Ice - Sarah Beth Durst

This is another book that caught my eyes and when I read the summary at back cover it hooked me on the spot :)

When Cassie was a little girl, her grandmother told her a story about her mother who made a deal with the Polar Bear King and was swept away to the ends of the earth - which Cassie now knows was a nice way of saying that her mother died. Cassie lives with her father at an Arctic research station, and she has no time for make-believe. Then on her eighteenth birthday, Cassie comes face to face with a polar bear who speaks to her. He tells her that her mother is alive and imprisoned in the troll castle. He can bring her back-if Cassie will agree to be his bride.

This is the beginning of Cassie's own real-life fairy tale, one that sends her on an incredible journey to the land east of the sun and west of the moon. Can she survive the brutal odyssey in search of the true love, or will everything she cares about be lost to her forever?


PROLOGUE
The North Wind's Daughter

Once upon a time, the North Wind said to the Polar Bear King, "Steal me a daughter, and when she grows, she will be your bride."

Four year old Cassie clutched her quilt and stared at her grandmother. Tall and straight Gram looked like a general. She perched stiffly on the edge of Cassie’s bed. She had a mahogany cane in her left hand. Tonight, Dad was away from the station, which meant Cassie would hear a story. Gram never told it when Dad was home. It was the only story she ever told.

“And so, the Polar Bear King kidnapped a human child and brought her to the North Wind, and she was raised with the Norht Wind as her father and the West, South, and East Winds ahs her uncles. She grew into a beautiful, but lonely young woman. One day, while the Winds were gone (as they often were), she met a human man. She befriended him, and it wasn’t long before they fell in love.

“When the Polar Bear King came to claim his bride, she refused him. Her heart, she said, belonged to another. ‘I would not have an unwilling wife,’ he told her. ‘But your father had made a promise to me.’

“Knowing the power of a magic promise, the North Wind’s daughter sought to counter it with her own bargain. ‘Then I will make a promise to you,’ the North Wind’s daughter replies. ‘Bring me to my love and hide us from my father, and when I have a daughter, she will be your bride.’ And so the Bear carried the North Wind’s daughter to her human husband and hid them in the ice and snow.

“Angry, the North Wind tore across the land, sea, and sky. But he could not find them. For a long while, the North Wind’s daughter and her husband were happy.

“In time, the woman had a child. Passing by, the West Wind heard the birth and hurried to tell the North Wind where his daughter could be found. With the strength of a thousand blizzards, the North Wind swooped down onto the house that held his daughter, her husband, and their newborn baby. He would have torn the house to shreds, but the woman ran outside. ‘Take me,’ she cried, ‘but leave my loved ones alone!’

“The North Wind blew her as far as he could – as far as the castle beyond the ends of the world. There, she fell to the ground and was captured by trolls.” Cassie heard the bed creak as Gram stood. Her rich voice was softer now. “It is said than when the wind howls from the North, it is for his lost daughter,”

Cassie blikned her eyes open. “And Mommy is still there?”

Gram was a shadow in the doorway. “Yes.”




At first, I thought it's the story like Beauty and the Beast. Besides, the tag line of the book is "Would you risk everything for a fairy tale". And me, have a weakness for fairy tale, and the only fairy tale that came to my mind while reading the summary was Beauty and the Beast. And boy how wrong am I!!

After reading it for a while, I must confess that I can not wait to know how it will end, so I skipped to the end and...yeah I realize that this is not the story of Beauty and the Beast. So I resumed my reading. In the middle of the reading, there is one scene that I'm quite familiar with it and instantly I remember the story of Eros and Psyche (that's why I wrote the article about Eros & Pscyhe before, so I don't have to tell it again in here). Now I know what this story is based on! Or at least that was what I thought.

But then again....when I wrote this post, I read the book again, the part where praises were given about this book, I read one part where it wrote about fairy tale called "East of the Sun and West of the Moon". I looked it up on wikipedia and guess what...Ice was based on this fairy tale from Norway. WHAT?! BUT on the bright side (to cheer me up), wikipedia ALSO put Eros & Pscyhe along with this fairy tale. So I guess I'm not so wrong hahaha...

About the book. I love the story! It is a love story. I love how Cassie and the Bear relationship grow from distrust to friendship to trust and to love. I love how the Bear show his love for Cassie, how gentle he is and how big his love for Cassie. And when the Bear was captured by the trolls, in turn I see how Cassie will do almosty anything to get Bear back to her.

Althought it's a love story, like any good love story, there has to be more than just love in the story. If not, it will get boring! Ice also tell about munaqsri, or guardian of the souls. Munaqsri are the caretakers of the souls. Every living thing need a soul and everything that dies gives up a soul. Munaqsri are the ones who transfer and transport those souls. The Polar Bear King is a munaqsri for the polar bears. Munaqsri played quite a large part on this book and kind of part of the solution.

And the view...wow! You can almost feel the cold of the ice, the beautiful view, the forest and feel how the wind howl at you :)

And I finished this book just in one day hehehehe....it showed how much I enjoyed this book! You can 'see' how Cassie and Bear enjoy each other company, how they missed one another, how the love between them grow. You can see the fight between them, although not so much, and you can see how Cassie struggle and tried her hardest to get to Bear. It's all in this book, love and the fight for what (or who) you love.

Another wonderful story!

Eros & Psyche

I already had put the picture of Eros & Psyche before this one. But I never tell their story. The picture are from Marta Dahlig.

Oke...at first I intended to told the story itself, but its too long, so I just copy+paste the story.

