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

I honestly thought this was a great concept at first glance. Well, I still do. But it's a little cheapened, I think, by the fact that the author, Gregory Maguire, has done nothing but re-writes of other fairly tale type scenarios since then. It just feels a little lazy to me. That said, it's still pretty creative. Amazon link here, if you want to purchase. Otherwise feel free to borrow mine. Oh, they also made it into a Broadway Musical, which is consistent with the entire entertainment industry these days. When that does well, I'll expect to see a motion picture, complete with a CGI'ed Judy Garland. I kid, but I wouldn't be shocked to see it happen.

In any event, Wicked is the story of the events of the Merry Old Land of Oz, as told from the perspective of the Wicked Witch of the West. Well, kind of. It is, in fact, more like what the title says it is: a story of the life of Elphaba, the green woman who would one day become the Wicked Witch of the West. Dorothy makes a brief cameo in the Prologue, and then doesn't appear again until near the end of the book.

I like the story's set up. It characterizes Oz well as a land of political turmoil, and does a very good job of bringing in recognizable elements, even if you're like me and haven't seen the movie in years. I like the characters, for the most part. They seem at times a bit underdeveloped, but it's good enough that I was still able to develop an attachment to the main players.

There are two big things I don't like, however. One is the jumpy narrative. Twice in the book you're moved ahead by a span of 5-7 years, and both times there's not enough narration to set the new scene. Just too damn much stuff left out. I was reading, faithfully, and I really didn't have much of an idea what the hell was going on. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, but it was written from the perspective that Elphaba did, which just felt disconnected.

The other big thing was the ending. To me, I felt like Maguire let Elphaba's character change suddenly, and with little warning into taking the kind of actions that hadn't been set up in the previous 300 or so pages. He did try to lay out a justification, but it just didn't ring very true to me. The ending is also very short and abrupt, and perhaps that's because he assumes that you're already familliar with this point in the plot, but I just didn't like it.

It's hard to just put those concerns aside, but I will say that I did quite like the book, overall. It had interesting policial satire elements, and had an interesting take on the dynamic between Elphaba, Nessarose (the house-crushed WWotEast), and Glinda, the "Good Witch". I just felt as though it could have been done just that tiny bit better, that would have made it a truly classic read. But hey, that's just my two bits.

-11/29/05