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    Deathless
    Deathless
    Deathless
    Audiobook11 hours

    Deathless

    Written by Catherynne M. Valente

    Narrated by Kim De Blecourt

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Koschei the Deathless is to Russian folklore what devils or wicked witches are to western European culture: a menacing, evil figure; the villain of countless stories that have been passed on through story and text for generations. But Koschei has never before been seen through the eyes of Catherynne Valente, whose modernized and transformed take on the legend brings the action to modern times, spanning many of the great developments of Russian history in the twentieth century.

    Deathless, however, is no dry, historical tome: it lights up like fire as the young Marya Morevna transforms from a clever child of the revolution, to Koschei’s beautiful bride, to his eventual undoing. Along the way there are Stalinist house elves, magical quests, secrecy and bureaucracy, and games of lust and power. All told, Deathless is a collision of magical history and actual history, of revolution and mythology, of love and death, which will bring Russian myth back to life in a stunning new incarnation.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBrilliance Audio
    Release dateJun 7, 2011
    ISBN9781441870445
    Deathless
    Author

    Catherynne M. Valente

    Catherynne M. Valente is an acclaimed New York Times bestselling creator of over forty works of fantasy and science fiction, including the Fairyland novels and The Glass Town Game. She has been nominated for the Nebula and World Fantasy awards, and has won the Otherwise (formerly Tiptree), Hugo, and Andre Norton award. She lives on a small island off the coast of Maine with her partner, young son, and a shockingly large cat with most excellent tufts.

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    Reviews for Deathless

    4/5

    522 ratings48 reviews

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    • 4/5
      4.5 stars
      "Death stands behind every bride, every groom. Even as they say their vows, the flowers are rotting in her crown, his teeth are rotting in his head. Cancers they will not notice for thirty years grow slowly, already, in their stomachs. Her beauty browns at the edges as the ring slides up her finger. His strength saps, infinitesimally, as he kisses her."
      I'm not exactly sure what I just read, but I definitely liked it.

