I'd never read either of these before -- my knowledge of the Nutcracker story comes from the ballet by Mikhail Baryshnikov that we watched on PBS every winter when I was a kid, and which I now watch on DVD with my own kids. It was interesting to see the differences not only between these two versions of the story, but between them and the ballet!
E.T.A. Hoffman's is the original, and it has this very bold, brash feel to it. And it's kinda dark. Very German-winter-near-the-old-and-scary-forest sort of vibe. It's all about a little girl named Marie who has a somewhat creepy godfather, Herr Drosselmeier, as well as a bratty brother named Fritz and a snobby sister named Luise. They get a huge number of fabulous presents for Christmas, including a mechanical castle made by Drosselmeier, who is a Chief Justice, but seems to spend most of his time making fantastical toys and fixing clocks. He also gives the family a very ugly nutcracker.
Marie loves the Nutcracker. She stays up late playing with him, gets attacked by lots of mice led by a seven-headed Mouse King, the Nutcracker and all of Fritz's toy soldiers come to life and have a battle with the mice, and Marie gets injured in the fray, but saves Nutcracker from the ravages of the Mouse King by throwing her shoe at him. She faints from blood loss, and has to spend a week in bed recovering.
While she's stuck in bed, Herr Drosselmeier comes to visit. No one in her family believes Marie's story of how she hurt her arm, but Drosselmeier seems to. He tells her a long story about a princess named Pirlipat, some wicked mice, and a brave young man who tried to save the princess from the mice, only to get turned into a nutcracker. Marie is convinced this story is about her new Nutcracker, especially when she gets visited by the Mouse King for several nights running. Mouse King demands she sacrifice all her candies and cookies and marzipan treats to him, or else he'll gnaw on Nutcracker. Marie tearfully complies, until all her goodies are gone. But then Nutcracker comes back to life, defeats the Mouse King once and for all, and takes Marie on a journey to the Land of Sweets, which he rules.
After seeing many delightful things there, Marie falls asleep, and wakes up back at home in bed. Her whole family laughs at her when she tells them about her journey. But then Herr Drossellmeier returns, with his handsome nephew who has just returned from a long journey, and who obviously is the Nutcracker released from the enchantment for good.
Marie, though only 7, accepts this nephew's offer of marriage. One year later, they get married, and live happily ever after in the Land of Sweets.
Um, yes. Child bride and all that. Hmmmmmmmm. It's a weird, wacky story, obviously not meant to be taken seriously, so I guess we're just supposed to shrug and be cool with it.
Alexandre Dumas' translation is fairly similar, but he takes out a lot of the scary or weird parts, or tames them down. Yes, the same Alexandre Dumas who wrote The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers tried to make a more-child-friendly version of the story when he translated it. Which amuses me. Basically the same things happen, except the mice are way less icky and the whole thing has a more sparkly, bright feel.
I definitely preferred Dumas' version because it was more whimsical, yet a little less nonsensical.
Overall, the story reminded me of a blend of The Wizard of Oz, the Chronicles of Narnia, and Alice in Wonderland, plus the game Candy Land.
You know how, in the ballet, about half the time is taken up with the girl and the prince watching his subjects dance while in his magical kingdom? That's like one paragraph in this story. Which also cracks me up.
One thing I like better about both of these than the ballet (at least the Baryshnikov version, which is the only one I've seen) is that they make it clear that the Nutcracker really DOES come to life, and the girl DOES get to marry him and live happily ever after. I don't always hate the "it was all a dream" kind of ending, as it does work for some stories, but I've never liked its use in the ballet. So I shall imagine the ballet ends this way from now on.
If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for some scary/creepy stuff involving mice gnawing on, or threatening to gnaw on, people.
This is my first entry into the Literary Christmas challenge and my 38th for my second go-'round with the Classics Club.
Perfect "Christmas-y" story!
ReplyDeleteI have to read a version of this at some point. I think I'd like to try Dumas'. My girls perform in the NK (this is the 4th year) with their dance studio, and that is all I know of the story, from the ballet. "Clara" (Marie) is usually a teenager in our ballet, but this year she is 10, which is a little better than 7!
Ruth, yes, it was! I definitely recommend Dumas' version over Hoffmann's.
DeleteHow cool that your girls get to be in the Nutcracker every year!
I had heard about the Dumas version around the time I read The Count of Monte Cristo, and I've been curious about it since then. Great review! I'll definitely think about reading it.
ReplyDeletePioneer Girl, it's definitely worth a read, especially if you like Dumas. It's so different from his swashbucklers... and yet, not so different, as there's a whole battle and everything.
DeleteI love certain aspects of this story. I really want to write mt own version.
