Summary of “The Snow Queen” for the reader's diary
Author's name : Hans Christian Andersen
Title : Snow Queen
Number of pages : 72. G. H. Andersen. "The Snow Queen. Publishing house "Rech". year 2013
Genre : Fairy tale
Year of writing : 1844
The material was prepared jointly with a teacher of the highest category, Kuchmina Nadezhda Vladimirovna.
Experience as a teacher of Russian language and literature - 27 years.
The Snow Queen
Let's start! By the time we reach the end of this review, we will know more about this book than we do now.
So, this is one of the most magnificent “Queens” that I have ever seen - in its DESIGN.
Many truly beautiful illustrations by the talented P. Tatarnikov, both full-page and double-page, and half-page and among the text. On high-quality coated paper they look amazing - beauty, and that’s all!
The book is large format, larger than A4, has a very beautiful, transparent dust jacket with a scattering of all kinds of snowflakes (photo 1). The cover is quite thick. Put this cover on and it looks like it’s starting to snow, but take it off and there’s already snowdrifts all around!
You can admire this beauty for a long time, but it’s time to start reading! And this is where the fun begins. The fact is that you can read this book only if you already know its contents well, otherwise you risk simply not understanding half of it.
Of course, thanks to A. Hansen’s translation, we all know very well (apparently, this is what the publication is designed for, because here in the daytime you won’t find a person who hasn’t read this fairy tale!) the wonderful work of the wonderful and beloved storyteller Hans Christian Andersen, whose full name, by the way, proudly appears on the cover of this publication in exactly this version, familiar from childhood. I’ll put a tick here - another pleasant moment, otherwise now only Hans Christians are looking from the roots, it even becomes somehow awkward from the unfamiliarity...
However, I'm afraid that's where G.H. ends. Andersen - S. Prokofiev begins. Alas, apart from the author’s name and surname, there is little left of him in the text... Not only the writer’s style and his stunning style have disappeared without a trace, but the very thread of the narrative is confused and lost. The text is full of oddities and inexplicable moments that may cause confusion to anyone unfamiliar with the actual text.
To begin with, the troll who created the crooked mirror in Andersen is as evil as the devil, but here he is the progenitor of darkness himself, and he has a whole bunch of devils in his service (photo 3)!
What follows is even more interesting. Who the Snow Queen and where she came from is not explained here - the reader must guess this himself, like Kai, although exactly how he realized who he was dealing with remains a mystery here. I guessed it - period! Andersen told him about the Snow Queen, GERDA's grandmother, but there is not a word about it, besides, the grandmother turned into HIS own grandmother (photo 6). But what am I? Who cares whose grandmother it is, right? The old lady would be of some use! But she didn’t even think about telling her grandson anything.
So, Kai mysteriously disappears, and Gerda goes to look for him. Approaching the river, she suddenly - for no reason, no reason! - throws his new red shoes as far as possible into the water. Why on earth is she doing this? You and I remember that she was afraid that Kai had drowned, asked the river to return her named brother, and for this she gave her the shoes - her only treasure. But there is not a single word about all this, so Gerda’s act looks very strange - why should she remain barefoot (photo 7)?
Go ahead. Gerda gets to the old witch, and she immediately sends rose bushes underground so that Gerda does not run away from her - it turns out that she knows in advance both about the roses and about Kai? Apparently so (photo 8).
But Gerda won’t be able to listen to the HISTORY of the flowers in the magical flower garden (photo 9).
What can we even remember about them, if even the fairy tale itself, consisting of SEVEN STORIES, here is a solid text, and a rather scanty one.
In addition, the text in some places does not match the illustrations at all. For example, when Gerda is still in the Finnish woman’s hot home, the text is placed on top of the illustration where she is already making her way to the palace of the Snow Queen through hordes of ice monsters (photo 12).
When Gerda finds Kai, he is busy with a completely meaningless task - he is making SOME PATTERNS out of ice floes. In fact, he had to form the word “eternity” from them in order to be “his own master” and receive from the Queen “the whole world and a pair of skates to boot.” There is not a word about this, although in theory, in this case he should have become free from the power of the Queen. But it is said that the ice floes FINALLY formed the word “eternity” (photo 13). Why "finally"? Kai wasn’t going to post it, or at least there was no talk about it? Here's the question.
Personally, as I read, I was tormented by another question: why, when it comes to “The Snow Queen,” does the text become poorer as the design becomes richer? There was, for example, “The Queen” with illustrations by V. Erko, which, to be honest, were not quite to my taste, but, undoubtedly, very large-scale. One of the most beautiful books - so what? The publishers mangled the text so hideously that it’s painful to remember. And why, for what? Who needs it?
