The townsfolk refuse to pay off their debts despite having ample wealth and demonize the moneylender due to his job as well as his Jewish heritage. While Miryem’s cold mannerisms might put the reader off at first, the tale appeals to her family’s dire social and financial circumstances, as well as to her father’s empathy and his reluctance to collect debts given his family’s precarious position in the community. Miryem performs the role of coldhearted moneylender, taking over from her father who could not achieve the same emotional detachment when collecting from the townsfolk. However, each narrator’s perspective occurs in first person, thus assigning a stronger sense of agency and autonomy to these characters than a third person narrative would allow for, as well as connecting the reader more closely to the thoughts and actions of the protagonists. These three young women hold different worldviews, based on their disparate life experiences and social standing.

A multi-perspective narrative, Spinning Silver primarily varies between Miryem, the moneylender’s daughter turned icily merciless moneylender herself Wanda, a young woman whose father signed her away to work for Miryem’s family in recompence for his debts and Irina, a duke’s daughter made enchantingly beautiful with adornments of magical Staryk gold. “The real story isn’t half as pretty as the one you’ve heard…Because that’s what the story is really about: getting out of paying your debts” (3). Immediately, then, Miryem flips the familiar story on its head, exploring the antisemitism within the European folklore tradition. She is an outsider in her own village, set apart and othered for her status as the local Jewish moneylender’s daughter. Miryem, this tale’s main protagonist, lives in a world of strife. However, while the source material clearly shines through the text and tugs on readers’ nostalgia for the Grimm brothers’ folktale, this tale offers a vastly different world, crafted in juxtaposition to the fantastical and utopian perception of fairy tale worlds.

NovemAlly Geoffray Naomi Novik’s Spinning Silver loosely follows the fairy tale “Rumpelstiltskin,” reimagining the story of a young woman who (with the help of an otherworldly creature) spins straw into gold.

“The Underground Railroad” by Colson WhiteheadĮnglish Blog Rumpelstiltskin Reimagined: A Review of Naomi Novik’s Spinning Silver.

Station Eleven: “Survival is Insufficient”.

“Why You Read in the First Place:” A Review of Anne Bogel’s I’d Rather be Reading.

Rumpelstiltskin Reimagined: A Review of Naomi Novik’s Spinning Silver.

Spinning silver book review