      Deathless is, in one word, peculiar. This is a strange, strange book. It reads like a fairy tale, and it certainly has all the magic and wonder of one. Its world is rich and expansive, largely thanks to the fact that it spans 20 years of Marya Morevna's oh-so-tumultuous life. Its prose is ethereal in every sense of the word, constantly surprising me with every page, every line of exquisite description. Its story is sinuous and full of eerie surprises that were, quite literally, out of this world. Its character dynamics are dark and twisted, but always compelling and alluring. Its characters, particularly Marya and Koschei, fraying at the edges, broken and damaged as they are, consistently shine through the book with dazzling intensity. Deathless is a masterfully crafted, intricately woven story that is as whimsical as it is perturbing, as otherworldly as it is decidedly worldly.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      An ambitious novel that weaves traditional Russian folk lore amid Russia’s turbulent history between 1930-1940. A girl becomes the bride of an immortal entity that rules a dark macabre realm and realizes she is repeating a story that has been played out many times before. Deathless has poetic prose and the cadence of a classic legend. I felt the story had a deeper meaning that I wasn't quite able to grasp because of my limited knowledge of Russian culture, history and folk lore. There are recurring themes and philosophies about life, death, love, loss, and war that makes the story hauntingly beautiful. I enjoyed how the author interwove and reinterpreted creatures, entities, and stories from Russian folk lore and mythology. I also appreciated the respect and diligence the author undertook in providing a credible story from a different nationality. I found the overall story to be incredibly sad, my soul aches and I’m sure it won’t leave my thoughts anytime soon.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I wouldn't have changed a thing about it.
    • 5/5
      Devastating in the best way possible. A dark and enthralling take on the “woman coming of age meets man who cannot die” but done right and well at last. Brutal and unforgiving beauty, just like Russia.
    • 5/5
      I am sad to have finished this book, because it means it's over, and even though the ending was one that allows me to keep thinking about it, I wish Valente could write 1 more page of it every day from here on out. I was interested but wary of reading this book at first. Russia as location, subject, and culture is sometimes romanticized beyond belief by Westerners. There were some parts of the book I felt fell into that category, but not so many as to make me put down the book.Next, the characters. The promo material tells you this is based on a fairy/folktale, one I am not personally familiar with. I don't think not knowing it would put you at a disadvantage, it might even make it better.That said, while Marya, Koschei, et al were not original creations, their voices and thoughts and personalities were so beautifully crafted by Valente. This is my first time reading something by the author and I definitely look forward to more.I really loved all of the characters, even the ones I hated. Most of all, I loved Marya. She was a character I felt I could rally behind even when she was heading in the wrong direction, because she is such a strong character, and reading, "watching" her go was so entertaining. I also felt her continuous conflict was well-written, even more so because we are told of it before it happens. It was still exciting. Still surprising. I feel similarly to many of the characters. Even when you knew what they were going to do, to say, and they did and said it, it was better than what I had envisioned. Laying the folktale over a portion of Russia's history was an interesting decision. One I'm not sure entirely works, but I can live with that. So. From early on you know the plot and it progresses as expected and the characters are more or less what they seem, what is there to recommend this book?The writing, it is beautiful without being forced. It drew me in and wrapped me up in the struggles of the characters, made me care about their desires, made me want to help or hinder them, made me want to keep on reading about them. It moves this story from a retelling of an established tale to something more.
    • 3/5
      It was a well done bleak Russian fairy tale interwoven with the takeover of the Communist state and later WWII. The main character having a foot in both worlds as it were. I think it carried the fatalistic theme of Russian fairy tales well and blended the worlds well. Personally though I'm tired of fatalism, dystopian futures and apocalyptical ones as well therefore the three stars. If you enjoy fatalism it's a well done mind trip.
    • 5/5
      This was another of my disappearing reviews. Deathless is a complex and beautiful novel, so that I'm sure a review so long after the fact can do nothing to capture it. I will say that it's well researched, unearthly, and full of Catherynne M. Valente's usual prose -- the sort of prose that I want to call poetic. I didn't understand/follow all of it, I do recall that much, but I was content to be along for the ride and see how it turned out.

      My notes on it also indicate that my original review was long and involved. Alas. I must reread it sometime.
    • 4/5
      Not at all as good as The Girl Who Circumnavigated... It's still quite interesting.
    • 3/5
      This was a slow read for me though I really enjoyed the story. Some bits were a little confusing or just hard to follow as I'm not familiar with Russian folklore or culture. It's hard to believe this was written by an American; it really reads like a translation from a Russian classic.
      I ended up skimming sections towards the end just because it started to feel drawn out, it could have been shortened on the descriptive language and its many side-plots, but you could get really immersed in the story easily. If you're used to reading classic novels like Tolstoy, this would probably be cake walk, but I'm used to lighter fare. Overall, a difficult but worthwile read.
    • 2/5
      I didn't actually read it; I listened to it. And the problem may very well have been the narrator rather than the story. As I listened, I suspected that her careful enunciation took all humor and charm out of the telling of the story.
    • 4/5
      A magnificent work of Russian folklore for grown-ups. It is both grim and sensuous as it winds the tropes of the genre with the upheaval of post-revolutionary Russia. A horrifying and lovely fairy tale.
    • 4/5
      A sensuous, yet bleak, lively and dynamic, yet grim book.
    • 3/5
      what the fuck?
    • 5/5
      what do you even say about this book
    • 3/5
      Unfortunate amalgam of Russian folklore with the Soviet Union. It started off promisingly, but soon degenerated. I found myself finally skimming.
    • 4/5
      Based on post revolutionary Russia and tales of Koschei the Deathless with the Firebird flickering occasionally. A grim inventiveness keeps the narrative moving, though the momentum does slow from time to time.
    • 2/5
      I started off this book already quite skeptical after reading the prologue, by which I mean the writing style left me feeling genuinely ambivalent as to whether or not I was going to enjoy anything after it. It displayed a tendency for metaphor that was interesting and unique without managing to actually do the job of being evocative. It contained prose that was poetic and detailed but seemed more interested in . . . let's call it onanism. I could be less pretentious and just go with 'jerking off,' but that can be fun in a variety of ways, whereas here I very specifically mean the act of spilling one's seed on the ground for no purpose, producing nothing. Certainly not a book. I thought, if you're going to steep your story in this much weird metaphor, it needs to be for a reason. Early revelations of plot and character, perhaps. I wondered about it as the book went on, how the story would get to this point, but once there I don't think we got a perspective on it that was vitally changed by what we had learned since then about the events leading up to it. It was just something that happened. In that sense, I can't say that the prologue didn't let me know what I was in for. I wish I'd listened to what it was telling me this book was going to be.