Will today's readers, who are able to appreciate the illustrations, not be able to pay tribute to A. Hansen's time-tested translation, presented in wonderful language, excellent in all respects?
Will we really never get to see The Snow Queen, in which everything would be wonderful - both design and text?
The question remains open.
Main characters
Gerda is a kind, honest, devoted girl with a big loving heart.
Kai is Gerda's named brother, at first cheerful and kind, but then callous and evil.
The Snow Queen is a powerful sorceress, very beautiful, but soulless.
The old woman in the garden is a kind sorceress who has become attached to Gerda.
The Prince and Princess are young spouses who helped Gerda.
The little robber is a stern, but kind and fair girl.
Lapland and Finka are wise old women.
Please note that we also have:
for the most impatient -
A very brief summary of “The Snow Queen”
for the most sociable -
The main characters of "The Snow Queen"
Summary
Even a brief summary of “The Snow Queen” for a reader’s diary will have to be divided into chapters, since each of them is original, filled with events and interesting in its own way. But if we retell the plot of “The Snow Queen” briefly, as if only an annotation to the book was needed, then it can be reduced to the following.
Once upon a time Gerda lived. She was friends with a boy named Kai. They were inseparable since childhood. But one day the boy got a piece of a magic mirror in his eye, because of which Kai now sees everything in the most unsightly light. He becomes angry, but Gerda still loves him. When Kai is taken to her icy palace by the queen, little Gerda bravely sets out on a dangerous journey to save her friend.
A more complete description of the work is as follows:
- First story. It's called "Mirror and Shards." This is the background to the whole fairy tale, it tells that one day the most evil troll made a mirror that even made everything good and bright evil. The master's disciples ran everywhere with this mirror for fun, and one day they decided to go up to heaven to laugh at the angels and God. But the higher they rose, the harder it was to hold the grimacing mirror in their hands. It escaped from the trolls' hands, fell to the ground and broke. Some of the shards were used to make glasses, others were inserted into window frames, but the worst thing was that for some people the shards went straight to the heart, turning it into a piece of ice.
- The second story introduces Kai and Gerda. It’s called “Boy and Girl.” They have been friends since childhood and spend a lot of time together. One day, when they were sitting in their garden, which they grew under the roof, Kai got into his eye with a fragment of the magic mirror that was described in the previous chapter. Since then, the boy begins to laugh at Gerda and at those around him, he is no longer pleased with the beauty of roses, he only likes snowflakes. And one day the queen takes him away with her.
- The third story tells how Gerda went in search of Kai. Soon she met a woman who could do magic, who really liked the girl and wanted to keep her. With the help of magic, she made Gerda forget about everything. So that nothing reminds her of Kai, the woman even hides all the roses in her garden. But she forgets to hide the ones that decorated her hat. Gerda sees these roses, remembers everything and after that listens to the extraordinary stories that the magical flowers tell her, and sets off on her journey again.
- The fourth story introduces the reader to the court ravens and the charming princess. From the conversation of the ravens, Gerda learns that the princess's fiancé is from foreign lands; she thinks that it is Kai, but she is mistaken. Fortunately, the princess turns out to be a kind girl, having learned Gerda’s story, she gives her a new dress, shoes, a pretty muff, and a luxurious carriage so that she can quickly find her friend, and even sends a whole retinue with her.
- The fourth story is called “The Little Robber.” A luxurious carriage attracts the attention of local robbers. They attack Gerda, deal with her coachman and servants, and take all her things for themselves. But Gerda was lucky. The little robber, the daughter of the chieftain of this gang, liked her, and she saves the heroine. The robber seems greedy and stubborn, but deep down she is not a bad person. As a result, the robber releases Gerda and gives her her Reindeer, who knows where the Snow Queen's palace is located. And it turns out that Gerda needs to get to the North Pole itself.
- Story six. On the way, Gerda and her deer meet a hospitable Laplander. She learns their story and advises travelers to go to the Finnish witch. She gives the deer a drink that gives strength, but Gerda does not need such a drug, because her strength lies in her kind heart.
- Story seven. In this part, the reindeer leaves the girl alone; he cannot go further. Gerda, despite all the obstacles, the terrible storm through which she has to go, even without warm boots and mittens, ends up in the palace of the Snow Queen, where she meets Kai, sings to him their favorite psalm about roses, and he remembers everything. When the children return home, on the way they meet a young robber who has grown up and wants to see the world. And when they come to their little rose garden, they discover that they have become adults.
Plot
One day, an evil troll decided as a joke to make a magic mirror that distorts reality. But his students accidentally broke the mirror, which scattered into thousands of pieces throughout the world. One of these fragments hit the eye and heart of a boy named Kai. He was always kind and cheerful, but the magic mirror did its dirty work, and the boy turned into a capricious, evil mocker. With his behavior, Kai greatly upset Gerda, with whom he had previously been very friendly.
