The Nutcracker

By Bernace Charles

Update the word talon to Talliin.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 10, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493168514

Bernace Charles

Bernace Charles is thankful to have had the English novelist Frank Baker encourage him to write. Charles is a retired middle school teacher who has worked at writing fiction through the past 30 years.

Book preview

The Nutcracker

Incidences of Purpose

October 12, 1990

It was two p.m. when Patricia Smith came up the steps to enter the Soviet Consulate Building on San Francisco’s Green Street. As she opened the door, she presented a presence of underlying strength. By a quick study, a person recognized a hint of masculinity. It wouldn’t be all offered when standing before the visa application counter.

When Patricia Smith stepped to the counter, she did so while knowing the visa Office was within minutes of closing. Three days earlier she had entered to secure a visa application form. Today, her purpose wasn’t the returning of paper work for entering a country soon vanishing after nightmarish sacrifice.

Patricia Smith spoke in quick words as the door closed behind her. She said in a proud declaration, The American Marines have stationed my sister’s son in the Persian Gulf. Victor Zankov looked up from a copy of Time Magazine. With Zankov sitting at his assigned duty station he looked on the woman’s upper body hidden away in a blue dress. The dress color separated in a repeating pattern of yellow Daisies and hugging firm breasts. The dress also matched the delineating presentation of sky blue eyes. Victor Zankov found himself trying not to study the contour of the dress over the woman’s breasts. Hanging from Pat Smith’s right shoulder was a large, hemp, shoulder bag. Zankov said nothing about the office being near its closing time when standing.

He asked, Can I help you?

With there being a limitation in movement in the narrow space between the door and the office counter. Pat Smith’s purpose was expressed in a concentrated and penetrating stare. Befitting her sense of urgency was that the tight space of the consulate building’s southeast corner fashioned a compact stage. The afternoon sun bathed the space by sunlight entering a south window. In a shaft of penetrating, bright sun Pat Smith’s blond hair shined, and the light defined the fine lines of her face. Both captivated Victor Zankov’s interest.

Pat Smiths’ next words came as a request but carrying a firm statement. She spoke while taking a photo album from the shoulder bag. She said, Would you please see that your Consulate General receives this? I bring it to you in appreciation for your country’s support in the U.N. Something needs to be done against that lunatic in Iraq. Your Consulate General or someone in Moscow may find the album interesting. A woman illegally took it out of your country. The album was fourteen inches long, ten wide, and less than an inch in depth. Pat Smith had studied the album earlier. The names written beneath the photographs meant nothing to her. Zankov managed his best English, I’m sorry, but I can’t accept it.

Pat Smith answered while reaching to place her right hand over Zankov’s left. She said, You don’t understand. The album is important to someone in Moscow. The woman took it out when defecting in 1979. After completing the words Pat Smith lifted her hand from Zankov’s. She then turned back to the entrance. Her removal of delicate touch caused Zankov to hesitate. By her brisk steps Pat Smith opened the door and was quickly out it.

Victor Zankov spoke while taking up the album and moving to step around the counter. He said, No. Wait, please. The cuff of his trouser leg brushed the counter. A minor but exposed piece of molding caught the material and caused him to pause to free it. When reaching the sidewalk, he saw the woman entering a cab. Before Pat Smith did so, the shutter button of a camera was pressed from behind a window across the street. The FBI agent taking the picture then photographed Victor Zankov’s, a man suspected of being part of the resident KGB staff at the Soviet consulate. Not leaving his perplexity on the street, Zankov returned within the building to note the time in a daily log before calling the building’s security suite. Men would save the surveillance tape for future reference.

Having no doubt someone from the FBI photographed her when exiting the building, Pat Smith said to the cab driver, Fisherman’s Wharf.

Fifteen minutes later, Pat Smith became lost among the tourists before entering a public bathroom to enter a stall and reverse the dress to a solid green print. Exchanging a blond wig for an auburn one of short hair from the shoulder bag, she discarded the bag before exiting to the sidewalk. Fifteen minutes later Pat Smith rode a trolley to Market Street before catching a bus to return to an apartment in the Castro District.

––-

October 15

When arriving at Ynukovl II in Moscow, the Aeroflot flight touched down to reverse engine thrust and roll to its disembarking gate. It was two a.m. Victor Zankov was on the plane’s passenger list.