      So much just happens, and throughout, the main character Marya effects very little of it. Even when she does it seems to be because a thing needed to happen for the poetic cohesion of the story — which I'm distinguishing from the narrative cohesion, because it does not have that. Change comes because the author needs it to, because she's writing for themes and towards themes without much concern for such pedestrian things as character development. It's not character driven or plot driven, it's theme driven. It's folklore driven. It's poetry driven. It's going to hit the key parts of the folklore that the author wants to explore (this comes through loud and clear despite my utter ignorance of Russian folklore), it's going to hit the themes she wants to explore, and it's going to employ its poetry in a very specific way to do so. It uses Marya as a vehicle for this, but she drives nothing herself.

      It's such a strange journey. If it had all been like the prologue I would have just stopped fairly early on, I'm not someone who willingly suffers through books I hate (though admittedly by the time I hit the end of this I was only determined to finish out of spite). There are a couple parts where, even if she's not effecting change, Marya at least has a dynamic internal life. Valente even very clearly delineates these parts of Marya's life within the narrative: Part 1 and Part 4 account for about a third of the book, and they are Marya's "I want" songs. And they are gorgeous. Once I left the prologue I thought the book just started to soar and saw no reason it wouldn't continue to do so. I loved the fairy tale-like way it told about her childhood, which was remarkable because that generally creates a distance for me. But something about the way it incorporated the reality of Russia and a little girl's authentic, dark thoughts really worked for me, and the poetry truly became something I found lyrical and profound and — yes! this is important! — page-turning. Then we move on to the next chapter (metaphorically and literally speaking) of Marya's life, where she doesn't know what she wants. This is fine in principle. Sometimes people don't know what they want! But even that conflict needs to drive the story. She goes through all of these trials in order to secure her place beside Koschei (the titular Deathless), and even she admits she doesn't know what she wants, only that she wants to be able to have what she wants when she knows what it is she wants (which, admittedly, could be an interesting perspective but really only feeds into the weird sexual politics of the book more than any real and meaningful self-realization or actualization). We eventually return to the initial setting and the narrative tone of the beginning of the story proper, and it's again very moving and beautiful, and I highlighted many things and even cried a little. But apart from these two parts in particular, the remaining two-thirds of the book, including the end, are subject to all of the things I didn't like about this book, which ultimately just made for a really unsatisfying read.