One day, Kai, while sledding, clung to the sled of a beautiful stranger. She turned out to be the Snow Queen. She kissed the boy and went with him to the palace.
After Kai's sudden disappearance, Gerda cried for a long time and, with the arrival of spring, went in search of him. She got into the boat and sailed along the river, which took her to a beautiful, cozy house, whose owner was a kind old sorceress. She fell in love with Gerda very much and did not want to let her go. However, even despite the old woman’s magic, the girl went further in search of Kai.
From the wise raven, Gerda learned about the Princess and the Prince, in whose description she recognized Kai. The girl hurried to the palace, but was disappointed: the prince was not her dear brother. Having learned about Gerda's ordeal, the Princess took pity on her and gave her a carriage and a beautiful dress with a fur coat.
Gerda set off again, but was soon attacked by robbers. The chieftain's daughter, the Little Robber, did not allow the girl to be killed and brought her to her lair. The Little Robber lived with a Reindeer, who told Gerda that Kaya had been taken with her by the Snow Queen. The little robber decided to let her captive go in search of her brother, ordering the Reindeer to take her to Lapland.
The reindeer took Gerda to Lapland, where a Laplander and a Finnish woman lived. The old women helped the girl find the way to the Snow Queen's castle. Gerda managed to make her way through the army of huge snowflakes to the royal chambers, where she saw Kai. The boy sat in the middle of a huge hall and laid out the word “Eternity” from pieces of ice. At first he did not recognize Gerda, and only when the girl began to cry and her hot tears melted the pieces of ice that fell into the boy’s heart and eyes, did he recognize his friend. Kai and Gerda, with the help of friends, got home safely and were never separated again.
Reviews of the book “The Snow Queen” by Hans Christian Andersen
“The Snow Queen,” of course, everyone has read, the plot is known, and in psychological literature it is found as one of the most archetypal fairy tales, symbolically describing a rather, unfortunately, common phenomenon - but I haven’t reread the text itself for many years, and having reread it, I was I admired, perhaps most of all, the precision of the detail. For example, this one:
Kai was trembling all over, he wanted to read “Our Father,” but only the multiplication table was spinning in his mind.
Or this one:
In the middle of the lake stood the throne of the Snow Queen; She sat on it when she was at home, saying that she sat on the mirror of the mind; in her opinion, it was the only and best mirror in the world.
Or this (the very end):
...passing through the low door, they noticed that during this time they had managed to become adults.
This is a tale not only about growing up, but also about the sacrifice of intelligence. As we remember, in the palace of the Snow Queen, Kai spent his days trying to form the word “Eternity” from pieces of ice, which formed itself when the fragments in his eye and heart melted and he was able to feel joy again. This is a tale about emerging from self-centeredness, overcoming pain and further growth. If we consider the characters as parts of a single personality, then Gerda (soul) takes Kai (mind) out of the realm of his own mathematical illusions. At the same time, she overcomes several obstacles: a garden of sleepy flowers (it’s nice there, at least not
bad, i.e.
there is
no pain, no problems, they even hid a reminder of them, but such a pastime simply consumes life, does not give any growth - for some reason I remember various habits like social networks and computer games);
temptation by the luxury of the material world (Gerda was visiting the prince and princess); a clash with one’s own wild nature, the egocentrism of the soul (?) (The little robber who wants to keep her). However, when Gerda persistently and unwaveringly declares her desire, her obstacles - with the exception of the old woman in the flower garden, since it is impossible to find help in this swamp, you can only escape from there - turn into assistants, show her the way, and give her supplies. Gerda is strong in that she relies on herself, but at the same time not only on herself - otherwise, most likely, she would have fallen into the same trap as Kai. An ego
can do nothing to help another ego; even more so - to free what is behind it. Gerda constantly, just a little, reads prayers. Thanks to this, entering the Snow Queen’s castle, she already commands the power of the elements:
At that time, Gerda entered the huge gate, made by violent winds. She read the evening prayer, and the winds subsided, as if they had fallen asleep. She entered freely...
Finn speaks well of her:
I can't make her stronger than she is. Don't you see how great her power is? Don't you see that both people and animals serve her? After all, she walked around half the world barefoot! It’s not up to us to borrow her power! The strength is in her sweet, innocent childish heart. If she herself cannot penetrate the palace of the Snow Queen and remove the fragments from Kai’s heart, then we will certainly not help her!
Andersen repeats the same thing at the end:
Grandmother sat in the sun and read the Gospel loudly: “If you do not become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven!”
