Susanne Eisele: Kein Schnee im Hexenhaus
As part of the Fairy Tale Summer/Märchensommer you get my review for Kein Schnee im Hexenhaus (No Snow in the Witch House) by Susanne Eisele.
What is it about?
Hansjörg and Margarete are lost in the woods. Eventually they get picked up by the police, but everything goes downhill from there. Due to their repeated drug abuse their parents send them to a reformatory in the middle of nowhere. There they meet a real witch, monsters and poisonous plants.
But at least they are together and this way it’ll be easier for them to escape; or so they think…
Hänsel & Gretel are facing their drug problems in this adaptation by the Märchenspinnerei.
The reading experience
For this one I as well wrote down some thoughts in the Reading Group on Facebook (Magical Book Reading) and also kept track of them on Goodreads, so most things might sound familiar.
The story is told in different chapters that start with low page beginnings and in a mixture of outside-look and Hansi’s/Gretel’s-perspective. Towards the end there is a great perspective change to a different character, that I truly enjoyed as it felt much more mature and coherent than anything the youths’ brains could come up with…
Even if it starts off and ends with the typical Fairy Tale quotes the narration itself feels like a report of what happened. At first the chapter beginnings irritated me a bit, but I’ve gotten used to it. The perspective change was strange too, but what bugged me most, was the combination of teeny-slang-speech with high, sometimes even seemingly contrived language.
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The characters
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What I liked though were the names as someone really had fun with naming troublesome children: Hansjörg, Kevin, Serena…they already paint a fitting picture. :D
But the other names were chosen just as well:
Frau Hag, the witch; Waldmann (Forestman) for the Woodchopper-family; Krude (crude) the slimy social worker and the fairies Tinky (Tinkerbell) and Ali (Galadriel), even the Bodo, that I associate with a wiener dog. :D
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General Opinion
An alternate version I enjoyed to venture into. An interesting take on the original stuff, with many great ideas (Bodo, the detox, the roles of witch and children), that portrays many important topics (e.g. drug abuse, co-dependence of siblings). Unfortunately did I not like the linguistic realization in some passages and the characters stayed pretty superficial…
It still was fun to follow the events and be carried by the paranoia. :)
And there were too few moments with Bodo. ;)
Stuff I’d like to add
Continue Reading: Susanne Eisele: Kein Schnee im Hexenhaus
Interview mit der Autorin: Märchenspinnerei im Interview: Susanne Eisele
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