As a member of the KGB, Zankov knew his orders weren’t the normal. Instead of KGB business he was to report to the Soviet Defense Minister. For a reason unknown to Zankov the Soviet Defense Minister had demanded his return to Moscow. Now. A deep and penetrating fear ran through Zankov that he would end in Siberia for some reason he didn’t yet know. All his past movements in the city of San Francisco had run through his mind while attempting to recall an act he may have done resulting as a sign of him attempting to make unauthorized contact with an American. The scenes had seemed endless and tiring and unforgiving and unanswerable. Men in Moscow saw any act as possible betrayal. Human judgment was fallible and the KGB wasn’t any different. But Zankov also knew that when it came to the KGB everyone stationed out of the Soviet Union were suspect and no one knew who spied on whom. Siberia was a dark possibility, and he knew it had a cold and fearful hand that could easily reach him.

When Zankov entered the lobby, a Soviet Army GRU Officer met him. Zankov knew the man was one of Army Intelligence. The man said, Victor Zankov, I’m to take you directly to the defense minister’s dacha. He is waiting for your arrival.

Victor Zankov asked, It can’t wait until morning? It’s been long hours since sleeping.

The GRU officer said a firm, No. Defense Minister Railken expects you at his Dacha within the next thirty minutes. The man then turned and walked away with Victor Zankov hurrying to catch up.

Attached to Zankov’s wrist by a pair of handcuffs was a diplomatic briefcase emblazoned with the insignia of the Soviet Union’s Diplomatic Corp. Within it was the photo album delivered to the Soviet Consulate Building in San Francisco. There was also the video of the woman’s entrance and hurried words. For a reason not known to Zankov the Soviet Defense Minister wanted to hear a firsthand account of the woman.

When the two men exited the airport they walked to a black Zil. The car served the Soviet Defense Ministry out of their new headquarters north of Moscow. He opened the front passenger door and slid into the seat. Zankov was weary from the hours in the air and he wanted sleep. But Zankov was a wise man. Putting off sleep was easy. Fear of a labor camp in Siberia was downright terrorizing. As the Zil’s headlights came on Zankov knew he was tired of the Cold War. He thought maybe he was simply tired of everything, and he wondered if he would be alive to see the next sunrise. The next evening men buried Victor Zankov’s body in a deep grave in the forest west of Moscow.

Two days later the San Francisco station chief of the Soviet Consulate Building received a message from Moscow. It came in an outdated code and consisting of four words. They read, Red Day Blue Cornflower.

The following morning the station Chief printed the words on the top, right corner of page seven of the San Francisco Chronicle. That afternoon Narodnoe Sochinenila, the stenographer to the Soviet Consulate General, stood near a trash receptacle within the Japanese Tea Gardens in Golden Gate Park. When through eating a sweet roll she placed the folded paper in the receptacle as she threw away a paper wrap and an empty drink container. It was done without the FBI suspecting the act was a drop. Narodnoe Sochinenila then exited the gardens to walk the direction of the park Science Exhibit.

November 21

Sophia Magnacoff, principal dancer with the San Francisco Ballet Company, pressed a hand towel against her neck to pat away perspiration following the evening’s rehearsal. She spoke to the San Francisco Ballet Mistress who stood before her. Sophia said, Thanks, Martha, but I need time alone. Next week’s going to be hectic with the daily rehearsals, but I’ll take you up on the beach house. Martha Jones, the Ballet Mistress and Assistant to the Artistic Director for the San Francisco Ballet Company knew Sophia was evading Thanksgiving with her family. She also knew Sophia was searching for solitude from the American holiday. Knowing Sophia’s basic temperament to mirror the isolation often projected by the Soviet Union and knowing some private, inner, despair held Sophia Magnacoff captive she said attempting to cheer Sophia and handing her a house key, You have a good weekend, and I’ll see you Monday morning. There are a few things in the refrigerator. Martha Jones then gave Sophia a quick kiss on the cheek. With Sophia Magnacoff being Martha’s favorite member of the dance company, Martha recognized Sophia’s loneliness invading her this time each year. It had done so since Sophia had joined the company. Through the past seven years Martha would watch Sophia’s inner strength plummeted at the current holiday before reclaiming itself during the Christmas production of the Nutcracker.

Sophia Magnacoff answered, I don’t really need anything. I’ll pick up a few things or I can go into Carmel to eat.

