HIDDENSEE

Description

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. Read more

Features:

Product Details:

• Publisher ‏ : ‎ MorrowPb; Reprint edition (September 25, 2018)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 006268437X
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 70
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.8 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.76 x 9 inches
• Best Sellers Rank: #53,153 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #795 in Holiday Fiction (Books) #822 in Folklore (Books) #4,160 in Literary Fiction (Books)
• #795 in Holiday Fiction (Books)
• #822 in Folklore (Books)