm enough, because there was nothing to do about it if I wasn’t.”

This is short but I really like the directness he has here. He is cold, as he says in the next couple of lines. But Stepon knows that nothing is capable of making him warmer, even in the best place in the sleigh, so he says he’s warm enough.

Again in chapter 15 (page 256):

“Then he straightened and looked at Algis. Algis was standing next to the back of the sleigh. His head was hanging. He said, “I didn’t fill the bucket.” He meant the grain bucket. So there was no food for the horses.

Panov Mandelstam didn’t say anything for a minute. The silence felt very long. Finally he said, “It is lucky this is a late snow. There will still be some fresh growth under. We must dig and get them some grass and whatever else we can find for them to eat.”

He was still kind, but I thought that he had not felt kind, and that was why he had been quiet. I thought that meant he must be very worried. So then I was very worried.”

Analytical! As always! Stepon is learning how to distinguish emotions, and he’s getting his queues from those around him. He knows that it’s bad for the horses to not have food, but he’s not worried until he realizes that Panov Mandelstam is. Stepon also spends the rest of the chapter making sure to remember how no one else would have forgotten the grain bucket. I don’t think that actually plays into him being autistic, but it’s very funny to me. Wanda would have remembered to fill the grain bucket, Algis.

I don’t have any examples that jump out to me from Chapter 16, but I want to note that I love how aware Stepon is of how other people are feeling. Does he understand why? Not always. But he knows Wanda is scared when she realizes the mattress cover is big enough.

Stepon’s POV in chapter 19 (pages 334-335):

“Wanda and Sergey went downstairs to help with the wedding. “Will you come, Stepon?” Sergey asked me, but I shivered, remembering all those people crammed together, in the rooms and in  the streets, more people than I knew there to be in the whole world. “No, no no,” and they didn’t make me, but they went, and after a while the sun started to go down, and I started to not like being alone in the room…I pulled my head back inside, but the house was getting so loud and full of people that I heard some of that same noise even when I closed the window. It came up through the fireplace and under the door. It got louder and louder and then music started playing. It was loud music, and people were dancing to it. I felt it in my feet not just in my ears. I sat on the bed and covered me ears and I still  felt it coming up all the way through the house. It kept going on and on. It was all the way dark outside and I was really afraid now because why would Wanda and Sergey stay down in all that noise unless something bad made them. I had my face pressed up against my knees and my arms over my head, and then there was a knock on the door. I didn’t say to come in because I would have had to take my arms from over my head, but Panova Mandelstam came inside anyway. “Stepon, are you all right?” she said. She meant it but she didn’t really mean it, I could tell. She was thinking about something else. But when I didn’t say anything back and didn’t pick my head up, she started to really mean it, and then she went and got the candle she had left on the table for us and she took out a couple of big lumps of wac from it and blew on them until they weren’t hot, and she said, “Here, Stepon, put the wax in your ears.”

I thought I would try. I took my hand away for just a little bit and took the wax. It was still warm and soft. I pushed it inot my ears and it squished into the little spots and then it stopped being so warm and the noise stopped being so loud on that side. I could still feel it in my body but I couldn’t feel it so much. So then I was very glad and I took the other lump of wax and that helped too.”

Sensory overload my beloathed. Stepon, buddy, you are me and I am you. Why WOULD they be around all of those people and all of that noise? My boy would have LOVED noise cancelling headphones if they existed in this world. This scene really resonated with me the first time I read Spinning Silver, to the point that I had to read it twice. I have been here before except no one gave me anything to dull the noise.

Stepon’s POV chapter 21 (page 393-394):

“I did not mind taking them off because it was warm, and I was sitting in a cart anyway. I was glad to be leaving that terrible city. It was even worse than before. The streets were all crowded with people everywhere because now there was no snow and they wanted to be outside and they all wanted to talk at the same time and make noise. I lay down in the bottom of the cart next to the sacks that were pretending to be Miryem and I tried to pretend to be a sack myself, but I wasn’t a sack…Panov Mandelstam got down to pay the man at the gate some money, because that city was such a terrible place we had to pay to be let out.”

He hates this place! He wants his quiet little house back, thank you and goodbye. He’d prefer to have his whole family with him, but any leaving back to his safe, quiet place is best. This city is too crowded and too noisy and his life would be easier if he was a sack that couldn’t hear but he’s not so he’s just gonna lay there.

“Miryem is the daughter and granddaughter of moneylenders, but her father's inability to collect his debts has left his family on the edge of poverty - until Miryem takes matters into her own hands. Hardening her heart, the young woman sets out to claim what is owed and soon gains a reputation for being able to turn silver into gold. When an ill-advised boast draws the attention of the king of the Staryk - grim fey creatures who seem more ice than flesh - Miryem's fate, and that of two kingdoms, will be forever altered.

She will face an impossible challenge and, along with two unlikely allies, uncover a secret that threatens to consume the lands of humans and Staryk alike,” (Naomi Novik).

I enjoyed Novik’s novel for several reasons. First, it was well-written despite its numerous spelling and grammatical errors, (e.g. sentences that were missing words). It also contained a host of well-rounded, intriguing characters with their own distinct personalities and motivations. This included three strong female leads who consistently fought to attain whatever it was they desired. An example would be Miryem, who did whatever it took to earn money and keep herself and her family safe from starvation during the harsh winter. Another example would be Wanda, who fought to protect herself from unhealthy situations and toxic relationships. I also really enjoyed the chapters told from Stepon’s perspective because it felt like Novik captured his childish innocence perfectly. I also enjoyed the world that Novik created and the lore that surrounded it—particularly the Staryk kingdom, (e.g. the forests and icy mountain). I also appreciated the lack of gratuitous violence, sex scenes, and cursing, since that isn’t something you see much nowadays. However, I felt as though it suffered from several slow patches. Had some unnecessary details been pulled here and there, the novel would have gone faster and been even stronger.