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Sweet Nutcracker
Sweet Nutcracker SIGNED COPY
48 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1985
3 people want to read
About the author
David Kossoff
31 books6 followersKossoff was born in London, the youngest of three children, to poor Russian Jewish immigrant parents. In its obituary of David Kossoff, The Scotsman wrote how he was "a man of deep convictions and proud of his Jewish origins".
Kossoff started working in light entertainment on British television in the years following World War II. His best known television roles were the hen-pecked husband Alf Larkin in The Larkins, first broadcast in 1958, and a Jewish furniture maker in A Little Big Business.
He was also well known for his story-telling skills, particularly with regard to reinterpreting the Bible. His best known book, also a television series, is The Book of Witnesses (1971), in which he turned the Gospels into a series of monologues. He also retold dozens of Old Testament and Apocrypha stories in Bible Stories (1968).
Following the death in 1976 of his son Paul, guitarist with the band Free, Kossoff established the Paul Kossoff Foundation which aimed to present the realities of drug addiction to children. Kossoff spent the remainder of his life campaigning against drugs. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he toured with a one-man stage performance about the death of his son and its effect on the family.
He died in 2005 of liver cancer at age 85. He was cremated and interred at the Golders Green Crematorium.
Obituaries:
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obi...
http://www.televisionheaven.co.uk/kos...
Kossoff started working in light entertainment on British television in the years following World War II. His best known television roles were the hen-pecked husband Alf Larkin in The Larkins, first broadcast in 1958, and a Jewish furniture maker in A Little Big Business.
He was also well known for his story-telling skills, particularly with regard to reinterpreting the Bible. His best known book, also a television series, is The Book of Witnesses (1971), in which he turned the Gospels into a series of monologues. He also retold dozens of Old Testament and Apocrypha stories in Bible Stories (1968).
Following the death in 1976 of his son Paul, guitarist with the band Free, Kossoff established the Paul Kossoff Foundation which aimed to present the realities of drug addiction to children. Kossoff spent the remainder of his life campaigning against drugs. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he toured with a one-man stage performance about the death of his son and its effect on the family.
He died in 2005 of liver cancer at age 85. He was cremated and interred at the Golders Green Crematorium.
Obituaries:
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obi...
http://www.televisionheaven.co.uk/kos...
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
September 10, 2018
Sweet Nutcracker is a sweet book for children, from 1985. Written by David Kossoff, it is based upon one of the “Tales of Hoffman”, and is the story which is often missed out in productions of “The Nutcracker” ballet. It is a “story within a story” in a way: the story of Princess Pirlipatine and the Krakatuk nut. So if you enjoy the ballet, or like listening to the music by Tchaikovsky, this is an extra little treat.
David Kossoff is the perfect author to retell this story, and as he wrote an introduction about Hoffman’s life story I began to see parallels between these two remarkable individuals. Both were incredibly versatile, and creative. Hoffman was an artist, composer and author. Kossoff was an actor, writer, raconteur and artist. Kossoff wrote of Hoffman:
“He was very clever indeed … He was short wiry, good-looking and a brilliant talker, his words full of wit and fantasy. He had a puckish face with dark lively eyes. He was full of movement, his hands and body never still, like a puppet on strings.”
It could be almost be a self-portrait! Those who have ever watched David Kossoff in one of his television or theatre performances, may attest the truth of this.
David Kossoff tells of how Hoffman wrote about composers such as J.S. Bach, and his own contemporaries, Beethoven, Schumann and Weber. His enthusiasm for them made his writing popular, and he was well liked, but often got into trouble because of his other satirical writing. He moved around, variously conducting an orchestra in Warsaw, becoming a theatre director in South Germany, and also writing operas, musicals and articles for magazines. But he was not a healthy man. Touring with actors during the Napoloeonic Wars took it out of him, and so he went back to the Civil Service work he used to do. He spent more time in quieter more regular work, becoming a judge in the Supreme Court. Yet his satires and penchant for poking fun at people continued to get him into trouble, and along with overwork and heavy drinking, his health deteriorated to the point of a growing paralysis. Hoffman died in poverty in 1822, at the age of 46.