Aphrodite, the goddess of love, was jealous and angry because a mortal princess named Psyche had become so famous for her beauty that mere mortals were beginning to say that she was even more lovely than Aphrodite herself.

Aphrodite sent her son Eros, the god of love, to shoot Psyche with one of his arrows, to make her fall in love with the most hideous monster he could find. But the girl's exquisite beauty so enchanted him that he could not bring himself to carry out his mother's command.

Meanwhile, the oracle of Apollo at Delphi had warned Psyche's father that she would never be the bride of an ordinary man, but rather would marry a being who flies through the night like a winged serpent, one whose power was so great that even Zeus, the king of the gods, could not withstand it. The king was told to take his daughter to the mountaintop and leave her there, and the wind would transport her to the abode of her husband.

The next morning, Psyche, her father and mother, and her two sisters made their way sadly to the top of the mountain. Tearfully they bade each other farewell, and then her family returned to the palace, leaving the frightened girl alone on the mountaintop.

As soon as she was quite alone, Psyche felt herself lifted by a gentle breeze, which carried her far away to a beautiful palace built of marble and richly decorated with gold, silver, and precious gems. When she went inside, she found that an elaborate wedding feast had been prepared, but she saw no guests. Invisible servants began to wait on her, and in soft voices they assured her that she was mistress of the palace, and that everything in it was hers.

That night her new husband came to her, but the palace was so completely dark that she could not see him. Still, he was kind and gentle, and his words were loving and sweet. She soon fell in love with him. He promised that he would give her anything she wanted, but warned her that she must never try to see his face. If ever she should look upon his face, they would have to part, and she would then live in loneliness and misery.

For many months Psyche was content to live with the husband she had come to love so dearly, but she never stopped missing her sisters. She began to plead with him to bring them to visit her. He warned her that they would cause trouble, but in the end he could not refuse his bride's request.

The next day, when Psyche's sisters went to the mountaintop, as they did every day, to weep over their lost sister, the wind lifted them and carried them to Psyche's new home. When they were set down before the gorgeous palace, the sisters felt amazed at such wealth. They were even more astonished when their lost sister ran out of the palace to greet them. She explained that the palace belonged to her new husband--and now, of course, to her as well.

Psyche's sisters could not help feeling jealous of Psyche's good fortune. They began to pry and probe, and to ask questions about her husband. Although she did not want to admit that she had never seen her husband's face, Psyche became confused and flustered under their relentless interrogation. In response to one question, she described him as having golden hair, as bright as the sun, but an hour later, she mentioned that his hair was as dark as night. These and other contradictory answers aroused her sisters' suspicion. They pounced on her errors, crying out, "Why, you have never even seen him, have you?"

When she finally admitted the truth, her sisters reminded her of Apollo's prophecy. It didn't take long for them to persuade the confused girl that her husband must be a terrible monster who would kill her as soon as he tired of her. They concocted a plan. Handing her an oil lamp and a dagger, they told her to wait until he was asleep, and then to light the lamp and steal a look at him. If he was, as they assumed, a terrible monster, then she would have to take the dagger and kill him.

That night, Psyche took the dagger from beneath her pillow and approached her sleeping husband. She lit the lamp and gazed for the first time on her husband's face, the face of the god of love! Instead of obeying his mother's command and making Psyche fall in love with a hideous monster, Eros had secretly taken her for his own bride. When she beheld the glory of Eros, Psyche was so startled that she allowed a drop of hot oil to land on his shoulder.

Awakened by the drop of oil on his shoulder, the god said sadly, "Where there is no trust there can be no love." Then he arose and left the palace.

Aphrodite soon learned that Eros had disobeyed her. She sought out his abandoned bride, determined to make her suffer. As soon as she found her, Aphrodite dumped a great pile of tiny seeds on the ground in front of the unhappy girl and ordered her to separate them--and to finish the job by sundown!

Looking at the enormous pile of seeds, Psyche knew that the task was impossible. It would take a hundred years to sort and separate so many seeds. But a large colony of ants, beguiled by the girl's beauty, decided to help her. Scurrying back and forth, they soon had the seeds sorted into separate piles. When Aphrodite returned and saw that the task had been completed, she became enraged and promised Psyche that her next task would be even harder.

She commanded Psyche to collect some wool from a herd of fierce man-eating sheep who lived in a thicket of thornbushes near the river. Psyche knew it was certain death to approach the sheep, but as she drew near to the bushes where they lived, a voice told her to wait until evening, when the sheep would leave the thicket. Then she could collect the wool that had stuck to the thorns. Psyche did this, and once again Aphrodite was angry that Psyche had successfully completed a task that was meant to be impossible.

Aphrodite continued to set impossible tasks for Psyche, but somehow the girl kept managing to complete them. What neither Psyche nor Aphrodite realized was that Eros was still watching over Psyche, sending her help when she needed it.

Zeus was well aware of these events. Finally he decided that enough was enough. He decreed that Eros had proved his love for Psyche, and Psyche had proved her devotion, patience, and obedience. He said that since Eros had chosen as his bride a mortal, who could not reside with him on Mt. Olympus, there was only one course of action. Zeus would have to grant her immortality. Once Psyche had drunk the ambrosial nectar of the gods from the cup of immortality she ceased to be mortal. Aphrodite no longer felt jealous of her, for she had only resented the girl because she felt that mortals had no right to rival the gods. At last she bestowed her blessing on the union between her son and the beautiful princess who had become one of the immortals.


It's been told that this story is the basis of Beauty and the Beast....