Book #38
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West ~ Gregory Maguire
I'd heard of this book thanks to the popular musical that it has now been turned into, but I didn't know a great deal of the plot. A friend recommended that I read it and so I did.
My first thought when I started to read it, was that there must be very few books where you know already what the ending is going to be before you even start it. Unless you have not seen or heard anything about the film of The Wizard of Oz, that is, and due to the impact it has had on popular culture, that has to be a very small percentage of people. So you know that the Witch dies in the end. It kind of reminded me in a very strange way of the play Evita; she starts the play off dead, and then you see how she got to that point so it's kind of told in reverse.
This is a very hefty book. It does cover a great deal of ground though; it starts from when the Witch is born right up to her final moments, which is nearly 40 years. Although the original Oz series is written for children, this is very definitely not an children's book. This is made quite clear from the start which includes mention of sex, and uses the words tits and cocks. At first, I wasn't really sure that such language was necessary, it seemed to smack rather of 'this is an adult book, so I'm going to use really base language, just because I can!' Especially when the same chapter had the phrase 'the cloven place' which seems to be an outdated term. It wasn't until later on that I realised the author was probably trying to portray how coarse the midwives were to use such terms in their speech, but I'm not sure it came over very well.
The main theme of the story is very much discussion of evil, what it is and whether it's inherent in our nature. It's also the original obsession of the Witch and so it gets brought up a lot throughout the book. Of course, with a title like Wicked, and the main character being a witch, it was bound to be an important factor, but it did get a bit repetitive though and seemed as though the Witch couldn't think of anything else to talk about.
There are lots of characters in this book. Some appear and reappear through the story, others aren't quite so important. The main character of course is the Witch herself. She has been given the name of Elphaba (pronounced EL-fa-ba) which was created from L. Frank Baum's initial, L-F-B. I thought that was a really nice touch and very clever. It also lead to the amusing short version 'Elphie' which of course, is not the kind of name you imagine a witch to have. Elphie turns out to be a really interesting character and is very well written. I was quite surprised to find myself both identifying and sympathising with her and her life experiences. She's a very well rounded character; she's intelligent, sarcastic but protective to those she loves, idealistic and well aware of her faults. With this being a book, rather than a film, I kept forgetting that she is also green which I think actually works in the book's favour. When we get to know a person, we look beyond their external appearance and I think that's why it helps here. I was surprised that the author had decided that green was not a normal skin colour even in Oz, I was expecting that a place which had talking animals would be a bit less uniform in that area.
I did find the book to be a bit heavy going in places and there were time when I just wasn't sure at all what it was trying to say. There's probably a lot in it that I didn't get, and it left me with lots of questions at the end. I didn't understand why there were all the references to Elphaba being 'a girl by nature, if not by choice' (I can't remember the exact quote) and there didn't seem to be any explanation for it. I also didn't understand why Nessarose had to be born without arms, as it was just completely bizarre. The plan of Madam Morrible which was mentioned twice didn't seem to have any point or resolution that I could see and neither was there any reason for Nessarose and Elphaba to be given the completely inappropriate nickname of 'wicked witch'. I don't know whether any further reads of the book would make these things clearer or not but I'm not sure I would actually want to read it again because it was so confusing and heavy going. It's a shame because it was a good book with some really good characters, but just left me rather bemused at the end.
I'd heard of this book thanks to the popular musical that it has now been turned into, but I didn't know a great deal of the plot. A friend recommended that I read it and so I did.
My first thought when I started to read it, was that there must be very few books where you know already what the ending is going to be before you even start it. Unless you have not seen or heard anything about the film of The Wizard of Oz, that is, and due to the impact it has had on popular culture, that has to be a very small percentage of people. So you know that the Witch dies in the end. It kind of reminded me in a very strange way of the play Evita; she starts the play off dead, and then you see how she got to that point so it's kind of told in reverse.
This is a very hefty book. It does cover a great deal of ground though; it starts from when the Witch is born right up to her final moments, which is nearly 40 years. Although the original Oz series is written for children, this is very definitely not an children's book. This is made quite clear from the start which includes mention of sex, and uses the words tits and cocks. At first, I wasn't really sure that such language was necessary, it seemed to smack rather of 'this is an adult book, so I'm going to use really base language, just because I can!' Especially when the same chapter had the phrase 'the cloven place' which seems to be an outdated term. It wasn't until later on that I realised the author was probably trying to portray how coarse the midwives were to use such terms in their speech, but I'm not sure it came over very well.
The main theme of the story is very much discussion of evil, what it is and whether it's inherent in our nature. It's also the original obsession of the Witch and so it gets brought up a lot throughout the book. Of course, with a title like Wicked, and the main character being a witch, it was bound to be an important factor, but it did get a bit repetitive though and seemed as though the Witch couldn't think of anything else to talk about.
There are lots of characters in this book. Some appear and reappear through the story, others aren't quite so important. The main character of course is the Witch herself. She has been given the name of Elphaba (pronounced EL-fa-ba) which was created from L. Frank Baum's initial, L-F-B. I thought that was a really nice touch and very clever. It also lead to the amusing short version 'Elphie' which of course, is not the kind of name you imagine a witch to have. Elphie turns out to be a really interesting character and is very well written. I was quite surprised to find myself both identifying and sympathising with her and her life experiences. She's a very well rounded character; she's intelligent, sarcastic but protective to those she loves, idealistic and well aware of her faults. With this being a book, rather than a film, I kept forgetting that she is also green which I think actually works in the book's favour. When we get to know a person, we look beyond their external appearance and I think that's why it helps here. I was surprised that the author had decided that green was not a normal skin colour even in Oz, I was expecting that a place which had talking animals would be a bit less uniform in that area.
I did find the book to be a bit heavy going in places and there were time when I just wasn't sure at all what it was trying to say. There's probably a lot in it that I didn't get, and it left me with lots of questions at the end. I didn't understand why there were all the references to Elphaba being 'a girl by nature, if not by choice' (I can't remember the exact quote) and there didn't seem to be any explanation for it. I also didn't understand why Nessarose had to be born without arms, as it was just completely bizarre. The plan of Madam Morrible which was mentioned twice didn't seem to have any point or resolution that I could see and neither was there any reason for Nessarose and Elphaba to be given the completely inappropriate nickname of 'wicked witch'. I don't know whether any further reads of the book would make these things clearer or not but I'm not sure I would actually want to read it again because it was so confusing and heavy going. It's a shame because it was a good book with some really good characters, but just left me rather bemused at the end.
