I just finished Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire. Remember the Wizard of Oz? And the green Witch with the flying monkeys? Well, this book is supposed to tell her story.
I confess I didn’t really have high expectations when my book club chose it. It was a popular book and had even been made into a Broadway musical — two things that made me dismiss it as intellectually shallow.
I could not have been more wrong. What a page-turner! I couldn’t put it down.
Maguire creates a full and detailed world. In his hands, Oz has climate, ethnic groups, competing religions, and mythology. Politics create rifts and alliances.
As for the heroine herself, he begins early with her. He starts with her conception and early life, but she becomes a real person to the reader when she arrives at the university. She is a hotheaded activist and sincerely believes in doing what's right even at personal cost.
She is a powerful woman. The ties and interpersonal tensions that guide her choices are utterly familiar to modern readers. Her loves and insecurities are poignant and universal.
What exactly about her is wicked? What does wicked mean in her world - or ours?
With the title he has chosen, Maguire is not being subtle. He quotes Tolstoy, Defoe and L. Frank Baum (the originator of Oz) before the book starts. He wants to analyze wickedness in this book.
The story itself, though, doesn’t seem to address wickedness conceptually. What it does address is the person of the Wicked Witch. If she is taken to embody wickedness, then the filling out of her character and personality in this story makes wickedness extremely ordinary and normal.
She herself seems to live leaning over the edge of despair, feeling herself at the mercy of forces outside her control. With this position, Maguire would imply that evil itself is merely a misunderstanding. And this makes me understand that I definitely underestimated this book.
I’m going to go find all the other books this guy wrote.
Article comments
1 - tink
On the other hand...I was really looking forward to this book, the first of his that I'd picked up, but hadn't been able to make it past the first few pages. Guess I should give it another go...
2 - Lisa McKay
Tink, Wicked is Maguire's densest book, in my opinion. There's a lot going on there. Try starting out with Mirror, Mirror or Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, which are not quite so multilayered, and then work your way up to Wicked. Amazon delivered Son of a Witch last week, and I think I might actually re-read Wicked before I tackle it.
He's a wonderful writer.
3 - Kristi Harrison
I read this last year...I thought it was a whole lot of fun. I didn't realize Son of a Witch was out, too. Now I'll never finish The Brothers Karamazov.
4 - Britt
Wicked by Gregory Maguire provided a fresh take on one of literatures most beloved stories, however in tackling the task of Elphaba and her story he has proven his skills not only as a writer but as a most perceptive human being in that he adresses several very real problems, the biggest of which is misundersranding.
5 - Rachel
I loved the musical! Personally, I thought the musical was better than the book. I thought the book was very sexual and it didnt have such a great ending like the musical.
6 - RJ
I just finished this book, and I don't get why people like it so much! His moral message gets completely in the way of his storytelling. I wanted to relate to the characters but he skipped time and topics just when things were getting good, EVERY TIME. I felt like he forgot that he was telling a story and lost himself in Elphie's philosophizing, which might have been more interesting if she had come to a deeper conclusion than that we need a personal god to give us hope in life, as if being an atheist should condemn her to pessimism and suffering! Give me a break! I was really looking forward to this novel- which started so compellingly - and was ultimately disappointed.