An intriguing book with lovely illustrations, Ask Baba Yaga is filled to the brim with sagely advice from the notorious with herself.

The Hairpin is one of those sites I always mean to read more, then don't. I've read some interesting pieces there, and some that are too hipster for my taste. Apparently one long-running feature of the site was an advice column, featuring the typical everyday problems of life, love, loss, and existential dilemma, only with a twist - they were answered in the voice of Baba Yaga, the famous fairytale villain and forest-dwelling witch of Russian fairytale and folklore. That's enough to get your attention.

As author Taisia Kitaiskaia introduces this well-known character from the Russian wilderness with some background:

"...My parents told me fairy tales about this ancient trickster witch - sometimes cruel, sometimes generous, always dangerous. In one tale, the young maiden Vasilisa risks her life to seek guidance from the human-eating Baba. Vasilisa knocks on the door of the strange hut, which stands on chicken legs. Vasilisa is lucky, and instead of cooking her in a cauldron, Baba presents the brave girl with a human skull. The skull, glowing mysteriously from the inside, serves as a lantern. It saves Vasilisa, illuminating her forest path through the dark night, taking her where she needs to go."

Kitaiskaia communed otherworldly answers from her own idea of Baba Yaga, somewhere deep in the forest of the mind but eager to talk and tell it straight. "Indifferent and immortal, Baba offers no comforting pats on the back. But she can extend - with her gnarled, clawed hand - a glowing skull lantern. If you keep your nerve, that eerie light might just guide you through."

Her dispensed advice of the last few years from the column plus some new answered questions are collected here and punctuated with some absolutely gorgeous, old-Russian style illustrations. The artwork is a truly lovely bonus.

The advice is humorous, stark, sometimes opaque, often grim, tongue-in-cheek, and draws on what's known, or imagined, of Baba Yaga in the popular culture of her homeland (and I think this is one Russian story that's made its way into other cultures as well.) The advice, and I would suppose the concept, is jokey as a whole but it finds some surprisingly serious and meaningful moments.

And sometimes, it surprisingly strikes a chord in you, not necessarily for the topic that someone's begged guidance on, but for the strange, unsettling but understandable images or truths the voice of a fairytale witch imparts. Funny how an imaginary cannibal witch from Russian folklore has the power to reach down through history and hit you in the heart on modern issues.

Some favorites - 

On an issue of anxiety: "There's always something making clicks and clacks behind us, pushing us forward with a somewhat fear. No one's road is silent."

On letting go of painful memories: "Each memory is a bright fish you drop into the black sea. It is no longer yours; it lives its own life, jumping from the water at its will. Many of us are so haunted by one fish or even a school of such. But know this: even ghost fish meet their end. Next times you see that bright lurk in the waves, say this spell: One day you will age, / You little wretch, / Sicken & stop beating. / I'll be here, on the shore, / When you are picked / Apart by sea-worms."

On how to stop hating everyone after too many bad things happen: "In every being, now, you see their eyes as glinting black seeds, their limbs as sleeves of the dark roots and branches their bodies hold. Every creature now is a cloak over an evil plant, growing, wish you ill or buckling from rot. Everywhere you look you see the clawing wasteland of your nearest time. And time, coming, will ungnarl the shapes you see."

On if moving will heal what hurts you: "Mortals think the next stump will make a better seat. But soon the woods thrush with the same sounds, the wind bites as before...Stop the search. Stumps are stumps, and you will always be yourself birds, beasts, sun, moon, & the river that listened to your sorrow."

On the hole left in your life after a devastating loss: "Everywhere you go, you will wake up next to the hole, fall asleep with it watching you. Burning down your trees will only leave the land more barren, so that the hole looks larger. Fire or no, the land will keep pushing out new beings. It hurts to hear the forest growing as the hole stares into you. But it is the sound and vision left to you, here and elsewhere."

And a vividly evocative yet strangely peaceful image that one can hold in mind when remembering a disturbingly terrible boss from the past was particularly delightful.

There's certainly an uncanny sense of calm that comes with some of these obscure suggestions. But many didn't reach such impressive heights of wordplay or striking that emotional chord, and the gags of Baba Yaga's personality and quirks got repetitive.

For some reason, any form of the word "your" is always written as "yr" and it was maddeningly annoying. I liked some of the other stylistic flairs that created a separate, distinct voice for Baba Yaga, but I guess she's also a semi-literate angry internet commenter deep inside. The witch's words are clacked out on a typewriter and come complete with some purposeful typos and odd punctuation, and as I said it's visually beautifully executed. It's also a quick read, so even when a particular piece of advice doesn't speak to you, it doesn't linger long.

A very unique and unusual twist on the age old concept of advice columns, it's worth it for a few gems.

This quick entertaining read fit well with the Month of Myths Reading Challenge, but did not provide very deep insight.

Ask Baba Yaga is a numerous and enlightening dialogue of questions asked to the Oracle Baba Gaga.
This book is filled with wisdom and insight.