Then, take the next days and relax. Read a good book. No one is planning to drive down this weekend. You’ll have the house to yourself.

I will, Sophia answered. And thanks. Martha Jones smiled before turning to speak with a character dancer. Stepping to a chair, Sophia took up her rehearsal bag and purse.

Thirty minutes later and entering the bedroom of her home on San Francisco’s Marina Boulevard, Sophia dropped her rehearsal bag on the bed before pushing the record button of her answering machine. Her words came in a tired voice, This is Sophi. I’ll be out of the city for the weekend. Please leave a message and I’ll get back to you Monday.

After showering she retrieved a small suitcase to pack a few under things, two sweaters, and a pair of wool slacks. Slipping off her robe, she dressed in a Compagnie International Express jacket, pants, and scarf. Examining herself in a full-length mirror she looked on an image captivating those seeing her perform on stage. But viewing her form she saw that her eyes and a face defining stardom expressed little energy. She was weary from the years attempting inner escape.

Outside her home on Marina Boulevard a cold mist moved inland off the San Francisco Bay. After stepping to the window of her bedroom to slightly part the curtain Sophia looked out at a Ford sedan parked along the grass of the parkway leading to the Saint Francis Yacht Club. Within it she saw the silhouettes of two figures sitting in its front seat. Gazing on the automobile Sophia was certain she saw the car yesterday when leaving the opera house. Then, it sat across the street from the opera house carriage drive. If it was the KGB why had they waited to show an interest in her? She was too tired to speculate and excused her encroaching fear to her weariness. Dropping the curtain she turned back to the suitcase on her bed to zip it shut. Sophi then left the room before passing through a hallway and down stairs to the living room. There, she took up recent copies of Vogue and Cosmopolitan. After pulling a Mary Higgens Clark novel and tucking it beneath an arm, she headed down a second flight of stairs to her garage.

Reston Virginia;

Deep within the inner sanctuary of the Defense Mapping Agency Specialist Wayne Freeman’s eyes contained their strain from ten hours on duty. He sat holding a photograph between the thumb and index finger. The photograph was of a section of bank along the Tigris River south of Baghdad. A computer program had enhanced the photograph. With the ground topography of Iraq being photographed by America’s Lacrosse and Landsat satellites their signals were relaying in a near steady stream to receivers in Sunnyvale, California. From California they were then forwarded to the Defense Mapping Agency in Reston, Virginia. Now, the photographic effort coming into the Defense Mapping Agency allowed military strategy to enhance target sights and topographical data planes into guidance programs. The guidance programs were going into the topographical programming of Tomahawk cruise missiles.

But the photograph ejecting from computer enhancement attracted Specialist Freeman’s interest with a greater degree of surprise than any he had seen the last several days. Speaking to himself, he said in puzzlement, What the hell? The photograph showed an automobile he remembered seeing parked before the Soviet Embassy in Baghdad. A photograph now revealed a car that had been setting before the Russian Embassy a month in the past. Freeman was certain he recognized the car. Now, the longitude and latitude reading in the photograph’s upper left, corner placed the car fifty miles south of Baghdad. A computer enhanced printout revealed a car and a Man exiting it.

At the instant of the photograph’s exposure the man had looked to the sky into an early morning sun. His position and the lighting revealed every detail of the man’s face. As a far distant lens had been focusing, the screech of a desert falcon had attracted the man’s gaze and caused him to look skyward. Unknown to Wayne Freeman the face belonged to a man who was a key component of a unique problem facing the Defense Mapping Agency. He was more of an immediate problem than finding the correct angle of attack for the cruise missiles.

What Wayne Freeman studied was the front drivers’ side fender of the car. A dent in the driver’s side fender, no greater in size than a large grapefruit, was the same as one seen the prior month. After pulling the printer image Specialist Freeman crossed the room. When before a central desk he said in worrying words, Captain, I think you should look at this. We received a photograph of this car a month back when making a pass over Baghdad. Then it sat parked on the street before the Soviet Embassy. I’m sure of it. It has the same evidence of a dent in a front fender. What’s the car doing fifty miles south of the city?

The captain gazed up from his desk as Wayne Freeman lay the photograph before him. After glancing at the print the captain seemed irritated after long hours of being on duty. He said in an irritated voice, Son, if I worry about every automobile showing up at the Soviet Embassy then elsewhere I wouldn’t get a thing done. Looking at the face in the near perfect pose he continued, the man is probably stopping to relieve himself.

