Sweet Remembrance by Emily Anne Putzke is a hidden treasure and one of the best retellings or interpretations I’ve read of any fairytale. This is a tall claim, but I’ll stick by it. “The Little Match Girl” by Hans Christian Andersen is a short story meant to both challenge and comfort at the same time. Given its tragic plot line, any retelling would find it hard to replicate such an emotion. But Sweet Remembrance takes Andersen’s skeletal story and builds on it in the best of ways.
In this version, the match girl is Kasia, a young Jewish girl in the ghetto of Poland during the second World War. The Nazis have invaded, and the neighborhood she used to love has turned into a desolate place. She runs out of her house and spies five scenes, and in her pocket are a similar number of matches. As she gives a match to each encounter, she recalls her past. The memories center on a young man, Romek, with whom Kasia is falling in love.
Each match changes the lives of the person she encounters, and each match is given in Romek’s memory, something he instructed or did for Kasia. The parallel between the past and present is inspired, and the idea elevates Andersen’s original tale to another level. If anything, the act of lending the match builds meaning into what seems to be an insignificant act of suffering.
The text is not only haunting, but beautifully written. This is quite short but more effective in its terseness than most 300+ page novels. In this way, the conciseness reminds me of the original tale. I was drawn into this world and had to stop reading at intervals to savor the experience.
This bittersweet, lovely tale is perfect for fans of the original fairytale, historical readers, or people who love a great tragedy. Though sad, I enjoyed it thoroughly, and plan to read it again in the future.
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