The Magic Circle
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The Magic Circle Customer Reviews
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♥♥♥♥♥ |
Dark and Poignant
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The Magic Circle is a re-visioning of the classic children's story Hansel and Gretel which seeks to entertain the reader by telling the story of how the child eating witch with the confectionary hut, isolated from the world came to be. Napoli's The Magic Circle is short (barely over 100 pages) but it manages to be powerful, poignant and more than a little bittersweet as she takes what were common beliefs of the time (medieval Europe) and weaves a story that feels like it could actually have happened. Further, this is the witches' story, not the story of Hansel and Gretel. Napoli's version dovetails nicely with the traditional telling that most of us are familiar with...it begins well before we ever meet Hansel and Gretel and ends just as their part of the story is taking off...and as such, in this book we never get to really know them at all...but we do get to know The Ugly One (as the witch is known by her community) and hear her story as she fights to be a good Christian and to do what she believes is right.
The protagonist here (The Ugly One) starts out as a simple midwife who enjoys her work and appreciates beautiful things in life (the beauty she will never have herself) and she works long and hard to support her daughter (who is beautiful where her mother is not). Through the somewhat deceptive nagging of her friend Bala, The Ugly One is tempted (through pride) to take on more varied types of healing work. As the story progresses she is transformed from a simple midwife and healer to a sorceress, working within a magic circle and controlling demons to perform her healing magic and she quite successful for 9 years...until she becomes tempted by an object she desires...tempted to break the magic circle and herein she becomes vulnerable to the revenge of the demons she previously controlled and used for her good purposes. In the last third of the story, her pride leads to her downfall...she transforms once again from Sorceress to Witch (as in the diabolic satanic child eating witch feared in medieval times) and details her struggles to withstand the temptations that torment her once she is transformed into a diabolic witch.
This story is all about temptation, personal pride, courage and ultimately redemption and readers will delight in the witch's story from humble beginning to demonic ending. My only complaint is that I KNOW this story wasn't about Hansel and Gretel, but they came so late in the story that we really never go to know them at all and it's hard to enjoy the ending without knowing them somewhat better than we get to here in this story. Overall, I give The Magic Circle 4 stars, it's a magnificently dark retelling of the classic Hansel and Gretel story that really draws the reader along, I know I couldn't put it down once I'd started it (read it in one sitting, which I have to admit was easy since it's so short). Highly enjoyable and I would definitely recommend it for young adult readers (ages 12 and up) and for adults who enjoy fairytale adaptations.
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The Magic Circle Books In Print, Audio Books.