But, Captain, Wayne Freeman pushed, why is the car this far out into the country? Any man on the embassy staff would stay close to the city. All Soviet advisors have left Baghdad. Why is the car along the river when possibly connected to someone in the Soviet Embassy? If nothing else the man’s face needs compared to those of their remaining diplomatic corps.

The captain quickly moved his gaze off the serious look on Specialist Freeman’s face to study the photograph. The automobile was within ten feet of the river’s edge and the man was exiting from the driver’s side to gaze into the sky. If he were a problem to worry about, he would’ve known better to perform the act. Though Soviet and Iraqi military personnel didn’t know the photography capabilities of American reconnaissance satellites they knew them to be of incredible clarity. A known face in the wrong part of the country would draw curiosity. The Captain said his next words while placing the photograph aside. He said, If you get any indication of a weapon system in the vicinity get it to me.

The face in the photograph belonged to a very lucky man. A project taking his engineering skill through the past five years maintained its security. As the American looked at his picture, the man sat in a highly camouflaged receiving station. Before him was a copy of a Western, paperback novel. He held a cigarette between his fingers with its ashes about to fall into his ashtray.

Little did the captain know his failure to pass the photograph to the Central Intelligence Agency was a major blunder. There was a record of the man’s face in their files. It belonged to a man considered by the Central Intelligence Agency to be a radar genius, one Nikolai Kurganoff.

Chapter One

Monday, December 3.

A man moved in brisk steps along Ordynka Street in Moscow. As he hurried along Demetric Ostrovich gazed down the broad street and thought of a redeeming aspect of an early snow now descending on the city. When the first light of morning came the covering of white would lay upon the city its fairy tale hand to cover the seams of stagnation and despair. The weather held promise-possibly the day might if he didn’t hesitate at the task before him.

But in his walk there was also a feeling within Demetric causing him to sense he moved through a deep emptiness, and it defeated the hope in which he searched. His eyes looked down the distant, amber lighting of the spacious street where the snow gave appearance of merging into glittering gold and he gained little satisfaction from the view.

The task Demetric’s mind recently conceived was now causing him searing thought to deeply frighten him. What would become of him? Where would he be resettled should the Americans agree to his demand? Demetric moved through the cold morning in a state of fear the snow now didn’t defeat. His complexion flushed with a rosiness-the cold air compelling vessels to rush blood to his sixty-five-year-old face. If he could have compared the color to the current aspect of his life it would be to his fear for the future. The color red was not a color of promise to him and the color red stained Moscow from its past to today.

After hailing a private cab he spoke in sharp, direct words. Gorky Park. October Square entrance. Slipping mittens off Demetric blew warm breath on fingers as he thought of the secrets he could tell and of the one he was willing to turn over to the Americans for his private request.

There had been an attempt by a man working under the cover of being an aide to the American Cultural Attaché who twice solicited interest in Demetric working for the Americans. Demetric knew from the KGB the man was a CIA officer. Recently, at Demetric’s invitation, the American went fishing with him along a major tributary supporting the Moscow River. The occasion took place the past week under the watchful eyes of the KGB. Men were then hoping Demetric might turn the American to the KGB’S effort in ferreting out those within Moscow providing the West with sensitive information the country found embarrassing. And with the new state of ‘openness’ that list was growing far too long. There were men within the Soviet Union not appreciating their country’s current presentation to the West.

But what Demetric thought the KGB didn’t take warning from was his switching a listening device off when being with the American. He turned it off when he and the American tramped up a bank in their return to the American’s car. As they walked the two men talked privately. Demetric told the KGB, the momentary failing of the listening device was not his fault and the conversation had ended. For only a few minutes he was out of contact of the KGB’s hearing. It was then Demetric told the American he would work for them under an exclusive condition. Only three Americans knew the condition centering on Demetric’s decision to defect… the decision bringing him out in the early morning hour. When reaching Gorky Park the cab pulled to the northwest limit of October Square. Demetric’s walk took him several hundred yards into the spacious sanctuary.

