Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West is if nothing else offers a imaginative origin story for the what I hope is the universally known antagonist of the Frank Baum’s 'Wizard of OZ', and at the same time introduces us to a twist on the realm of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz I think very few would have been inclined to imagine, much less brought into fruition like Gregory Maguire did. This is an interesting novel to review, because there is a lot to like about Wicked , however, I find some of the endearing qualities of the novel to owe more responsibility to crafty presentation and playing off existing affection of a rather universally known and loved source material, that at first causes some undesirable elements to go unnoticed in what I can only describe as innate desire by the reader (in this case me) to want to like this story. Sounds strange admittedly, but I will attempt to explain my statement, but before that I have to establish that I’m of the age where when I was younger I watched 'The Wizard of Oz', and not only that, EVERYONE did. I don’t know anyone who has not seen or if not seen it are aware of what occurs in the movie. It is not just another movie, or a fad it is a classic that immortalized Judy Garland into Americana conscience forever. I just want to point out the difference between the use of OZ as source material, and writing a back-story to a character in a Tomb Raider movie, and more importantly how it effects how people perceive your work.

First, I want to point out what makes my reading of Wicked slightly different from my normal routine of reading. I generally buy novels in large quantities upon release (speculative shopping if you will), and upon reading them I find that some I like to varying degrees, some I don’t, and with equal variance, my opinion is either generally agreed on or isn’t amongst opinions I see online. I feel the need to say this because, it seems most people read novels on recommendation, and thus have some amount of expectation whether favorable or not based on information not wholly pertained to prior work by the author. As mentioned I generally don’t follow that practice, and that is where Wicked differs from my normal reading habits. I had heard a lot about Wicked and Maguire, and after having read about it more than I do for other novels, I decided to purchase it, with rather high expectations because admittedly what I was reading about it, I liked. What I was reading could be quanitidied like this; “A mature, twisted, satire on a classic story, written with wonderful imagination with an author gifted with more than adequate prose, with a tremendous skill with allegory, and a social conscience”. After seeing numerous such comments on Wicked , and seeing some members amongst various fantasy communities who I respect also comment favorably about it, I decided to purchase it myself as it sounded like a novel I would at the very least appreciate.

The premise of Wicked is in essence Maguire’s telling of the life of the Elphaba, better known to most of us as the Wicked Witch of the West. Maguire successfully contrives a highly creative back-story for the famous antagonist of Dorothy - "and her little dog too". We learn that Elphaba, is a product of an unfortunate and trying childhood and life. We learn her skin is a product of her birth, along with her unusual teeth, and an absolute fear of water (on hindsight not a bad idea), and is born to a lower class family. What must be mentioned however and what is the twist, is that Elphaba is not evil, but is in fact a very sympathetic character. Maguire uses the Elphaba to illustrate a rather telling example of a girl who truly was anything but, and had no desire to be evil, forced by outward pressure form many sources, her family, her peers, her physical appearance, and sexual nature. The common case of some being judged by what they are instead of who they are, and in this case being molded by it to becoming in such way that is beyond reformation by the time movie audience sees her. In this, Maguire succeeds using another familiar character Glinda (the Witch of the North), who is a roommate of Elphaba in college, where we also meet the Nessarose (who will become the Witch of the East), to offer a constant comparison of both ideologies and social truths, that add to what I would call a well done effort of creating a intriguing origin for Elphaba.

The real story behind the novel in my view is Maguire depiction of OZ itself. I really like the creativity, he gives OZ a political and social shape. The Wizard in Wicked is an ambitious, powerful man, oppressive in his reign, definitely representing a Orwellian-like symbol, every bit a tyrant. Elphaba's story although central in the novel is merely the chosen avenue that Maguire used (and arguably the one that offers the most intrigue) to what really seems to me to be a to forced attempt to touch on simply to many social themes. Elphaba the feminist, the revoltionary, the freedom fighter, the social outcast, the representation of archetypical evil, the daugter of rural poor family, the political activist, Elphaba wear all these hats, and in my opinion it is lost that the hat we want to see her in is the hat of a Witch as well. I love the use of allegory, but once I got to the middle of this 400 + page novel it no longer felt like a story in OZ with a brilliant twist, and a view from a most intriguing perspective. The novel felt burdened, Maguire simply in my opinion tried to touch on too many different aspects and in doing so failed to make any statement clearly but rather in essence just shouted about on many themes but failed to make any of them more than a whisper in substance. There exists simply an overabundance of themes, put in to small a venue (400 pages) and seemingly over burdening the novel by all having to be concerning Elphaba, either in being or by involvement. Everything about the novel is a message or a statement, which is not usually an issue for me, but in this case it was not only the not only the abundance of it, but the OBVIOUSNESS of it that Wicked simply stopped being entertaining in my opinion. There is not subtlety.