ReplyDeleteSkye, I'd love to see what you do with it! This story definitely would lend itself to retelling.
DeleteWhat a fabulous review! I feel more "educated" on the topic of The Nutcracker story now. And... I also feel like I should read the same two stories, back-to-back. Sounds like an intriguing experiment to see how they differ. :)
ReplyDeleteMerry Christmas!
Tarissa
http://inthebookcase.blogspot.com
Thanks, Tarissa! Reading them back-to-back definitely was nifty, as the original was so fresh in my head.
DeleteMerry Christmas!
I only read Hoffman's version...well, someone's (besides Dumas') translation...but it was a delight. I have only very vague memories of watching the ballet on TV, so I was pretty well free from expectations. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
ReplyDeleteJoseph, yeah, obviously I didn't read either of them in the original German or French ;-) I liked the Dumas version better -- he intrigues me as a translator, because he "improves" on things. I've got (an English translation of) his translation of Hamlet in book form finally, after having tried reading it online and giving up -- he changes quite a few things in it, especially the ending, and I'm looking forward to reading the whole thing.
DeleteMerry Christmas and Happy New Year to you as well!
if you translate something, “improves” on things mean you are lying to the audience. That should be illegal.
DeleteAnonymous, well, that would be illegal today because of copyright laws -- nowadays, translations have to be authorized by the publisher. Back in the 1800s, though, copyright laws barely existed, most countries didn't recognize the copyrights of books published in a different country, and so on.
DeleteAlexandre Dumas also changed William Shakespeare's Hamlet a LOT when he translated it into French. Both it and his Nutcracker are basically retellings more than simple translations.
I used to read an abridged (but faithful) version of The Nutcracker every year when I was a child (before I even knew the ballet existed). My Mom always put the Christmas media away after Christmas, and I was always sort of impatient for her to bring it all out again once Christmas rolled around again so I could read all of my favorite Christmas stories again. I even remember one time, in the middle of Summer, going through the bookshelf in my room, pulling out an old book that was a compilation of classic children's stories, seeing The Nutcracker was one of the stories in there, thinking to myself, "Yes! I can read it early!" And then I started reading through it and it became apparent that it was a retelling of the story from the ballet rather than of the original story. As you can imagine, I was not happy.
ReplyDeleteNeedless to say, I have my own copies of most of my favorite Christmas media now, and don't restrict myself at all.
As someone who has read both Hoffmann's and Dumas's versions, I have to say I prefer Hoffmann. I'm not trying to sway your opinion in my direction, but just wanted to give my thoughts on the story, since I haven't really seen the alternative perspective in your comments yet. I don't really see either of them as being any darker or lighter than the other, because the storylines are identical. Maybe I haven't particularly paid attention to tone. I don't know. But they were pretty much the same story save for a few details.
But here's why I prefer Hoffmann:
- His version is more to the point. I'm not against wordy books per se, but Dumas's version just goes on and on at some points, and it sort of feels that he was getting paid by the word and needed to pad out the story. Just as an example, when I was recording myself reading the two versions back to back earlier this month, when I played back the final file (with the mistakes edited out), the Crackatook flashback sequence in the Hoffmann version only took about 35 minutes, whereas the same sequence in Dumas's retelling took a whopping 76 minutes. For something that is supposed to be merely an interlude providing backstory, that's a bit excessive. And, given that the story is perfectly understandable (and literary) in shorter form, it, like I said, feels padded out.
- Hoffmann's version is a cold open on Marie, Fritz, and Luise waiting on Christmas Eve to be let into the parlor and discussing what things they'll be given for Christmas. The narrative lets the reader discover the personalities of the characters naturally via seeing how they interact, what choices they make, etc. In contrast, Dumas opens (after his unnecessary prologue about a guy telling the story to some kids at a party) with page after page after page of description about the Silberhaus family and what they're like, focusing on each individually, telling us their traits and how they behave, etc. All of this before we even get to Marie and Fritz waiting on Christmas Eve, and all that only to then play out the exact same scenes from the original showing us what they're like, even though it's already been described to us in detail. It's the classic "show, don't tell" rule at play here.
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ReplyDelete- Dumas's version commits the "Protagonist Is the Title Character Fallacy." I quote verbatim from my copy, "...she was much occupied with a new personage whom she had discovered amongst the toys, and to whom, my dear children, I must briefly direct your attention, since he is actually the hero of my tale, in which Miss Trudchen, Mary [sic], Fritz, the judge, the judge's lady, and even Godfather Drosselmayer, are only secondary characters."
