Wicked Musical Tie-in Edition : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Wicked Musical Tie-in Edition : The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Book Review: interesting, but weird
Summary: 3 Stars
This story erases all conceptions of good and evil previously assumed regarding the land of Oz. It is difficult to accept the idea of the Scarecrow, the tin man and all our friends as gossiping, shallow, or manipulative. It is also difficult to view Oz as a land of political unrest, racism and terrorist activity. There are inconsistancies with the movie that would be obvious to any baby boomer or generation-x-er, but overall the story puts an interesting perspective on the classic taleBook Review: Why utopias aren't
Summary: 5 Stars
I am a fan of Baum's books going way back. I have every one of his children's novels on my shelves and love them in all their splendid silliness. Baum gave me a heroine and animal heroes and a land where no one dies. However, like most fantasy, Baum relied on a rigid social order to support his beautiful world. Workers, aristocrasy, heroine, heroine's friends. Aside from those on quest, the ones I am supposed to care about, everyone is in his alloted place.
My idea of a perfect world has something to do with justice. I don't find it in Middle Earth or Green. Imagine Shangrila--all those workers slogging up and down hill to support utopia! Is this my egalitarian fanatasy?
Maguire provides a character in Elphaba who is troubled by the essential injustice of her world, a character seeking goodness and thus inevidably misunderstood, feared, and persecuted. Baum's stories become the child's version of Maguire's true political and social history of OZ. This is not a book for children or anyone unwilling to stare into sexual thunder and the violent conflict of body and conscience. The language is rich and the imagery lively and lush. I believe these people and salute the vision which moves this story.
Thank you for "Wicked," which is really about faith in, and the terrible power of, good.
Book Review: Off-road explorations
Summary: 4 Stars
For those intrigued by the underbelly of fairy tale, GregoryMaguire's Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West offers a "through the mirror" experience refreshingly complex in our Disney-ridden age. Rather than focus on the woman-child figure of a peach complexioned Dorothy skipping along the nothing-can-harm-you-here Yellow Brick Road, Maguire steps into the margins to explore Oz on its own terms -- to tell us the story we've wanted to hear ever since Dorothy returned home and left us wondering.Reminiscent of Tolkien, Maguire fleshes out the geo-political realities of Oz, a land of geographical and cultural complexity, both larger and more interesting than the Emerald City situated nearly dead-center and, under the rule of the Wizard, intent on controlling all. The story begins in Rush Margins, a rural province to the East, where Elphaba, a green skinned enigma, is born to a highly sensual and self-absorbed mother and preacher father. Nearly, but not entirely unloved and unlovable, Elphaba evolves into a politically concerned and personally troubled young woman. As she does so, the reader willingly surrenders the Edith Hamilton image that has heretofore exclusively defined the Witch of Oz and replaces it with a complex and sympathetic character worthy of identification - especially for those who are emotional or political mavericks.
At University, Elphaba and Glinda are horribly mismatched as roommates, a situation that develops into the mutual respect and complex affection that underpin the relational tensions of the text and moves Wicked beyond pure entertainment and into the category of serious fiction, exploring the deterioration of culture and the impact of power, politics, and personality on the lives of individuals caught within that culture.
Most amazingly, however, is Maguire's skill at connecting his prequel to the story of Oz as we know it. As inverted as the world of Wicked seems to be, it never violates the integrity of the original tale. Unlike many revisionist writers, Maguire does not rewrite the original story through a different lens; rather he constructs a larger context through which Baum's "finale" seems to the reader to be more thoroughly understood. As he expertly pulls the strings of connection throughout the narrative, it is as though everything Maguire has committed to paper was already there in the original tale, but only visible to the most sensitive or discerning eye, like the shadowy and mysterious figure some viewers of the movie have seen through the trees at the end of the Tin Woodsman scene. Although the final chapters are somewhat problematical (perhaps flawed, perhaps only more difficult) the overriding effect is profoundly pleasurable for in the final analysis, nothing in the original tale is "quite as it seems," but didn't we know that all along? Isn't that, in fact, the ultimate message of Oz?
Besides presenting us with an excellent read, which in turn allows us a new "reading" of the original tale, Maguire offers thoughtful contributions to such contemporary issues as our relationship to nonhuman beings, our perception and definition of good and evil, and the complicated motives of individuals, all delivered through a prose style that, likes its content, is both entertaining and challenging.
Book Review: Wicked is in the eye of the beholder - behold a great book!
Summary: 5 Stars
Did you ever wonder who gave birth to the Wicked Witch of the West? (I know there are some days that I think I did!) Well, inside these pages you will find the answer to that question, as you open the door to a world as fascinating and fantastic as the world of The Hobbit.
Maguire creates a page-turner that is rich with literary prose yet easy to read, vivid with imagery yet filled with action and events. You will find yourself thinking about good and evil, and how each is as much perception as reality.
Most importantly, however, you will never think about the Wicked Witch of the West, or any of the other inhabitants of Oz, in the same away again. And if you're like me, you will enjoy this book so much, you'll fervently hope that Maguire writes a sequel:
Ding, Dong, Is the Witch Really Dead?Book Review: One of the best novels I've ever read.
Summary: 5 Stars
Honest to Pete, one like this comes along only once every twenty years or so. The richness of the language is matched only by Maguire's peerless command of imagery and his astonishing way with a plot. His characterization of Elphaba, who becomes (through an interesting combination of coincidence and inattention to her affairs) the Wicked Witch of the West, is so detailed and penetrating that at least one friend said a man could never have created it. Toward the end, Mr. Maguire seems to get a bit weary of keeping the fairy castle in the air, and what he's been building up to as the big moment goes a bit flat. If you're like me, though, you won't really care: it fits the story of a woman nobody, not even herself, can quite figure out. A wonderful, wonderful treasure of a book that rekindles the feeling of unfettered pleasure you have far too seldom as a reader.
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