Some time in the last few months, I read Naomi Novik’s retelling of Rumplestiltskin, where the little gnome becomes a tall, handsome, emotionally distant elf. He rules a winter kingdom and periodically invades the human kingdom of green growing things.

The heroine is a Jewish girl who gains a reputation in her medieval Eastern European village as woman who multiplies her silver coins through wise investing, buying and selling. Novik’s book has a tense undercurrent of of anti-Antisemitism which heightens the reader’s anxiety for Miryem and her family. Novik uses historically accurate bigotry against Jewish folks as a way of forcibly reminding readers that this prejudice is not an historical artifact.

But back to the story. Miryem comes to the attention of the elf king because he wants her to double and triple his silver for him. He appears to only be a greedy king, but we learn that he has altruistic reasons for wishing to increase his hoard of silver.

Of course there are villains but as with most of these modern retellings, the villains are not true villains but humans corrupted by human emotions and weaknesses.

Sometimes, I think the desire to see a story from multiple angles renders evil a matter of emotional logic as opposed to an existential force.

Novik’s novel impressively updates the story of Rumplestiltskin for a modern audience with themes of feminist empowerment, religious tolerance, gender and sexual equality.