I stumbled across this book while searching for historical fiction about the middle ages, and I couldn’t resist. The prologue absolutely blew my mind, and I loved the novel up until the protagonist’s love interest was introduced. Sadly, after that, things seemed to go downhill for me personally, though there were parts of the novel that I genuinely appreciated for artistic merit. It reads more like an extended hagiography rather than a novel. Overall, I wish I had gotten more from this book, but I’d still recommend that people give it a try if the subject is of interest.

Things I Liked

1. Medicine/Magic: I absolutely loved how the healing arts in this novel are presented as a blend of actual, scientific knowledge and mysticism. It’s actually quite reflective of medicine in the real middle ages - while people had knowledge of certain plants and substances that really did work, they also put their faith in charms and things we’d call superstitions. I love it because the novel does not portray medieval people as uneducated or lacking real knowledge, but it also doesn’t exclude the presence of Christianity and its role in everyday life.

2. Family Connections: I loved that the main character (Arseny) learns the art of healing from his grandfather. Too often in historical fiction, it seems like those generational connections are lost, especially in the middle ages, where authors assume that everyone died at a young age.

3. Prose: Lisa Hayden did a brilliant job translating this novel from the original Russian. The prose is poetic without being “purple,” and I love that the text blends modern spelling with archaic spellings to mimic the feel of medieval language whenever a character speaks or reads.

Things I Didn’t Like

1. Ustina: Oh, how I wish that the death of Arseny’s grandfather was the impetus for travelling to Europe instead of what we got. Ustina as a character is only used to fuel Arseny’s emotions and pain - she randomly shows up while Arseny is wallowing in his grief for his grandfather, and after having a bunch of sex, she gets pregnant and dies. And it’s quite a graphic death too - we’re taken through the whole process, and it was a bit much for me. What made her arc less palatable for me was the fact that Arseny was ridiculously possessive of her - he describes his love for her in terms of keeping her away from other people, and he does things like refusing to buy her her own clothes and refusing to call a midwife. She seems to only exist to love him and die. Honestly, the relationship with the grandfather is built up better, and his death is way more heartfelt and devastating. Ustina’s passing seems to be reveling in the horror of childbirth and the trauma of violent death.

2. Lack of Character Development: Aside from the first 100-ish pages, Arseny doesn’t seem to develop that much. He’s a bit static, which makes the rest of the novel feel less like a journey or narrative than I think it was supposed to be. It’s also noticeable that he doesn’t have deep connections with people the same way he does with his grandfather (and even Ustina, as much as I disliked it).

3. Ambrogio’s Visions: Ambrogio is a character that regularly sees visions of the future, and the novel describes them in a such a way that it’s rather distracting. I don’t like being suddenly unstuck in time, and it seems like the visions don’t really play a huge role in the novel as a whole.

4. Pace: For me, the pace of this book was very slow, and I had a hard time investing myself in the overall arc.

Recommendations: I would recommend this book if you’re interested in medieval Russia, 15th century Russia and Europe, hagiography, magical realism, healing arts, herbalism, medieval medicine, pilgrimages, and travel narratives.