Elphaba's physical characteristics can be construed as parallels to a bad permanent case of acne (Green Skin) and wearing braces forever (malformed teeth), and having a a case of neurotic behavior (fear of water). Elphaba, as stated is both from humble backgrounds and even her parent’s are full of such messages her father is a preacher, there is an animal rights theme within the story that Maguire uses a civil rights platform. All these issues infanticide, adultery, terrorism, feminism, loss of loved one, conservatives, revolution, and much, much more. It’s just too much especially when focusing on one focal character. It seems Maguire used everything in the novel, and thus what Oz offers as a platform to speak on some issue and attempt to connect it with some morale message. This generally is no hindrance to me, but I wonder how many people would care about his representations, or be praising his prose if the work was not affiliated with OZ. The examples cease to be part of the story smartly interwoven, and in fact become the story. Even with the great numbers of such representations, I don’t think it would have bothered me as much if any of the examples offered something more than just their simple presence. As if Maguire intentionally put in Wicked , circumstances to show us he knew how to use allegory, but had no idea how to make it add to a story.

I did mention I did like some elements of Wicked . I liked some of the appearances of familiar characters like The Scarecrow, Tin Man, and the Lion. At times Maguire‘s weaving of his story with established cannon is highly imaginative. The reader is offered some intriguing origin stories to Dorothy’ companions (except one of them, but he’s mindless), and Maguire’s style of writing is far from amateurish. You can tell he certainly had a lot of wonderful ideas, but seemed limited in space to pursue them all (particularly with all the allegory). I would have loved to read more about The Wizard, The Scarecrow, and other characters familiar with the mythos more deeply. It seems to me a grand chance for a wonderful extension of a timeless classic was missed to create a novel written to stir readers, instead of an emphasis on story telling and the finished product. In short there were a lot of elements I liked in terms of ingredients but the right measurements of each weren’t used to suit my personal taste.

Like I stated earlier, I read a lot of the hype about Wicked so I am aware of some of the more common praises and detractions used by other reviewers and fans on various online communities that I normally wouldn’t so let me touch on them for a moment. It seems even the fans of the novel have issues with the ending, and I am going to admit that the last 50 pages or so seemed arduous for Maguire. It’s rather noticeable he had trouble trying to fit all his ideas and wrap them up with the ending we see in the movie, causing some aspects toward the end of the novel to be explained rather loosely, however the actual conclusion doesn’t bother me as it did many This is hardly something Maguire could have altered greatly. I too greatly enjoyed the first portion of the novel that the latter segments but I think that has more to do with being reacquainted with OZ more than anything else. Second, there seems to be many people proclaiming Wicked to be “brilliant”. I certainly don’t agree with that, I think it was an imaginative offering of a back-story to one particular character of a previously brilliant work that was OZ. Maguire could well be a brilliant writer, however my knowledge of his ability is limited to Wicked and from what I have read I am not ready to anoint either the novel or author brilliant.

In conclusion I think Wicked to be definitely worth reading, especially for adult fans of OZ. Wicked is not a children’s novel, and I think adults will find it both imaginative and creative at times, finding the satirical look into OZ both as welcomed revisit to their past, and an intriguing read, filling some familiar characters with added substance not seen in the film. I do think in segments the novel is overly burdened with constant and sometimes badly mishandled plot instances, as Maguire tries to weave his story around his numerous themes, often times sequences seemed contrived just to do so. I have ordered more of Maguire's work however, as Wicked proved intriguing, and written well enough to give Maguire a second look, however, if a reader wanted to experience different stories in Baum’s setting I think I would first recommend his own works detailing the further adventures of OZ’s denizens, or if you want a excellent twisted version of OZ, I would recommend the talented Philip Jose Farmer’s 'A Barnstormer in Oz', or 'A Rationalization and Extrapolation of The Split-Level Continuum' or Geoff Ryman's Was. Wicked is just more intriguing than it is good, my final grade for Gregory Maguire’s Wicked is a Wicked a 6.5.

Jay
The Bodhisattva

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