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“Death, keep off, I am your enemy, and you will not deny me.��

Deathless is one of those books that consumes you at every moment, where it is in every one of your thoughts, and once you read the last word on the last page you say to yourself . . . I think I just read the best book of my life. I can see the crash from here. The hangover to end all hangovers. That is how powerful this book is. Five stars will never be enough for this story.

Deathless is the retelling of the Russian/Slavic folklore of (link to the folklore) and (link to information about Koschei). He is said to be an evil immortal that steals away women for himself. But what if he is the Tsar of Life? And what if Marya Morevna falls in love with him?
“The war is going badly.�� Both the war between the Tsar of Death and the Tsar of Life and the war with Germany. Nobody will be who they were before the war.

Marya Morevna has always seen things differently. Birds that turn into husbands and domoviye that take care of her house. This made her an outcast, neglected by old friends with only Pushkin's words to comfort her.

Marya Morevna understood that she belonged to her secret and it belonged to her. They had struck a bloody bargain between them. Keep me and obey me, the secret said to her, for I am your husband and I can destroy you.

She is haunted by her lost friends, an old red scarf, and what her life could have been.

“I was only a child �� how I can find the girl I was before I knew what magic was? That world will not love me. It will kick me and slap me in the snow, and take scarf, and leave me ashamed and bleeding.��

Koschei steals Marya away and dazzles her with his magic, his jewels and his Country of Life. However, Marya learns she isn't the only girl Koschei has ever taken, and like the others, she is fated to betray him to Ivan Nikolayevich. But will her love for Koschei change anything? Will she take the same path as the others?

When Marya saw something extraordinary again, she would be ready. She would be clever. She would not let it rule her or trick her. She would do the tricking, if tricking was called for.

Life can be beautiful and forgiving, but life can be cruel and merciless , too. It can be punishing and hurtful because “Life is like that.��

“The rapt pupil will be forgiven for assuming the Tsar of Death to be wicked and the Tsar of Life to be virtuous. Let the truth be told: There is no virtue anywhere. Life is sly and unscrupulous, a blackguard, wolfish, severe. In service to itself, it will commit any offense. So, too, is Death possessed of infinite strategies and gaunt nature �� but also mercy, also grace and tenderness. In his own country Death can be kind. But of an end to their argument, we shall have none, not ever, until the end of all.��

Koschei, for all his selfishness and cruelty, gave himself to Marya. He is fated to always have his wives leave him, and yet he still finds himself loving Marya. This quote literally game me chills and perfectly describes him:

“Oh, I will be cruel to you, Marya Morevna. It will stop your breath, how cruel I can be. But you understand, don’t you? You are clever enough. I am a demanding creature. I am selfish and cruel and extremely unreasonable. But I am your servant. When you starve I will feed you; when you are sick I will tend you. I crawl at your feet; for before your love, your kisses, I am debased. For you alone I will be weak.��

I've actually memorized that quote word for word. That's how much of an impression it left on me.

Marya was not left untouched by Koshcei, however. Her innocence slowly left her, because to be Koschei's wife, she needed to be just a little bit cold and ruthless. Half her heart human, half her heart demon.

“But marriage is war, and you do what you must to survive �� because only one of you will.��

In Part 3, Ivan is introduced. This is the moment Marya and I dreaded as we both grew more and more attacked to Koschei. Our hearts were torn. The original folklore relied on the goodness of Ivan and the evilness of Koschei. Falling in love with him changed everything, at the very least it changed how we felt. They weren't perfect, far from it actually. Koschei and Marya's love could be selfish and mean and destructive. But they were magnets, forever pulling each other closer and closer to one another. It's impossible not to feel their connection.

“How I adore you, Marya. How well I chose. Scold me; deny me. Tell me you want what you want and damn me forever. But don’t leave me.��

His desperation to be loved by her, to be held in someone's heart and not be left abandoned, tore at me.

“I will put you there and turn the light in your eyes and come to stare at you for centuries, to pore over you, because you are mine, my treasure, my hoard, and I cannot keep you and I cannot let you go.��

I love how closely fantasy and reality bordered. We had the war in Buyan and the war in Germany that, to me, overlapped perfectly with each other (I am not an expert in Russian folklore or history, though). Catherynne Valente drew you into this wonderfully crafted world, both magical and realistic,where you experienced the wonders and horrors of Buyan and the wonders and horrors of Leningrad.

“Marya,�� she sighed. “No one is now what they were before the war. There’s just no getting any of it back.��

I was not ready for Chapter 23. Nothing in any review can prepare you for the horror, suffering, cruel words, and early deaths that is thrown at you in this chapter. It was so realistic and painful in its portrayal that it left me speechless. And as we watched, the Tsar of Death lifted up his eyelids like skirts and began to dance in the streets of Leningrad.

