
Hiddensee
A Tale of the Once and Future Nutcracker
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Narrated by:
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Steven Crossley
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By:
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Gregory Maguire
In this imaginative novel rooted in the rich soil of early 19th-century German Romanticism, beloved New York Times best-selling author Gregory Maguire twins an origin legend of the famous Nutcracker with the life of Drosselmeier, the toymaker who carves him.
Gregory Maguire's novels have been called "bewitching", "remarkable", "extraordinary", "engrossing", "amazing", and "delicious". Having brought his legions of devoted listeners to Oz in Wicked, Wonderland in After Alice, and Dickensian London in Lost, Maguire now takes us to the Black Forest of Bavaria and Munich of the Brothers Grimm and E. T. A. Hoffman.
Hiddensee recreates the backstory of the Nutcracker, reimaging how this entrancing creature came to be carved and how it magically guided an ailing little girl named Klara through a dreamy paradise on a snowy Christmas Eve. It also brings to life the mysterious godfather Drosselmeier - the ominous, canny, one-eyed toymaker made immortal by Petipa and Tchaikovsky's 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 a migrating strain of a Hellenic mystery-cult and ponders a profound question: how a person who is abused by life, short-changed, and challenged can 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, perhaps everyone, however lonely or marginalized on the eve of a winter holiday, has something precious to share.
©2017 Gregory Maguire (P)2017 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...




















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Enthralling!!!!!
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The narrator is superb.
A lovely Christmas time book
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Glad I stuck with it
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Loved it!
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Hidden see
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Disappointed
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Entertaining
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Not a Christmas Story
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Hiddensee is a novel about many things: childhood (both traumatic and happy), growing up, love, hope, memory and dreams, and it digs deep into its character's souls. It is at heart a re-imagining of a classic Christmas story, just like the subtitle says: a tale of the once and future Nutcracker. Godfather Drosselmeier becomes the hero of this Bildungsroman, an origin story, if you will.
I felt like the novel followed the basic structure of a classical music piece, with themes repeating and developing over time until we reach the final the part, the Coda, where everything comes together and makes perfect sense.
Definitely worth reading!
A classic Christmas story with a twist
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Pleasant but Disjointed
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