      As kind of an aside, since I did bring up Koschei and the weird sexual politics: despite the title, I felt like the prologue and first part of the book were indicating a kind of holistic approach to telling the story of Marya's life, but after she grows up it really focuses on her relationship with Koschei and persistently addressing the question of "who is to rule" in a marriage. I'm not going to say much about that because, apart from it being an unnecessary question in the first place, I'm not really sure where the story even came down on it or what I was meant to glean from that thread. And even the portion of the book that I really liked from her adulthood leans very heavily on Marya claiming that marital power, and the other question she asks that's driving that section (who she would have been without Koschei) is largely irrelevant: it's made irrelevant by the surrounding real world events, or the answer is simply that she would have suffered through these events and never had the freedom without him to ask the question in the first place. Either way it's not something I want to or enjoy thinking about very much.
    • 3/5
      3.25 starsThis is a retelling of a Russian fairy tale. Marya Morevna, as a little girl, watches three birds fall from the sky, then turn into men, who marry her older sisters. She hopes that a bird will come for her one day. When that bird does come, she doesn't see him - he was actually an owl. Koschei takes Marya away and into a whole other world, a world where he is "deathless", the Tsar of Life. Marya gets used to this world and builds a life with Koschei, but someone comes along to change everything. I should start by saying that I'm not a big fantasy fan, but I do like fairy tales. This being a Russian fairy tale, I was not familiar with it. This one started out promising for me; the beginning was more urban fantasy-like, which I can enjoy, but once Koschei took Marya away, the world they lived in didn't appeal to me at all. After the "someone" came along, I enjoyed the story a bit more again, but it really varied throughout. Some parts were more interesting to me than others, and close to the end got a little confusing for me. The very end was o.k., but overall, the book just varied. I think people who enjoy fantasy would likely enjoy this much more than I did.
    • 5/5
      Deathless chewed up my heart--then, to make sure the heartbreak didn't become monotonous, switched up the narrative style and cut it into itty bitty pieces.