When you are this hungry, you cannot even remember who you used to be, she whispered. Who you might have been, if not for the hunger.
That night, she burned all the books in the attic for heat. She carried them down, one by one, because December ate up her strength. She lit them in the strove while they all huddled around and put out their hands. Last one in was the Pushkin, and she cried, but without tears, because you cannot have tears without bread.

There were so many powerful moments in this books, especially towards the end. I was completely riveted. Nothing could have torn be away from those pages. Deathless is a work of art . . . just the way it makes you feel and ache for/with the character is incredible.

“Koschei, Koschei,�� she whispered. “What would I have been if I had never seen the birds? I am no one; I am nothing. I am a blank paper on which you and your magic wrote a girl. Just the kind of girl you wanted, all hungry and hurt and needing. A machine for loving you. Nothing in me was not made by you.��

The writing was perfection . I don't know what impressed me more, the actual story or the writing. Catherynne Valente has the kind of style were you have to pay close attention to every word lest you miss something important. Nothing is stated outright or spoon fed to you. The delivery was beautifully done and I have +100 highlights to show for it. And here is a perfect example of repetition done right (or rather a refrain done right). “Life is like that.�� and “The war is going badly.�� were such poignant phrases. I don't know what it was about them, maybe the context in each use, that made me want to break out in tears.

If there's one way to sum up how this book made me feel, it is with this quote:

There is a hole in me like a bullet.

Deathless is the kind of story that leaves its mark on you. It leaves you with such a an ache for more, for less.

“You will always fall in love, and it will always be like having your throat cut, just that fast.��

**although it's not necessary for you to have a lot of knowledge of Russia during that time, it does help, especially with the ending which can be very ambiguous**


OTHER FAVORITE QUOTES:
It was at thirteen years old that Marya Morevna learned how to keep a secret, and that secrets are jealous things, permitting now fraternization.
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Each time she learned something of the long history of Koschei’s country and the war with the Tsar of Death, she loved Buyan a little more fiercely, and feared the war a little more sharply.
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It stopped her breath, how like a child the Tsar of Life became when he needed her. The power she had over him, that he game her. Who is to rule, that is all.
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“War is not for winning, Masha,�� sighed Koschei, reading the tracks of supply lines, of pincer strategies, over her shoulder. “It is for surviving.��
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“If you think my brother is any different, girl, then there’s not help for you. He’ll burn you down like wax if you let him. You’ll think it’s love, while he dines on your heart.��
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“We can hold two terrible ideas at once in our hearts.��
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“Did I not dower myself to you? Did I not come to you on my knees with a kingdom in my hand?��
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“You frighten me.��
“Yes,�� she said simply.
“I don’t understand. I want to understand.��
“You will. Before the end. You will. You always do.��
“Then why do things happen the way they happen? If I understand it I can change it. Is it your fault? Do you stop me from changing it?��
“They happen because Life consumes everything and Death never sleeps, and between them the world moves.��
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What mirrors we are, set to face each other, reflecting desire.
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“Yet you demand my loyalty, my whole heart, my marrow.��
“Those things are mine. You don’t understand, Masha. You have never understood. You are my treasure, my pale gold, the heart of my heart. You lie at the bottom of my being and gnaw up my roots.��
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“I put on blood for you like a cosmetic, just like I put on this face, and this body all full of leanness and litheness. It is to please you, only to please you, my human girl, my volchitsa. Didn’t you know? Didn’t you guess?��
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“Don’t leave me,�� he said helplessly. “No rules but that rule. Don’t leave me.��
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I burn, I freeze; I am never warm. I am rigid; I forgot softness because it did not serve me.��
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“Koschei, Koschei,�� she whispered. “What would I have been if I had never seen the birds? I am no one; I am nothing. I am blank paper on which you and your magic wrote a girl. Just the kind of girl you wanted, all hungry and hurt and needing. A machine for loving you. Nothing in me was not made by you. I was six when the rook came �� six! That’s my whole life that you’ve bent in your hands. What could I have grown up to be? What kind of human woman, what kind of simple, happy thing? If I had never been broken on a bird’s wing. If I had never seen the world naked.��
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“You keep calling him that. The Tsar of Life.��
“That’s what he is.��
And am I that Tsaritsa of Life, then? half her heart asked.
The other half answered, Not even for a moment were you ever queen.
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“When do you feel most alive, Marya, but when you are closest to death? That is where I live. That is what my body is made of.��
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After love, no one is what they were before.
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“A marriage is a private thing. It has its own wild laws, and secret histories, and savage acts, and what passes between married people is incomprehensible to outsiders. We look terrible to you, and severe, and you see our blood flying, but what we carry between us is hard-won, and we made it just as we wished it to be, just the color, just the shape.��
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“You are going to break your promise. I understand. And I hold my hands over the ears of my heart, so that I will not hate you.��