As he strolled over the route around a skating pond as he had been doing for the past weeks the only sound penetrating Demetric was the silence broken by his breath, his steps, and the echoes within himself of his memories. As a silent guard and gazing on the day a young man watched his approach… the frigid cold descending upon the city now manifesting itself within Demetric as a death like grip. A chill of immense fear penetrated his mind and heart.

Perhaps it could be imputed to the cold that Demetric longed to flee to the West. Out of his fear for his betrayal his life spread mentally before him. Both parents were dead and buried in the Ukraine. They were buried in Kiev under diminutive stone markers speaking of no accomplishment. Out of his thoughts there was no other past presenting itself.

Now, Demetric’s eyes saw no one other than the young man twenty yards ahead of him. Walking until coming to stand before him Demetric saw the younger man’s face was unmarked at having to endure the disappointments of a life of burden. Yet, his face held a resolve Demetric found surprising.

The sun does not shine with distinction upon our motherland these last days. The young man spoke the words while looking on Demetric. The young man earning his rubles as a janitor within the lower floors of the American Embassy stared down on the shorter man before him. He looked upon listless and frightened eyes locked within the somber face of a Russian bureaucrat. Assuming Demetric’s age to be in the mid or late sixties he thought Demetric appropriate as a keeper of state secrets.

No, Demetric said answering in a hurried voice. It doesn’t. Perhaps the days will grow easier. The young man accepted the countering statement. Turning to walk they followed a path edging the pond. How long, Comrade, have you been employed by the Americans? Demetric asked the question in a puzzling tone. With the man employed in the American Embassy he knew he would be an employee of the Soviet UPDK, a branch of the Soviet Foreign Service, and would have a KGB case officer.

Stopping, the younger man looked on Demetric and wondered at his insecurity. I don’t doubt your fear, comrade, but I do not meet you for the KGB. He hesitated before adding. And yes, comrade, I am KGB in the American Embassy. All Soviet nationals remaining are. It’s important you trust me. My instructions were to tell you this.

Demetric now held grave doubts at having to meet with a contact he lacked a way of knowing. If we must meet again it’s to be brief. I don’t intend to be placed before a firing squad.

You have something for me? The tone of the younger man was now impatient.

Demetric knew he betrayed his country. Extracting his left hand from his coat pocket and thrusting it the young man’s direction Demetric’s hand held a letter size envelope. As quickly as it was received Demetric wheeled around and hurried away. When the Americans were ready to again meet with him they would leave a signal at a drop sight near his apartment. Demetric hurried away bound in a newfound emotion of guilt. As he did, he thought of the KGB officer who had approached him two weeks earlier saying he had a most interesting piece of news from America. The man’s words prompted his act this morning. He could only hope that the Americans could accomplish his demand.

––-

Robert Jones, The chief of station for the CIA, sat within the Communications Program Unit inside the American Embassy in Moscow. The Communications Program Unit (the CPU) sat on the ninth floor of the American Embassy building on Tchaikovsky Street.

Neither the American Ambassador nor the State Department’s regional security officer knew the reason there were five Americans now sitting in a half-circle within the CPU. The sealing of the CPU’s outer and inner doors was complete. The three men, other than the station chief and the aide to the cultural attaché, arrived in Moscow five hours earlier. They flew into Moscow for a particular reason when Demetric was still in his bed. They would be flying out within the next days.

Their entering of the secure room was only moments earlier. Now, with their remaining jet lag the men concentrated their attention on papers each held. There could be no defeating their suspicions something was wrong through the maneuvering by which they had been brought to Moscow. Each was brought to Washington before proceeding to the Soviet Union. Their languid eyes held dark impressions of fatigue and hovering on the pretense of full awareness. One hour had passed since Vladimir Korczak placed the film given him by Demetric behind an open pipe in the building’s basement. Robert had gone down to retrieve and develop it twenty minutes earlier. The film included twenty-one pages of technical information on America’s Tomahawk cruise missiles.

The assigned aide of the Cultural Attaché sat to Robert’s left. Bob Davidson of Dallas, Texas was an agency plant and spent a good deal of time with the agency’s Chief of Station.

Robert Jones studied the three men. The copies of the papers each man held would be burned in the embassy incinerator when the meeting concluded. They studied the papers before them and by their solemn faces Robert Jones could read the seriousness of the prospect before them. Demetric passed credible information.

