美国国家公共电台 NPR In 'Hiddensee,' Gregory Maguire Gets Under The Shell Of 'The Nutcracker'

 

LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO, HOST:

It's that time of year - sugar plum fairies dancing in delight, the Mouse King, a gorgeous Christmas party and a prince.

(SOUNDBITE OF TCHAIKOVSKY'S "THE NUTCRACKER SUITE¹, OP 71")

GARCIA-NAVARRO: "The Nutcracker" ballet is a beloved holiday perennial². But the new novel "Hiddensee," which is based on "The Nutcracker" tale is not exactly meant for the kiddos. It tells the back story of the powerful toymaker, Herr Drosselmeier, who gives the nutcracker to Clara.

Gregory Maguire, author of "Wicked," among other bestsellers, is the author. And he joins us now from WGBH in Boston. Welcome to the program.

GREGORY MAGUIRE: Thank you so much. I'm delighted to be here.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: How did you first encounter the tale of "The Nutcracker"?

MAGUIRE: Well, like most Americans, maybe people around the world, I saw the ballet. Indeed, I saw it live, I believe, at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center. And one of the things that captivated me about it was that scene where the Christmas tree grows 40, 50, 60 feet high. And that seemed to be one of the most magical transformations³ I've ever seen on the stage, even if the rest of the story seemed, to me, demented.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Demented?

MAGUIRE: Yes. Well, it's crazy. It's broken. It doesn't make any sense. Act 1 is traditional tale that you might find in Grimm, with the small powerless Clara fighting the great King of the Mice, and that makes sense and is dramatically strong. And we're rooting for the small girl, and all that is great.

Then Act 2 comes - the most gorgeous ballet music in the world, but it's as if we're sitting in an overstuffed living room looking at the photographs of our grandparents' trip around the world. It has nothing to do with the great drama of Act 1. It's all squandered⁴. And I wanted to know what I could do with this story to make the two parts speak to each other.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Is that what this was about? I mean, your book is a sort of prequel to this. It tells the story of Dirk Drosselmeier, the powerful toymaker. And when we meet him, he is in dire⁵ straits. Tell us about that.

MAGUIRE: Well, Dirk Drosselmeier is a foundling, or that's what he's told. And he lives in the Bavarian Forest. He's born about 1800 or so, so he's about eight years old in 1808. Now, you may know that just about at this time, the Grimm brothers were combing the woods of Bavaria and Baden looking for those stories that would really cement German Romanticism and the German Romantic fairytale in our minds for the next 200 some years.

So Dirk Drosselmeier is born right at the heart of the German fairy tale in a sense. And I decided⁶ to take his life story as a small poor boy in the backwoods, as it were, of Europe and see how he grows up to be able to enter the salons⁷ of Munich and to be the one person who can stand between the little girl and the great darkness threatening her on Christmas Eve.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: So you take this, and you have all these different characters show up. Indeed, the brothers Grimm make an appearance, and we find out how he gets the eyepatch.

MAGUIRE: (Laughter) We find out how he gets the eyepatch. And, indeed, the only thing we know about godfather Drosselmeier from the stage is that he's tall and leering and a little menacing and a little helpful. And he's got this eyepatch. So my job as a novelist is to say that's not just a throwaway eyepatch. That eyepatch has some meaning. How did he get to need it? And what does that say about his character in general?

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yeah. Well, we're not going to give it away. But what is so intriguing⁸ about this tale is that he's living inside a fairy tale. Then he goes to the real world of German Romanticism in the early 19th century, as you mentioned. And the real world is very hard and dark.

MAGUIRE: Well, the real world is hard and dark. And I don't - I think you've noticed that, Lulu, these days.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yes.

MAGUIRE: And we seem to need both to stare with unblinking eyes at the reality of the hard world in which we live. And we also seem to need the comfort of those tales that we got when we were children that said if we fight hard enough, and if we endure, we just might survive. If we remember the magic of our childhoods, we might be able to find in that the strength to carry on through our own hard and difficult adult lives.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yes, because fairytales are often viewed as a kind of therapy for kids - right? - where they can process the fears and dangers of adulthood⁹ in a fanciful way. Is that what you're trying to do for your adult readers?

MAGUIRE: It's certainly what I'm trying to do for myself. I like a quote by Roger Scruton, a British moral philosopher, which says the consolation¹⁰ of the imaginary is not imaginary consolation. And so when I ask myself, well, why am I not in public policy? Why am I not a brain surgeon? Why am I writing fairy tales for adults? I remember that giving people consolation through the literary arts is indeed a grown-up job. And that's what I try to do.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: It struck me, also, when I was reading this book, that, you know, Drosselmeier, in the ballet, is such a powerful figure. He is the center of the magic. But in the book, he is the least powerful character in many ways. Is there a message in that?

MAGUIRE: I think we often overlook the people who are really pulling the strings¹¹. And sometimes it's the people on the margins¹² of society who have the most to do to pick up and placate¹³ those who really need the help. It's kindergarten teachers who are the ones who really catch the scoul of worry on the brow of one of their charges who is able to lean in right then, right there and do something useful for that human soul. And I think Drosselmeier is one of those characters, too.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Do you have children?

MAGUIRE: I do. I have three adopted children.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Have you taken them to see "The Nutcracker"?

