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Hiddensee
Retelling & Fractured Tales
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Hiddensee: A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker by Gregory Maguire - December 2022
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Chapter 15 tells us who Dirk is... (view spoiler)
This story is set in 1808 and Chapter 7 talks about a visitor to the old man and woman's hut. He was writing down stories the old woman told. Could this be one of the Grimm brothers? It coincides with the timeline perfectly.
I had a lol moment at then end of Chapter 29, it is so something I would say to my boys, "And please don't shriek. Anything but shrieking. If you must kill one another, do it silently. It's much more effective that way."
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I noticed the reference to the story teller as well, and am positive it is a reference to the Grimm brothers, since the one that visited the hut to get stories from the old woman said he was excited to go back to town to share the story with his brother.
As for the shrieking, I laughed too. I am the same way. In fact, all the children in my life have been taught at a young age that screaming is simply not allowed as it hurts my ears so much. No kid playing in my yard is allowed to scream either. They get one warning and if it continues they must leave. I know I'm mean, but it really is painful to me.
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I'm cheating, I'm listening to an audiobook. I started reading it but I have two books I want to finish before the 1st, and this way I can "read"/listen while doing my needlepoint and hopefully start and finish the other book in the next few days. I read very slowly so listening helps me to get additional selections in. Sometimes I can't follow a story well with audio and miss details, but I'm not having issues with this selection.
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The mythology aspect is interesting as well.
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I really don't either. Especially with some of the classics that contain archaic language. It's much easier to listen to the book than to try to read it, imo.
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I had wondered about the title from the beginning and exactly what it referred to. Could it be all his emotions were hidden from sight, or exactly what. Interesting that it is a place too.
Please tell me it's going to become more Engaging and/or Satisfying. I'm about to give up, as he becomes an apprentice to a paper merchant. I just don't care about him or anyone else yet. Seems like an awful long setup. What you've said in the spoilers above doesn't matter to me either. (sorry)
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I had wondered about the title from the beginning and exactly what it referred to. Could it ..."
Hiddensee is a place if I listened correctly.
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I listened to an audiobook version, the narrator was pretty good. It's a pretty slow book, with not much action more about relationships or lack thereof.
Ok, so, I plowed through it. The place, Hiddensee, is both real and a sort of a metaphor I guess. Maguire sure likes to show off his erudition, vocabulary, and purple prose... to the point where I didn't always understand exactly what was going on. I wish I could've cared more about Dirk, but I just didn't. The story got interesting to me when he got old and we caught up to Hoffmann's events; before that it was pretty boring to me. And the end is rather abrupt with plenty of loose threads. I'm not a fan of the original text or the ballet, and still I liked this less. Sorry.
I guess my biggest problem with this is that it is largely irrelevant to the original. And Godfather D. was actually more interesting in the original, despite having no backstory. Maguire shoulda just told his own story, imo, tbh.
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I agree with Lisa, no reason to be sorry. I've learn that it's okay to not like a book, even one everyone raves about.
Breakfast at Tiffany's and Three Stories, The Great Gatsby, The Bell Jar, anything by Mark Twain, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer, I didn't like any of them. Don't even get me started on John Steinbeck, I've abandoned every book I started that he wrote.
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We all have varying tastes, even in fairy tales, but certainly in different genres and authors. Of those you mentioned, I love Hitchhiker's and Mark Twain, but hated The Great Gatsby and Steinbeck is horrid.
So many that others rave about are just irritating or boring to me. Gone With the Wind, anything by Hemingway, and more modern the entire Twilight series are ones I intensely dislike.
Yes, it is wonderful that we all have different tastes. Thanks!
Once Upon a Time...
Books mentioned in this topic
Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories (other topics)The Great Gatsby (other topics)
The Bell Jar (other topics)
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (other topics)
I'll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman's Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Mark Twain (other topics)John Steinbeck (other topics)
Gregory Maguire (other topics)
Welcome to our discussion about Hiddensee: A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker by Gregory Maguire, your discussion leader is Lisa.
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Summary
The author of the beloved New York Times bestseller Wicked returns with an inventive novel inspired by a timeless holiday legend, intertwining the story of the famous Nutcracker with the life of the mysterious toy maker named Drosselmeier who carves him.
Hiddensee: An island of white sandy beaches, salt marshes, steep cliffs, and pine forests north of Berlin in the Baltic Sea, an island that is an enchanting bohemian retreat and home to a large artists' colony -- a wellspring of inspiration for the Romantic imagination . . .
Having brought his legions of devoted readers to Oz in Wicked and to Wonderland in After Alice, Maguire now takes us to the realms of the Brothers Grimm and E. T. A. Hoffmann -- the enchanted Black Forest of Bavaria and the salons of Munich. Hiddensee imagines the backstory of the Nutcracker, revealing how this entrancing creature came to be carved and how he guided an ailing girl named Klara through a dreamy paradise on a Christmas Eve. At the heart of Hoffmann's mysterious tale hovers Godfather Drosselmeier -- the ominous, canny, one-eyed toy maker made immortal by Petipa and Tchaikovsky's fairy tale ballet -- who presents the once and future Nutcracker to Klara, his goddaughter.
But Hiddensee is not just a retelling of a classic story. Maguire discovers in the flowering of German Romanticism ties to Hellenic mystery-cults -- a fascination with death and the afterlife -- and ponders a profound question: How can a person who is abused by life, shortchanged and challenged, nevertheless access secrets that benefit the disadvantaged and powerless? Ultimately, Hiddensee offers a message of hope. If the compromised Godfather Drosselmeier can bring an enchanted Nutcracker to a young girl in distress on a dark winter evening, perhaps everyone, however lonely or marginalized, has something precious to share.