- Hoffmann's version uses a method that some other children's books (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is an example that comes to mind) have used, which is the insertion of reader/listener anticipation into the actual characters in the story. What I mean by this is, when Drosselmeier tells the Crackatook story to Marie and Fritz, the chapter breaks (as the Crackatook story takes up three chapters) are framed by Marie desperately wanting Drosselmeier to finish the story, with Drosselmeier saying, "No, you must wait until tomorrow, dear." This is aimed directly at children who are thinking the exact same thing that Marie is. Children whose parents are reading them this story are thinking to themselves, "I want to hear more." And parents are saying the same thing, "We'll read more tomorrow." By directly putting this into the story via the characters saying/thinking the same things, this is a clear framing for the children being read the story at bedtime. Dumas, by contrast, although he also splits up the Crackatook story (into five parts here rather than three as in the original), the splittings do not end with "Drosselmayer said that was enough story for one night and he'd continue the next night" or any similar kind of framing. The whole sequence is told as one, continuous narrative, as if Drosselmayer told the entire thing in one sitting. And, given that it takes 76 minutes to get through that narrative, I find it slightly ridiculous to think that he sat that long telling this story to Marie at bedtime when she was supposed to be getting sleep and rest due to her injury. (And that actually reminds me; since this entire retelling of The Nutcracker is supposedly narrated by a guy at a party to some rowdy kids, why is it longer than the original rather than shorter? I've never known an impromptu telling of a story to take that long.)
- Hoffmann's version actually includes some humor I love after Marie wakes up in bed and it appears to have been a dream at first. The entire "you, the reader, obviously see that Marie fell asleep in the castle and then the pages and dolls carried her home and put her to bed." Such a humorous comment, telling us what we actually are not thinking at all (we think at that point that it was dream), but then turns out to have been the case after all (as her adventure really did happen). Dumas's version, for all of its embellishment, leaves this comment out entirely. Does it break the story? No. But it's sorely missed.
Am I nitpicking? Probably. Two different people could read one of these two versions (one reads Hoffmann, one reads Dumas) and largely come away having read the same story. But, in summary, I find that Hoffmann's version is just the slightest bit more enjoyable, being more:
- Concise
- Clever
- More understanding of literary tropes
I'm really glad you enjoyed the original (pre-ballet) story though, whatever the form is. It's a largely overlooked gem, and I don't know many who have read it.
Curt -- wow! You definitely have some good reasons why you prefer Hoffman's :-) And they definitely all make sense!
DeleteBut I still prefer Dumas's. I like that he gives us more time with the characters. I like that he adds whimsy. I like that he makes the Nutcracker an actual, even central, character instead of a mere catalyst. I like that he doesn't keep chopping it into bits -- a child who is supposed to be resting in an era where there's no TV would LOVE for someone to tell them a story that takes all day. Think of the framing device for The Princess Bride. It's a whole-day gift of time and attention and love for that child.
And, finally, I'm usually not a fan of winky narrators inserting them into a story and reminding us of how fun this story is and how amused we must be by it. Strikes me as precious at best and twee at worst.
Happily, both versions exist! One that suits your tastes and one that suits mine :-)
I never thought of the *Princess Bride* parallel, to be honest. I definitely see where you're coming from there, as I actually have sort of had such a thing happen to me when I was a child (my uncle read me the entirety of *The Wonderful Wizard of Oz* in one night, and that was my introduction to that story, although I wasn't sick). Perhaps my issue with it stems more from the fact that I kind of forget it's a flashback sequence, with it having a similar issue to one I have with *A Study in Scarlet* where it feels like an entire additional novel has inadvertently been printed halfway through the book I'm reading, rather than feeling like a genuine part of the story. But, in all fairness, Hoffmann doesn't fully commit to the "this is a story being told to a child" angle either (and even back when he published the story there was some criticism aimed at for having a fairly long side story halfway through the book), so, in that aspect, Dumas is actually probably more consistent.
DeleteAs well, I have to admit, without Dumas' adaptation, we probably wouldn't have Bertall's amazing illustrations that I personally think suit the story (both versions) perfectly (as they were originally drawn for Dumas' adaptation, though they did later appear in editions of the Hoffmann version). It's also interesting to think about whether or not the story would be as popular in English as it was today if Dumas had never adapted it, as the first English edition of the story was a translation from the Dumas version, or even if the ballet version would have ever been made (as, once again, it was an adaptation of Dumas' version). Sort of scary to think about an alternate reality were Dumas never adapted it. So, in a way, maybe (and ironically, given my preference), if Dumas hadn't adapted the story, I wouldn't know any version of it at all.
My daughter just danced in her first Nutcracker ballet last month, and I know that's based on Dumas, so yup, glad he found it and retold it! But I'm glad we do have both versions, since they are distinctly different.
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