Book Review: Hiddensee by Gregory Maguire

Sometimes a book just works against you. No matter what you do, you just can’t crack that nut (pun intended). But even if the final destination is confusing, it doesn’t mean the journey can’t be a whole lot of fun.

I picked up Gregory Maguire’s Hiddensee as a last-minute Christmas story to read over holiday vacation, as the story is a prequel to The Nutcracker. While my intentions were good, they were also misguided. For one thing, I haven’t seen The Nutcracker since I was a kid – and I hated it. The last time I saw it performed on stage in any capacity was in the five minute summary version they do in the Radio City Christmas Spectacular – and that was in the early part of this decade. For another thing, I have no knowledge of any backstory regarding the story or ballet. For example, this entire book is set in Germany, and I kept waiting for it to switch into Russia – I’m not sure if there’s a reason it needed to be set in Germany or if that was the author’s decision, but it sure threw me for a loop. Throw in my usual inability to decipher subtext in a subtext-heavy story and this was just a mis-match for me.

Before I continue, a note on the subtext: As mentioned, I have a hard time with it, and there seemed to be a lot of it in this book. However, there also seemed to be loose ends and strange decisions throughout the book that at least to me didn’t seem to pan out (pun also intended). For instance, I still don’t understand why exactly Dirk (the main character) had to die as a child – and most importantly, why he was chosen to come back to life. I don’t understand how exactly Greek mythology tied into this (also: I have never heard of Pythia and Pan being tied together before – and I have studied and read a ton of Greek mythology). And I don’t understand the tie-in to the actual Nutcracker story – it feels like there’s a mouse king and army introduced and defeated within the last 20 pages of the book.

Reading the above you might not think this was an enjoyable book for me, but you’d be wrong – I found this book fascinating. There were two main reasons for this.

The first is based on the characterization. So many of the characters were well drawn out and realistic, with just tinges of the fantastic. The emotional journey of the main character, Dirk, from a frightened child to a sarcastic adult to a doting and caring grandfather stand-in, is at the forefront, but the surrounding characters were gripping too. Even if I didn’t always understand what the characters were doing or why they were doing it, I always wanted to check in on them.

The second is that, when the story and/or characters are firing, prequels are great stories. They’re like putting a puzzle together while looking at the picture on the box – you know it will eventually turn into a jar of preserves, even if all you have so far is a blob of red. So no – to me, the story failed; however, because I was so enraptured with the characters, I was desperate to see how this would set up what little I remembered from The Nutcracker. And the story really keeps you guessing (especially if, like me, you don’t remember the ballet that well!).

Throw in the Easter eggs from German folk/fairy tales (wait until you find out who Dirk’s foster family is!) and you truly do have my kind of book. While this may not be everyone’s cup of tea – and it would probably help if you had The Nutcracker top-of-mind – this was an extremely fun read. Eight out of ten holiday hot dogs!