Reading in Retrospect: "Wicked" by Gregory Maguire

Rachel's post on "Wicked: The Musical" reminded me, as the Google homepage already had earlier, that today was the 71st anniversary of the release of the movie The Wizard of Oz. What better day to put up my Nostalgia Post about Gregory Maguire's book, Wicked? I can still squeeze it in, as it won't be tomorrow for 26 more minutes (in my time zone, anyway).

This book first caught my eye while I was browsing at Target, my home away from home. It was the end of a year of belt-tightening and I was on a small shopping spree. When I saw the book, I assumed it would be a back-story of the Wicked Witch of the West, neatly dovetailing with the book by L. Frank Baum (which I hadn't yet read at the time, but like any good American I was fairly familiar with the movie).

As I'm sure you all know by now, I was right about the back story bit, but I couldn’t have been more wrong about the dovetailing. This book took Baum’s story and turned it on its head. It was as if Baum’s book had been written from an entirely different perspective and he got it all wrong.

Of course the main difference is with the witch herself. Other than being green and having a somewhat prickly personality as a result of her skin color, the “Witch”, Elfaba, is really not wicked at all. She is different, and perhaps shunned, but she is actually kind-hearted and bent on social equality, not evil. She goes to college (or possibly more of a prep school) and has a circle of close friends, one of whom, unexpectedly, is the “good witch” Glinda mentioned in the original book and movie. Most surprising (to me) of all, Elfaba has a passionate love affair. Who would have thought?

Glinda is another character that appears quite differently in this book. She is written in Wicked as a silly vain snob, although she is not as flat as all that, undergoing growth and changes and actually befriending Elfaba. In the end it is indeterminate as to whether she is (either knowingly or not) an agent of evil, but the possibility is there. And speaking of Evil, The Wizard is It. He is enacting great change and revolution in the land of Oz, and not for the better. The entire population (except perhaps for Elfaba) is terrified of him and his henchmen, the Gale Force (ha ha) who sound more like Gestapo.

I love fairy tales and am drawn to retellings (although not the modern, politically correct ones for today's children. Someone has subtracted all of the frights and thrills, reforming evil rather than vanquishing it, and allowing everyone to live happily ever after whether they deserve it or not). I don't mind a bit when an old favorite is retold in a darker and more sinister manner. I must admit, though, that I could have lived without the creepy weirdness of the multi-species sex club with enforced audience participation.

Since reading Wicked, I have read two more books by Maguire. One of them was on the mediocre side (Mirror Mirror), but the other I loved and will probably post about at some point.