The paradox is that the mind imagines: it can do it better, it can measure and weigh everything. However, everything that it can actually do, if it becomes an end in itself from a tool, is described as follows:
Kai turned completely blue, almost blackened from the cold, but did not notice it - the kisses of the Snow Queen made him insensitive to the cold, and his very heart became a piece of ice. Kai tinkered with the flat, pointed ice floes, arranging them in all sorts of ways.
It all starts with a crooked troll mirror made for fun. The mirror is different in that reality is displayed there in a distorted, perverted way.
And so they ran around with the mirror; soon there was not a single country, not a single person left that would not be reflected in him in a distorted form. Finally, they wanted to reach heaven in order to laugh at the angels and the Creator himself. The higher they rose, the more the mirror twisted and writhed from grimaces; they could barely hold it in their hands. But then they got up again, and suddenly the mirror became so distorted that it tore out of their hands, flew to the ground and broke into pieces. Millions, billions of its fragments have caused, however, even more trouble than the mirror itself. Some of them were no larger than a grain of sand, scattered throughout the world, sometimes fell into people’s eyes and remained there. A person with such a splinter in his eye began to see everything inside out or notice only the bad sides in every thing - after all, each splinter retained a property that distinguished the mirror itself. For some people, shrapnel went straight to the heart, and that was the worst thing: the heart turned into a piece of ice.
The urge to laugh, the urge to ridicule is also, of course, not a reason, but rather another symptom. (I remember how it was said about the manner of young Adrian Leverkühn to laugh at everyone and at the same time remember with tears the poem: “I have not been guilty of anything, I am sinless before people; why did I rush to desert lands?” - and indeed all this the story, after reading the fairy tale, seems to be a very realistic description of the life of the adult Kai, when his inner Gerda dies, he finally closes himself in the kingdom of cold - absolutely the same metaphor - and goes crazy.) It was interesting whether Andersen would describe the reason for such a disorder. Well, of course, this is a fairy tale, so everything is simple. Once upon a time there was a troll, a real devil, who made a corresponding mirror. But why did the fragment, say, get into the heart of Kai and not into the heart of Gerda or her grandmother? The situation appears to be an accident. (In any case, if we consider the heroes as individual people, and not parts of one human consciousness, while the second approach is closer to me - although at the level of projection it can also be played out in life stories.) But meanwhile, there are so many smart people almost in life set out to explain this phenomenon. They described such macabre kingdoms, such deserts of the spirit; development and death of universes. But - with all my love for understanding the genesis of this or that variant of mental development - it all comes down to one simple formula: the paths become crooked from a lack of heat. Andersen poses the question practically: since everything is already like this, what to do next?
It’s not like the Snow Queen is sitting in the house: you open the door, and she’s there, take her out and put her on the stove. When the heart is damaged, the mind goes very, very far away. There he digs in, there he has a kingdom where he almost
he is his own master,
almost
happy,
almost
owns the whole world,
almost
gets a pair of skates into the bargain (so much could be said about this
almost
, but don’t get distracted), - a kingdom made up of ice patterns.
But there is nothing bad in them - in the mind. How beautiful these patterns are on the glass in winter when children look at them! In winter. In December, January, February. Maybe in November and March. But certainly not in July, and certainly not all year round. Gerda and Kai have matured
throughout the tale - this can be taken as an indication that they have gained important experience, but no less it indicates the need for patience. And one more small detail that always remains the same, regardless of the genre of the story. What dissolves the fragment? Tears. Full feeling of pain.
...he sat still as motionless and cold. Then Gerda began to cry; Her hot tears fell on his chest, penetrated his heart, melted his icy crust and melted the fragment. Kai looked at Gerda, and she sang: Roses are blooming... Beauty, beauty! Soon we will see the baby Christ. Kai suddenly burst into tears and cried so long and so hard that the shard flowed out of his eye along with the tears. Then he recognized Gerda and was very happy.
A brilliant tale. Religious motives, by the way, should hardly be perceived as a shameless preaching of Christianity. Rather, this is a universal indication that there is no point in going into these icy worlds at all if there is nothing really big behind the soul. Otherwise, at best, this is the creation of another closed system, which does not solve the problem, but only raises it to a new level, and at worst, it is an increase in the population of various imaginary worlds (and the kingdom of the Snow Queen, and the garden of oblivion, and a luxurious palace, but little there are, in fact, places in the world). The world should not be closed to any coordinate system, but should be open to the absolute one. Everything is very simple. Everything that seems complicated in such things is the kingdom of the Snow Queen. That’s why only children enter the real kingdom—not with their bodies, but with their souls.
PS I was especially amused by how the Little Robber (I repeat, I see her as a wild archetype of the heroine herself) at the end wonders why Gerda gave up on all this.))
