Wicked
I completed the book and while it began somewhat slow and disjointed, I grew to love it as much as the Witch herself. I am looking forward to reading Gregory Maguire's other books...now to find them as cheap as possible.
I find it interesting that many of the best Sci-fi and fantasy stories integrate religion. This one had some of the best arguments and discussions on the matter I have read. Here is a quote from Elphaba that I truly appreciated. I could not have said it better myself. Don't worry none of the following really give away a thing about the story.
I think, just like our teachers here, that if ministers are effective, they're good at asking questions to get you to think. I don't think they're supposed to have the answers. Not necessarily."
Ironically, I also appreciate this one:
"I told you before, I don't comprehend religion, although conviction is a concept I'm beginning to get. In any case, someone with a real religious conviction is, I suppose, a religious convict, and deserves locking up."
I am going to place the last quotation from the book behind a cut as it is lengthy. It was not a quote by Elphaba, but more of a thought process going on in her mind toward the end of the
She had just surprised herself by "wishing" for a soul.
"She wandered, briefly, if she was going insane. That night she sat up in a chair and thought about what she had said.
If you could take the skewers of religion, those that riddle your frame, make you aware every time you move -- if you could withdraw the scimitars of religion from your mortal systems -- could you even stand? Or do you need religion as, say, the hippos in the Grasslands need poisonous little parasites within them, to help them digest fiber and pulp? The history of peoples who have shucked off religion isn't an especially persuasive argument for living without it. Is religion itself -- that tired and ironic phrase -- the necessary evil?
The idea of religion worked for Nessarose, it worked for Frex. There may be no real city in the clouds, but dreaming of it can enliven the spirit.
Perhaps in our age's generous attempt at unionism, allowing all devotional urges life and breath under the canopy of the Unnamed God, perhaps we have sealed our own doom. Perhaps it's time to name the Unnamed God, even feebly and in our own wicked image, that we may at least survive under the illusion of an authority that could care for us.
For whittle away from the Unnamed God anything approximating character, and what have you got? A big hollow wind. And wind may have gale force but it may not have moral force; and a voice in a whirlwind is a carnival barker's trick.
More appealing -- she now saw, for once -- the old timer's notions of paganism. Lurlina in her fairy chariot, hovering just out of sight in the clouds, ready to swoop down some millennium or other and remember who we are. The Unnamed God, by virtue of its anonymity, can't ever be suspected of a surprise visit.
And would we recognize the Unnamed God if it knocked on our doors?
I find it interesting that many of the best Sci-fi and fantasy stories integrate religion. This one had some of the best arguments and discussions on the matter I have read. Here is a quote from Elphaba that I truly appreciated. I could not have said it better myself. Don't worry none of the following really give away a thing about the story.
I think, just like our teachers here, that if ministers are effective, they're good at asking questions to get you to think. I don't think they're supposed to have the answers. Not necessarily."
Ironically, I also appreciate this one:
"I told you before, I don't comprehend religion, although conviction is a concept I'm beginning to get. In any case, someone with a real religious conviction is, I suppose, a religious convict, and deserves locking up."
I am going to place the last quotation from the book behind a cut as it is lengthy. It was not a quote by Elphaba, but more of a thought process going on in her mind toward the end of the
She had just surprised herself by "wishing" for a soul.
"She wandered, briefly, if she was going insane. That night she sat up in a chair and thought about what she had said.
If you could take the skewers of religion, those that riddle your frame, make you aware every time you move -- if you could withdraw the scimitars of religion from your mortal systems -- could you even stand? Or do you need religion as, say, the hippos in the Grasslands need poisonous little parasites within them, to help them digest fiber and pulp? The history of peoples who have shucked off religion isn't an especially persuasive argument for living without it. Is religion itself -- that tired and ironic phrase -- the necessary evil?
The idea of religion worked for Nessarose, it worked for Frex. There may be no real city in the clouds, but dreaming of it can enliven the spirit.
Perhaps in our age's generous attempt at unionism, allowing all devotional urges life and breath under the canopy of the Unnamed God, perhaps we have sealed our own doom. Perhaps it's time to name the Unnamed God, even feebly and in our own wicked image, that we may at least survive under the illusion of an authority that could care for us.
For whittle away from the Unnamed God anything approximating character, and what have you got? A big hollow wind. And wind may have gale force but it may not have moral force; and a voice in a whirlwind is a carnival barker's trick.
More appealing -- she now saw, for once -- the old timer's notions of paganism. Lurlina in her fairy chariot, hovering just out of sight in the clouds, ready to swoop down some millennium or other and remember who we are. The Unnamed God, by virtue of its anonymity, can't ever be suspected of a surprise visit.
And would we recognize the Unnamed God if it knocked on our doors?