David Kossoff tells Hoffman’s life story in an engaging, anecdotal and chatty way, bringing this sorry tale to life, so that the story of “The Tale of the Nutcracker and the Mouse King”, which Hoffman wrote in 1816, as part of a Christmas collection of stories for children, is put into context. Alexander Dumas the Elder liked the story so much, that he translated and adapted it, working alongside Tchaikovsky to create the ballet. The story which follows, Sweet Nutcracker, fell by the wayside, but is a fantastical tale in itself. This book is illustrated by “Ionicus”, which is a pseudonym for Joshua Charles Armitage, who was an English illustrator. Ionicus is best known for illustrating the covers of Penguin paperback books by P.G. Wodehouse, and also for his numerous cartoons and drawings in Punch for over 40 years. They are careful fine line ink drawings.
The story starts with Doctor Drosselmeyer, a maker of puppets and mechanical toys. He was a very strange little man: “bent over and shabby and bald and one-eyed”, and his toys were stranger still, getting up to all sorts of unexpected tricks. Yet that is not to be the story here.
We shift location again:
“Once upon a time (for it is that kind of story) far away in another land there was a small kingdom, and in the towns and villages there was great excitement and happiness for the exquisitely beautiful Princess Pirlipatine was soon to be one year old.”
This is a fairy tale in classic mould. Princess Pirlipatine is much loved and wanted, perfectly behaved, and truly beautiful too. Everyone was happy except the king, who was very bossy (and not very bright). He hated mice, and ordered that the palace should be made free of them. This is where Doctor Drosselmeyer re-enters the story. With his cleverness, he invents an ingenious mousetrap, and soon the palace is rid of mice. Doctor Drosselmeyer stays on, finding all sort of mechanical gadgets to mend. Everyone is happy once more.
Everyone, that is, except the gentle queen, who felt that since all the mice belonged to one clan stretching back many generations, they had as much right to live in the palace as she did! She tells Doctor Drosselmeyer that the mouse Queen, Dame Rodentia, is full of anger at the wiping out of her family, and has vowed to take revenge. And she has a son, a fearsome fighter who has seven heads.
Sure enough a plot was hatched, and the mouse prince’s seven heads came in very useful, as he was able to keep watch (with each of them in turn) when the baby’s nurses fell asleep. When at last there was nobody to guard the baby, he was to alert his mother. In due course, one night, Dame Rodentia was able to visit the baby, and with one tiny bite cast a spell on her to make the baby ugly. Doctor Drosselmeyer knew exactly what had happened; he saw the whole thing and also noticed the tiny bite on the left ear lobe.
Along with the Court Astrologer, the pair tried to work out how to break the spell. Only two things had not changed: her perfect teeth and her liking for nuts. The only thing which would break the spell would be the kernel of the Krakatuk Nut.
“The Nut must be cracked by a young man using his teeth. It must be a young man who has never shaved, has always worn boots, and can walk backwards without stumbling.”
But there was not such a young man to be found in the whole of the kingdom, so Doctor Drosselmeyer and the Court Astrologer set off on a quest to find such a person. But behind them they left two presents: “a little man of wood with a hinged cape that makes him a nutcracker. Let her love the nutcracker. If she loses him, as she may, she may find him again. The little sword she will not lose.” Doctor Drosselmeyer and the Court Astrologer little knew that they would have to search worldwide for fifteen years, “in far-off lonely and remote mysterious places”.
Meanwhile Princess Pirlipatine continued to grow up “very plain indeed with a pale spotty skin and a slight cast in one eye. Her nose is thin and bony and her forehead too high. She is lumpy-looking and rather clumsy. She is fat where she should be slim and thin where she should be fat. And none of the Court hairdressers can do a thing with that mousy hair. Her only good feature is the perfect teeth she shows when she smiles – which is not often.”