MAGUIRE: I have not taken them. But my daughter, the youngest child, has been about 10 times.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: (Laughter) I was just curious if this was sort of a family tradition that had been passed down.

MAGUIRE: Here's the part that is a family tradition. I have 40 nutcrackers in the basement. They live in plastic crates¹⁴. And just about now, we haul the crates out of the basement and we line the staircase with nutcrackers, large and small. The largest of them are about 3 feet tall. And the smallest of them you could actually hang on the Christmas tree with a little gold string if you wanted. They are an army of stern and scowling¹⁵ and bearded defenders¹⁶ of some faith or other. We're not sure we can name the faith, but we're glad they're there.

GARCIA-NAVARRO: Gregory Maguire is the author of "Hiddensee: A Tale Of The Once And Future Nutcracker." Thank you so much for joining us.

MAGUIRE: Thank you, Lulu.

(SOUNDBITE OF LINDSEY STIRLING'S "DANCE OF THE SUGAR PLUM FAIRY")

1 suite   

n.一套(家具)；套房；随从人员

参考例句：

• She has a suite of rooms in the hotel.她在那家旅馆有一套房间。
• That is a nice suite of furniture.那套家具很不错。

2 perennial   

adj.终年的；长久的

参考例句：

• I wonder at her perennial youthfulness.我对她青春常驻感到惊讶。
• There's a perennial shortage of teachers with science qualifications.有理科教学资格的老师一直都很短缺。

3 transformations   

n.变化( transformation的名词复数 )；转换；转换；变换

参考例句：

• Energy transformations go on constantly, all about us. 在我们周围，能量始终在不停地转换着。 来自辞典例句
• On the average, such transformations balance out. 平均起来，这种转化可以互相抵消。 来自辞典例句

4 squandered   

v.（指钱，财产等）浪费，乱花( squander的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He squandered all his money on gambling. 他把自己所有的钱都糟蹋在赌博上了。
• She felt as indignant as if her own money had been squandered. 她心里十分生气，好像是她自己的钱给浪费掉了似的。 来自飘（部分）

5 dire   

adj.可怕的，悲惨的，阴惨的，极端的

参考例句：

• There were dire warnings about the dangers of watching too much TV.曾经有人就看电视太多的危害性提出严重警告。
• We were indeed in dire straits.But we pulled through.那时我们的困难真是大极了，但是我们渡过了困难。

6 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

7 salons   

n.（营业性质的）店( salon的名词复数 )；厅；沙龙（旧时在上流社会女主人家的例行聚会或聚会场所）；（大宅中的）客厅

参考例句：

• He used to attend to his literary salons. 他过去常常去参加他的文学沙龙。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Conspiracy theories about Jewish financiers were the talk of Paris salons. 犹太金融家阴谋论成为巴黎沙龙的话题。 来自互联网

8 intriguing   

adj.有趣的；迷人的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的现在分词)；激起…的好奇心

参考例句：

• These discoveries raise intriguing questions. 这些发现带来了非常有趣的问题。
• It all sounds very intriguing. 这些听起来都很有趣。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 adulthood   

n.成年，成人期

参考例句：

• Some infantile actions survive into adulthood.某些婴儿期的行为一直保持到成年期。
• Few people nowadays are able to maintain friendships into adulthood.如今很少有人能将友谊维持到成年。

10 consolation   

n.安慰，慰问

参考例句：

• The children were a great consolation to me at that time.那时孩子们成了我的莫大安慰。
• This news was of little consolation to us.这个消息对我们来说没有什么安慰。

11 strings   

n.弦

参考例句：

• He sat on the bed,idly plucking the strings of his guitar.他坐在床上，随意地拨着吉他的弦。
• She swept her fingers over the strings of the harp.她用手指划过竖琴的琴弦。

12 margins   

边( margin的名词复数 )； 利润； 页边空白； 差数

参考例句：

• They have always had to make do with relatively small profit margins. 他们不得不经常设法应付较少的利润额。
• To create more space between the navigation items, add left and right margins to the links. 在每个项目间留更多的空隙，加左或者右的margins来定义链接。

13 placate   

v.抚慰，平息(愤怒)

参考例句：

• He never attempts to placate his enemy.他从不企图与敌人和解。
• Even a written apology failed to placate the indignant hostess.甚至一纸书面道歉都没能安抚这个怒气冲冲的女主人。

14 crates   

n. 板条箱, 篓子, 旧汽车 vt. 装进纸条箱

参考例句：

• We were using crates as seats. 我们用大木箱作为座位。
• Thousands of crates compacted in a warehouse. 数以千计的板条箱堆放在仓库里。

15 scowling   

怒视，生气地皱眉( scowl的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• There she was, grey-suited, sweet-faced, demure, but scowling. 她就在那里，穿着灰色的衣服，漂亮的脸上显得严肃而忧郁。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• Scowling, Chueh-hui bit his lips. 他马上把眉毛竖起来。 来自汉英文学 - 家（1-26） - 家（1-26）

16 defenders   

n.防御者( defender的名词复数 )；守卫者；保护者；辩护者

参考例句：

• The defenders were outnumbered and had to give in. 抵抗者寡不敌众，只能投降。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• After hard fighting,the defenders were still masters of the city. 守军经过奋战仍然控制着城市。 来自《简明英汉词典》