The bringing of the men to Moscow resulted from Robert sending a satellite, enciphered microburst requesting experts on the technical end of the radar specs of America’s cruise missiles. He sent the message the past week. If Demetric’s information was of extent it was imperative to act before the KGB was upon him. Demetric informed Bob Davidson on their returning to the car after fishing together the information he could pass would be of vital concern to the Americans. He informed him of it being on the cruise missiles. Robert’s transmission to Washington, D.C. was to Walter Johnston, the Deputy Director of Operations of the Central Intelligence Agency. Walter Johnston had moved in total secrecy the past days in assembling the men for their flight. They came in as electrical engineers to review plans for the American Embassy’s current remodeling.

Mark Daley was a topography expert and the head of the Research and Development Division of Houston Technological Enterprises. He sat to Robert Jones’ right and poured over the papers before him. There was no curling cigarette smoke spiraling around his face from a cigarette dangling from thin lips as when working in his office. There was no smoking in the CPU.

Danny Logan sat to Bob Davidson’s left. As Mark Daley was, Danny was a graduate of MIT. Danny Logan was chief engineer, working for Delta Guidance Systems. To Mark Daley’s left was Fred Martin a computer coordinator for the flight programming division of an aerospace firm in Tampa, Florida. Fred Martin was also an expert in radar guidance and tracking systems. Fred Martin was the oldest. Robert could only hope they might give an accurate evaluation of the paper’s content when finishing their reading.

Each man and the companies they represented had been instrumental in the development of America’s Tomahawk cruise missile. They played key roles in the development of the missile’s guidance system. Robert examined their faces as they read through the material. Hoisting a tired face Mark Daley looked up from the papers in sickening amazement. I don’t believe this fucking shit, he said. I simply don’t believe it. How the fuck could they get hold of this?

The information is legitimate? Robert asked.

They have a complete understanding of both the radar and the ground topography program. I don’t believe it after the years of work! Mark Daley brought a hand into the air with long thin fingers giving the fleeting appearance of a concert pianist. They followed a flight bringing them down hard on the papers on his lap. The papers scatted to the floor of the CPU. He had just completed the reading of material negating years of work. Some sorry bastard gave them this.

He’s right, Danny Logan added. They have the entire guidance capabilities.

Fred Martin remained silent for a moment. He then spoke slowly to emphasize his words. They have the technical information. What they may not understand is how they could obstruct the guidance system. Is there to be further passing of information?

Robert Jones looked on him while answering. Yes, Robert said shifting position in his chair by placing upper weight on elbows coming to rest on knees. It’s to be done within the week. He says he can give details on their installations built for interception.

Fred Martin answered. Then I think it’s important to wait and find out what they know about jamming the missile’s guidance radar before a full damage report. I doubt it would take less than a year for their people to develop jamming capacities. I would be surprised if they are not already building intercept stations. If they have difficulties with parts and supply it might buy time.

Robert sighed and stood. There’s no damn use going over this all day. He said the words in

Reviews for The Nutcracker

[jenspirko · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

If you only know the story from the ubiquitous ballet, revisit it via this version. Maurice Sendak's distinctive art lends just the right appealingly surreal tone to ETA Hoffman's fairy tale. Like all good fairy tales, there is a thread of darkness and danger along with bright fantasy, and the spare storytelling pairs perfectly with the lush illustrations of this version.

[nbmars · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This is not just a hackneyed version of "The Nutcracker" dressed up by the magnificent illustrations of Maurice Sendak. On the contrary, this book (beautifully printed and bound) features the original story written by E.T.A. Hoffmann, later watered down for the famous ballet. While I have always loved the ballet in any form, this story is far superior to the traditional one, and captured my attention from the very start. As Sendak wrote in his preface about the version familiar to audiences today:"[It] is smoothed out, bland, and utterly devoid not only of difficulties but of the weird, dark qualities that make it something of a masterpiece.”Kent Stowell, the artistic director of the Pacific Northwest Ballet, invited Sendak to collaborate on a new production, and they agreed to adapt the Hoffman version. The translation used in this book by Ralph Manheim is superb – there is nothing dated or stodgy about it, and I found myself unable to quit reading until I had finished the entire story. And as admirers of Sendak know, as an illustrator he is particularly well-suited to capture “weird, dark qualities” and render them as not at all scary but full of whimsy and fascinating detail.My favorite parts? The character known as the Giant Sweettooth of Candytown (since he is obviously one of my progenitors) and the very last sentiment, which concludes:"…Marie is believed to be still the queen of a country where sparkling Christmas woods, transparent marzipan castles, in short, the most wonderful things, can be seen if you have the right sort of eyes for it.”“The right sort of eyes” …. What a marvelous concept!