      It's a beautiful story, and part of its allure comes from the fact that it's almost a hybrid poem/novel. The language is as stunning as the story is enthralling. Definitely recommend.
    • 3/5
      Three stars for symbolism and gorgeous prose. I should have loved this, because I love fairy tales and mythology and I also find Russia and Russian history intriguing. Overall, I liked reading this book because it is well written, beautiful and haunting, but I couldn't connect with the story or the characters.
    • 2/5
      I obtained a free e-copy of this from a Tor promotion. It took me forever -- plus 3 hours stuck waiting for a car repair -- to finish this elegantly written adult Russian fairy tale, taking place during and after the Revolution. I gather this meta-fictional bodice-ripper succeeded for many, but I lost hope somewhere around the fourth or fifth instantiation of "this tale has been told before and will be told again, but I'm going to tell it to you now anyway." Is it for you? Read one chapter -- any chapter. If you like it AND want to read the same thing three dozen times, enjoy!
    • 4/5
      This entertaining book made me feel a full range of emotions, from laughter to tears. This is a story of a girl influenced into becoming similar to the violent and abusive (although magical) men in her life. They taught her incorrectly that love is punishment, pain, and submission, which she then practices on others. She learns to play political games in a world full of war and lies. She holds tight to the truth however, even when the truth is painful. which is admirable. I loved this book even though it confuses love with pain and hate. This confusion reflects how love is portrayed in our culture, and so holds to the truth even as painful and confusing as that truth is. We live in a world that not only do many go hungry for lack of food, many if not most of us hunger for love. And instead of love we find this toxic mimic of love, where those who claim to love us abuse us, and the hunger to be loved is never satisfied.
    • 5/5
      This book was incredible, fairy tales and Russian history all twined up together until you can't tell them apart, beautiful and bloody and all about getting what you want and finding out how terrible it was for you, and doing it again and again and again. I cannot describe how much I loved this book.
    • 4/5
      The nightmare world of pre- and post-revolutionary Russia meshes with the bizarre and cruel fairytale world of Russian folklore. Maria Morevna, the human bride of Koshchei the Deathless, both loves and hates her seductive, supernatural and terrifying husband. The writing is often seductive as well, mesmerizing at times, yet overall I must say I couldn't wait for it to all be over. I find most authentic fairy tales intriguing, but disturbing, and therefore I'm glad of the shortness of most fairy tales. A novel length fairytale, set in the darkest of Soviet times, was more than I could enjoy. I'm not saying it isn't a well-written tale, it's just not for me.
    • 5/5
      Every so often a book comes along that gets its barbs underneath your skin in such a way that you know that you’ll read it and reread it for years to come. This was definitely one of those books.
      I had a friend tell me that she had to throw the book down on multiple occasions because this book is full of words that she did not write. And while that may sound like a strange sentiment, it really is true for a writer reading this. This book is basically perfection and I also had to put it down a few different times just because the words were so perfect.
      Deathless is, essentially, a fairytale. A Russian fairytale to be more specific. That makes itself obvious from the first page. It’s a fairytale of the darkest nature though, written in the richest way possible.
      I don’t even know how to review it to be quite honest? It was beautiful, the words were beautiful. The story was beautiful. I went into reading it only knowing that it was beautiful and to be honest that’s how I think it should be.
      All I can note in less serious manner is that my evil boyfriend obsession is appeased and more in this book, thus making it transcendent in my eyes.
      Catherynne M. Valente knows how to write words, beautiful words, terrible words. Words made of blood. He followed the trail of bodies. This book is heartbreaking and terrible and absolutely wonderful, and that’s really all I can say.
      Horribly, beautifully, wonderful.
    • 4/5
      Cory Doctorow has a little blurb on the front of the book that says "Deathless is beautiful." It is beautiful, so beautifully written that at times it is spellbinding. It is also so very Russian as to be almost incomprehensible to this American. Life is torment. Love is torment. Torment is part of the beauty of it all. Whew. I was definitely born in the right country. That's too much for me.
    • 5/5
      I was drawn to this book by the beautiful cover, and the fact that Lev Grossman describes the author as 'the Ray Bradbury of her generation'. Ray Bradbury is a wonderful writer, and The Martian Chronicles one of the most beautifully poetic books I know. I simply had to buy it. At the desk in the Oxfam Bookshop, Strutton Ground the young volunteer enthusiastically recommended it. We had a happy chat about Bradbury, and I went back to work with my new book. Deathless essentially tells the bloody and heartrending story of Russia in the early 20th century as if it were a Russian folk tale. Marya Morevna, a child in her family's house, looks out of the window and sees a bird fall from a tree. When it lands, it ibecomes a handsome young man who knocks at the door to ask for the hand of the girl at the window. Her mother, of course, introduces her eldest daughter, and they are married. This happens with the second bird, and the second daughter as well, but the third time Marya is distracted and does not see what manner of bird her suitor is. This is a big mistake. Marya's fate is Koschei, the Tsar of Life, and her own life will not be an easy one with him.The tale of Marya and Koschei, and the endless war against his brother, the Tsar of Death, is full of sorrow, fierce love, and death. It is also the story of the fate of Russia facing injustice, war, death and starvation. I found it helpful to have some knowledge of the shape of Russian folk tales (if only via Old Peter's Russian Tales!), and their brave, clever heroines who outwit the malign forces that try to trip them up. Marya is one of these heroines, she endures and suffers, but she is not conquered.The writing is a wonder, the concept thrilling. This is the best book I have read this year.
    • 5/5
      It's a fairy tale.A dark, forbidding, old fairy tale.Dangerous and enthralling and magical.And wonderful.
    • 5/5
      I usually don't enjoy the stories of reworked or recombined fairytales all that much--often they feel somewhat contrived, like there's components shoved in just because they're supposed to be there. But here, though I did recognize quite a lot of characters and plots from various Russian fairytales (as luck would have it, turns out that I'd just read a bunch of 'em, though I didn't realize on starting this book that it was based on folklore)--the story was still very much its own thing, the characters seeming to belong wholly to the world created in this book, rather than just a bunch of people thrown into a series of stitched-together scenes. Honestly, though it's always wonderful to feel that recognition when one comes upon a familiar detail or idea, I think this book would be equally enjoyable to someone who wasn't well-versed in fairy tales. This story has a life of its own.
    • 3/5
      Deathless is beautifully written, meticulously constructed and symbolically rich- yet, ultimately disappointing. While wonderfully crafted, the novel lacks heart. After 349 pages, the characters are still strangers, interesting to observe, but for whom the reader has no true connection. The characters are flat, like those in a fairytale. Their wants, needs, and dreams are never revealed to the reader, and, despite the long time span covered by this book, no one ever changes or grows. The weak characters can almost be excused for the lovely prose and raw, earthy Russian setting, yet ultimately I just didn't like this book.

      C