But she is kind to everybody, and beautiful in her nature.
After fifteen long years Doctor Drosselmeyer and the Court Astrologer returned. Nobody recognised them at first, until they produced a kernel of the Krakatuk Nut.
Of course, just as in Cinderella all the young ladies came to try to the glass slipper, in Sweet Nutcracker, all the young men in the kingdom came to try and break the nut with their teeth, but to no avail. It was hopeless. Everyone went home. Until …
What could possibly happen next? And how did it all work out? You’ll have to read the book to find out. But I can assure you that it has a perfect happy ending, just like all fairy tales. And if you can’t wait, then here it is:
So ends this charming story, a story within a story, which naturally falls within Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker” ballet. If you have ever seen the ballet, it will make perfect sense.
David Kossoff relates the story perfectly, with the gentle humour, and chatty style for which he was so well-loved. He was a born raconteur.
***Full disclosure here – his son Paul was the father of my cousin. Paul Kossoff was himself a talented and creative man, the guitarist with the rock band “Free”, but he died far too young.
I am sure Paul would love to have known that he now has his own granddaughter, slightly too young yet to read this book, but when she is a little older I shall read her this story. And I’ll tell her it was written by her great-grandfather, and dedicated to his two sons and grandson, and stars his own son “Paul”, her grandfather, as the hero of the tale.
That will surely add just a little bit more magic.
David Kossoff is the perfect author to retell this story, and as he wrote an introduction about Hoffman’s life story I began to see parallels between these two remarkable individuals. Both were incredibly versatile, and creative. Hoffman was an artist, composer and author. Kossoff was an actor, writer, raconteur and artist. Kossoff wrote of Hoffman:
“He was very clever indeed … He was short wiry, good-looking and a brilliant talker, his words full of wit and fantasy. He had a puckish face with dark lively eyes. He was full of movement, his hands and body never still, like a puppet on strings.”
It could be almost be a self-portrait! Those who have ever watched David Kossoff in one of his television or theatre performances, may attest the truth of this.
David Kossoff tells of how Hoffman wrote about composers such as J.S. Bach, and his own contemporaries, Beethoven, Schumann and Weber. His enthusiasm for them made his writing popular, and he was well liked, but often got into trouble because of his other satirical writing. He moved around, variously conducting an orchestra in Warsaw, becoming a theatre director in South Germany, and also writing operas, musicals and articles for magazines. But he was not a healthy man. Touring with actors during the Napoloeonic Wars took it out of him, and so he went back to the Civil Service work he used to do. He spent more time in quieter more regular work, becoming a judge in the Supreme Court. Yet his satires and penchant for poking fun at people continued to get him into trouble, and along with overwork and heavy drinking, his health deteriorated to the point of a growing paralysis. Hoffman died in poverty in 1822, at the age of 46.
David Kossoff tells Hoffman’s life story in an engaging, anecdotal and chatty way, bringing this sorry tale to life, so that the story of “The Tale of the Nutcracker and the Mouse King”, which Hoffman wrote in 1816, as part of a Christmas collection of stories for children, is put into context. Alexander Dumas the Elder liked the story so much, that he translated and adapted it, working alongside Tchaikovsky to create the ballet. The story which follows, Sweet Nutcracker, fell by the wayside, but is a fantastical tale in itself. This book is illustrated by “Ionicus”, which is a pseudonym for Joshua Charles Armitage, who was an English illustrator. Ionicus is best known for illustrating the covers of Penguin paperback books by P.G. Wodehouse, and also for his numerous cartoons and drawings in Punch for over 40 years. They are careful fine line ink drawings.
The story starts with Doctor Drosselmeyer, a maker of puppets and mechanical toys. He was a very strange little man: “bent over and shabby and bald and one-eyed”, and his toys were stranger still, getting up to all sorts of unexpected tricks. Yet that is not to be the story here.
We shift location again:
“Once upon a time (for it is that kind of story) far away in another land there was a small kingdom, and in the towns and villages there was great excitement and happiness for the exquisitely beautiful Princess Pirlipatine was soon to be one year old.”