[debnance_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I'm so used to seeing the Nutcracker as a ballet that it comes as a big of a shock to see the story in print.(And, honestly, I'm not sure that I don't prefer it that way.)Love the Sendak illustrations. Why not, I suggest, just have them? Skip the words which feel redundant. A wordless book, maybe?

[hrose2931 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I went to the Nutcracker Ballet every year as a little girl. It was such a tradition I can't remember not going, but at some point I stopped going. I don't remember how old I was, maybe when I stopped believing in Santa? Maybe later. But schools used to go on field trips to see it I remember. It was A BIG DEAL! And I haven't seen it since I was a little girl. But I vaguely remembered bits and pieces of it. A girl in a white dress. A soldier, a battle, a rat soldier. All of it was kind of way back in my mind. I started with the Prologue for The Nutcracker written by Maurice Sendak in 1984. He dug up the original story of the Nutcracker written by E.T.A. Hoffmann. It was then translated by Ralph Manheim and a whole subplot "The Story of the Hard Nut" was discovered that had never been performed in the ballet. So not only did I get to rekindle my memories of the ballet I remembered, but an entirely new fairytale was revealed to me. And you know how when you read a book, it's always better than the movie?The same is true for watching a ballet and reading the book. You can read the intentions and feelings, what everything looks like in detail, whereas on a stage you might miss something because you're too far away. So, as always, I liked the book better. I always will.It starts off right away with a beautifully written story, somewhat dark, set in the past with the Christ Child bringing their presents. And they are very good children indeed as they get many presents. The tree is described in great detail and so beautifully, I want to decorate mine like that. And then Marie finds the Nutcracker and falls in love with it. But she's told she has to share The Nutcracker and her brother Fritz breaks him. All is better when she is given the Nutcracker to care for and she wraps him in her handkerchief. She is besotted with him.Now you may or may not know the story from there but the King of the Mice wages a battle against the Nutcracker and Marie and her brother's soldiers. Marie is wounded and her Godfather comes to tell her a story, "The Story of the Hard Nut," which he tells her over three consecutive nights and repairs the Nutcracker. "The Story of the Hard Nut" explains why the King of the Mice and the Nutcracker are fighting in the first place, a long history between the two families, err mice and man. It greatly adds to the story and I'm sorry it's been left out for so long. I always remembered that Clara was the center of the romance in The Nutcracker, but it is dear sweet Marie and her steadfast love of the ugly Nutcracker that brings the story to it's end. She is laughed at by her family as she tells of her journey with The Nutcracker to Marzipan Castle where he is King. She's not allowed to mention it again for fear of her father throwing The Nutcracker and all her other dolls out as well. But all is well in the end.The pictures are...they are Maurice Sendak. There are a few monsters from Where the Wild Things Are peeking out from behind things. They are as descriptive as a picture can be. I've always loved Maurice Sendak's work and it works so well in this story with the King of the Mice and the Nutcracker especially.I highly recommend adding this to your Christmas collection. I loved the ending!!If you'd like to see a few of the pictures from the book you can click HERE and check them out. Clicking on each picture will bring up a larger picture and a description of what's happening in the scene.Thanks to Danielle at Crown Publishing for the complimentary copy for review.

[thetruebookaddict · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The original story is vastly different from the beloved ballet. I love the ballet. I've seen it many times, but I also really loved this story. I can almost imagine that the recent holiday film, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms, had some basis in this original story. I've heard some people were in an uproar over the film because it's different from the ballet. Perhaps they have not read this original story? On my end, I'm always open to new interpretations of a story.

I highly recommend this. Wonderful story made even more enchanting by the fantastic illustrations of Maurice Sendak.

[sturlington_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Read aloud to my son for Christmas. This is the basis for the famous ballet, the story of Marie, who receives a Nutcracker doll for Christmas that subsequently comes to life, battles a seven-headed mouse king, and takes Marie on a tour of a fairyland made of sweets. My son pronounced it "weird, but very descriptive, so I could picture it in my head, so I liked it." I thought it was entertaining, but surreal and dreamlike.