There's a movie coming out "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms" and when we saw the trailer, we remarked to each...

There's a movie coming out "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms" and when we saw the trailer, we remarked to each other that it looked kind of cool. As I'm a firm believer in the roots of things (never mind that it sometimes makes me disappointed in how things are portrayed by Hollywood)I decided to do some research.

This was because my previous knowledge of the Nutcracker story was very scant.

It existed of a poster in the music room at school depicting the Nutcracker and the words "Clara's new doll was a nutcracker" and that there was a famous ballet by Tchaikovsky based on the story. Also that there was a mouse army involved, and toy soldiers in a war with them and that it was all very much a Christmas story. That's it.

So today I looked on Wikipedia and found that the ballet is not based on the original story, but on a retelling called The Story of a Nutcracker by Alexandre Dumas which was considerably lighter and fluffier.

The original story is called The Nutcracker and the Mouse King by E T A Hoffmann. Hoffman was quite a guy!

I found a translation from the original German right here https://www.oldstyletales.com/single-post/2018/01/23/ETA-Hoffmanns-The-Nutcracker-and-the-Mouse-King-English-Translation . I'm deeply grateful to whoever did the work and put it up for us to read. And I read it out of curiosity but I was sucked right in. You had me at seven-headed Mouse King and proactive heroines. (shades of the rat king Terry Pratchett introduced some of us to?) A mixture of Gothic and Arabian Nights and a lot of action! It's pretty disturbing in some spots, and I would not recommend to younger children, it's wild mythic stuff happening.

It's a very mine-able resource, and lots of things are there for continuing the franchise with unfinished plots. What of the Giant Sweet-tooth?!

I might be doing Dumas's version a disservice, but I'll let it sit for a while - I'm digesting the Hoffman. Apparently The Pacific Northwest Ballet did a version that was based on the Hoffman - Maurice Sendak was involved. I would have liked to have seen that! Here's an article about it. https://www.npr.org/2012/12/25/167732828/no-sugar-plums-here-the-dark-romantic-roots-of-the-nutcracker

Me? I'm gonna hunt up some more Hoffman.
https://www.oldstyletales.com/single-post/2018/01/23/ETA-Hoffmanns-The-Nutcracker-and-the-Mouse-King-English-Translation