This is a fairy tale in classic mould. Princess Pirlipatine is much loved and wanted, perfectly behaved, and truly beautiful too. Everyone was happy except the king, who was very bossy (and not very bright). He hated mice, and ordered that the palace should be made free of them. This is where Doctor Drosselmeyer re-enters the story. With his cleverness, he invents an ingenious mousetrap, and soon the palace is rid of mice. Doctor Drosselmeyer stays on, finding all sort of mechanical gadgets to mend. Everyone is happy once more.
Everyone, that is, except the gentle queen, who felt that since all the mice belonged to one clan stretching back many generations, they had as much right to live in the palace as she did! She tells Doctor Drosselmeyer that the mouse Queen, Dame Rodentia, is full of anger at the wiping out of her family, and has vowed to take revenge. And she has a son, a fearsome fighter who has seven heads.
Sure enough a plot was hatched, and the mouse prince’s seven heads came in very useful, as he was able to keep watch (with each of them in turn) when the baby’s nurses fell asleep. When at last there was nobody to guard the baby, he was to alert his mother. In due course, one night, Dame Rodentia was able to visit the baby, and with one tiny bite cast a spell on her to make the baby ugly. Doctor Drosselmeyer knew exactly what had happened; he saw the whole thing and also noticed the tiny bite on the left ear lobe.
Along with the Court Astrologer, the pair tried to work out how to break the spell. Only two things had not changed: her perfect teeth and her liking for nuts. The only thing which would break the spell would be the kernel of the Krakatuk Nut.
“The Nut must be cracked by a young man using his teeth. It must be a young man who has never shaved, has always worn boots, and can walk backwards without stumbling.”
But there was not such a young man to be found in the whole of the kingdom, so Doctor Drosselmeyer and the Court Astrologer set off on a quest to find such a person. But behind them they left two presents: “a little man of wood with a hinged cape that makes him a nutcracker. Let her love the nutcracker. If she loses him, as she may, she may find him again. The little sword she will not lose.” Doctor Drosselmeyer and the Court Astrologer little knew that they would have to search worldwide for fifteen years, “in far-off lonely and remote mysterious places”.
Meanwhile Princess Pirlipatine continued to grow up “very plain indeed with a pale spotty skin and a slight cast in one eye. Her nose is thin and bony and her forehead too high. She is lumpy-looking and rather clumsy. She is fat where she should be slim and thin where she should be fat. And none of the Court hairdressers can do a thing with that mousy hair. Her only good feature is the perfect teeth she shows when she smiles – which is not often.”
But she is kind to everybody, and beautiful in her nature.
After fifteen long years Doctor Drosselmeyer and the Court Astrologer returned. Nobody recognised them at first, until they produced a kernel of the Krakatuk Nut.
Of course, just as in Cinderella all the young ladies came to try to the glass slipper, in Sweet Nutcracker, all the young men in the kingdom came to try and break the nut with their teeth, but to no avail. It was hopeless. Everyone went home. Until …
What could possibly happen next? And how did it all work out? You’ll have to read the book to find out. But I can assure you that it has a perfect happy ending, just like all fairy tales. And if you can’t wait, then here it is:
So ends this charming story, a story within a story, which naturally falls within Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker” ballet. If you have ever seen the ballet, it will make perfect sense.
David Kossoff relates the story perfectly, with the gentle humour, and chatty style for which he was so well-loved. He was a born raconteur.
***Full disclosure here – his son Paul was the father of my cousin. Paul Kossoff was himself a talented and creative man, the guitarist with the rock band “Free”, but he died far too young.
I am sure Paul would love to have known that he now has his own granddaughter, slightly too young yet to read this book, but when she is a little older I shall read her this story. And I’ll tell her it was written by her great-grandfather, and dedicated to his two sons and grandson, and stars his own son “Paul”, her grandfather, as the hero of the tale.
That will surely add just a little bit more magic.
Displaying 1 of 1 review