Wicked/Son of a Witch
About a month ago, I picked up a copy of Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire. I had read a review of its sequel, Son of a Witch and had also heard randellwolff give it high praise, and, being bereft of any good reading material at the time, took a chance. Boy, was I in for a treat. Wicked is an amazing novel, full of whimsical fantasy, deft characterizations and prose that practically jumps off the page and throws a party in your brain. Maguire's writing is superb, achingly fresh and original. He's the kind of writer that writers read and go, "Damn, why didn't I think of that metaphore?" The story is a sort of "loser's" history, an alternate view of the life of Elphaba, who would later be known as the Wicked Witch of the West, in the land of Oz. The book draws on the mythos of L. Frank Baum's original novel more than the movie, but most of us are so familiar with Oz that this scarcely matters. Maguire repaints Oz as a sort of mirror-America or western Europe, on the brink of an industrial revolution, yet still infused with magic and wildness and downright weird stuff. To call this a genre fantasy novel would be wholly inaccurate but it also has such a great number of fantastical elements that it's hard to say what genre it falls into, and that to me is good. It reminds me of His Dark Materials in this way, a sort of genre-busting epic treatise on esoteric concepts like morality and god and whatnot. The book is filled with a dark and snippy humor, and even though its characters all live in a make-believe world, they are startingly human and very reminiscent of us.
Just this year, Maguire wrote a sequel to Wicked, called Son of a Witch. No big secret to what this one's about: Elphaba's allged son, Liir, has his own adventures in the post-Witch and post-Wizard Oz, attempting to find himself, his lost half-sister and heaven knows what else. I am currently listening to Son of a Witch on audiobook (it entertained me on the long trip to Ohio and back this weekend). So far it is terrific, very similar in tone to Wicked but exploring many new and different themes. I highly recommend both books to anybody who likes fantasy, but especially to anyone who loves the written word and wants to see the cutting edge of creative fancy.
Lastly, there is a broadway musical version of Wicked. Jill had the soundtrack and made me a copy of it. It was very good, your typical Broadway treatment. From what I could tell, the story diverges from the novel significantly so that only some of the surface themes remain, but nevertheless the core message of the book, that evil is highly subjective, remains intact. The narrative of the musical is hard to follow on the CD since all the "talky" parts are left out and you simply move from song to song. Still, it's highly rousing, bombastic Broadway fare, and a real treat for fans of the book.
Just this year, Maguire wrote a sequel to Wicked, called Son of a Witch. No big secret to what this one's about: Elphaba's allged son, Liir, has his own adventures in the post-Witch and post-Wizard Oz, attempting to find himself, his lost half-sister and heaven knows what else. I am currently listening to Son of a Witch on audiobook (it entertained me on the long trip to Ohio and back this weekend). So far it is terrific, very similar in tone to Wicked but exploring many new and different themes. I highly recommend both books to anybody who likes fantasy, but especially to anyone who loves the written word and wants to see the cutting edge of creative fancy.
Lastly, there is a broadway musical version of Wicked. Jill had the soundtrack and made me a copy of it. It was very good, your typical Broadway treatment. From what I could tell, the story diverges from the novel significantly so that only some of the surface themes remain, but nevertheless the core message of the book, that evil is highly subjective, remains intact. The narrative of the musical is hard to follow on the CD since all the "talky" parts are left out and you simply move from song to song. Still, it's highly rousing, bombastic Broadway fare, and a real treat for fans of the book.