Not only “The Nutcracker” - Hoffmann also has other fairy tales.
One of the most significant is “The Golden Pot” about a young man who finds himself at the junction of two worlds - real and fairy-tale, their boundaries are vague, so the reader does not understand where one world ends and the other begins. Just like in The Nutcracker, by the way. Here the spirits of fire, ancient manuscripts, sorcerers are mixed with the everyday worries of the main character, student Anselm, and with the everyday realities of ancient Dresden.
The novels of Marquez (and all magical realism), Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones, and our Black Hen by Pogorelsky owe their appearance to Hoffmann's fairy tales. Hoffmann was highly valued by Pushkin, Zhukovsky, Gogol, Dostoevsky; he had a huge influence on European and Russian culture - so you should read it if you missed it.
"The Golden Pot" is a complex work and not at all for children (like, again, "The Nutcracker"), before the age of 14-15 it makes no sense to take on it. But an adult reader will definitely enjoy this bright and whimsical romantic tale (not from the word “romance,” God forbid, but from the word “romanticism”).
What kind of golden pot is this? ABOUT! One very important plant grows in it, which you have heard about more than once.
"The Golden Pot" by Hoffmann with magnificent spiritual illustrations by contemporary artist Maria Bogdanova and translated by Vladimir Solovyov (not the one who selflessly screams about nuclear ash, but the one who is a 19th century philosopher).
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