I've always admired the work of Hans Christian Andersen, a writer of classic fairytales whose work often had a very dark and melancholy feel. As his middle name suggests, he was quite religious, and it shows in his work, which adds something to it. While his stories feature supernatural creatures: witches, trolls, mermaids, etc, he also makes regular references to God and the Bible. This adds an extra layer to his stories: every struggle is between the Divine Good and Profane Evil, and the wicked seem all the more creepy. For example, in THE LITTLE MERMAID, the titular character must get the prince to marry her as only by being married in God's church can she attain an immortal soul. This surreal story element adds an epic scope to an otherwise small scale fairytale.
[His religiousness is a bit ironic though when you consider one his most famous short stories THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES. That story is one of the most perfect unintentional metaphors for organized religion ever conceived].
One of my favorite novellas of all time is Andersen's masterpiece THE SNOW QUEEN, a haunting story published in 1845 with a creepy atmosphere. It has been filmed several times and there's a new Disney adaptation, entitled FROZEN, in the works for later this year. But no film has ever successfully conveyed this lovely piece of writing, which has one of the best opening lines to a story ever: "Now then, let us begin. When we are at the end of the story, we shall know more than we know now: but let us begin."
The novella starts off with a prologue that is pretty much irrelevant to the body of the story, and it's even cut out in some versions. The story starts off with a wicked creature (depending on the translation, sometimes it is a sprite, other times a troll, but in the edition I had as a kid, it was actually identified as the Devil), creating a mirror that distorts everything and magnifies the evil and bad qualities in things. His pupils of little devils love this creation and use it to distort everything, eventually taking it high into the Heavens, to distort the face of God himself. However, they laugh so hard in their mischief that they drop the mirror and it falls to Earth, shattered into thousands of pieces, floating adrift, ready to enter the eyes and hearts of unsuspecting humans. Of course this little story is reminiscent of a Biblical parable, a sort of Garden of Eden for magic creatures, a Book of Genesis for this new Bible Andersen has written for us, and its vivid imagery haunted me as a kid.
Then the main story starts. We are told of two children named Kai and Gerda who "were not brother and sister; but they cared for each other as much as if they were." One day, Kai's grandmother (strong matriarchal figures are a motif in Andersen's work) warns the children of the evil Snow Queen, a beautiful but cold and emotionless witch, white as marble, who lives in Lapland and is the queen of all snowflakes. Soon enough, Kai, under the influence of shards of that evil mirror from the prologue entering his eyes and heart, is approach and seduced by the Snow Queen, who takes him up in her sleigh, and promises to make him her prince. Yes, NARNIA fans, C.S. Lewis based his White Witch character on Andersen's Snow Queen!
The rest of the story is Gerda's quest to find Kai and right away, you've probably noticed a role-reversal. We have a girl rescuing a male-in-distress, and furthermore, pretty much every major character in this story is female. Gerda, the Snow Queen, and the grandmother are the major players. Along her quest, Gerda encounters various female companions including a Princess, the Lapland Woman, the Finland Woman, and probably the character in the story with the most personality, the Little Robber Girl. Eventually Gerda reaches the Snow Queen's palace in the freezing snows of Lapland, having lost her shoes and traveled barefoot. Outside she is confronted by an army of hideous snowflakes (or, depending on your translation, it may be Satanic demons), but she overcomes them by kneeling and saying the Lord's Prayer. Again, I may not share Andersen's religion, but I find the way he weaves it into an otherwise supernatural story to be oddly effective [By the way, the topic of how I react to a work of art with contrasting religious beliefs will be the topic of an upcoming blog entry].
Now, unfortunately, we reach the biggest flaw in the story: it doesn't have much of a climax. The Snow Queen happens to have left Kai all alone in her empty palace when Gerda arrives, so she simply runs up to him and hugs him, breaking the spell, and he spells the word ETERNITY, which frees him. Bah! Even as a kid I was very underwhelmed with that and always thought a confrontation with the Snow Queen needed to be there. Well, the story seems to completely forget about her as the children leave the palace and begin the trek home.
In these final paragraphs, the story stops being literal but turns to heavy metaphor as the children appear to walk all the way home, arriving back at their hometown and the grandmother's house who reads to them from the Bible, and we realize this whole story was a damn metaphor about growing up. You may have noticed how the entire story has made use of the passing seasons. Kai is abducted in the winter, Gerda sets out for him in the spring, we are told it is already autumn by the time she meets the Princess, arriving in Lapland it is again winter, the children leave Lapland again in spring weather, and finally arrive home in the summer.
And that leads into the final passage of the story, which is one of my favorite pieces of writing ever! Of course it changes a bit, depending on your translation, but I've copied it below. If you've ever seen my film HAVANA IN BUSHWICK, you might have picked up on one reference to THE SNOW QUEEN. Thematically, the two stories couldn't be more different, but for the film's closing voiceover narration, I borrowed a little bit Andersen's ending. And so I conclude this blog with Andersen's original text:
"...as they entered, they remarked that they were now grown up. And Kai and Gerda looked in each other's eyes, and all at once they understood the old hymn. There sat the two grown-up persons; grown-up, and yet children; children at least in heart; and it was summer-time; summer, glorious summer!"
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