Wicked

[lobohermana]

Really, my meeting's at three, so what better thing to do than write a comparative analysis of book vs musical Wicked? I'm sure that will help me on my thesis . . .

Ok, so this whole post is about Wicked, so don't bother reading it

Comments

[funkyhamster]

oo yay! i can't wait to sit down and actually read this post. i'm excited to hear what you think of the book vs. musical. from skimming i do agree with you that wicked isn't the best writing style ever -- i mean it's okay but more "fiction" than "literature" to be a book snob.

[funkyhamster]

Okay I finally read through the whole thing and here are my thoughts

[lobohermana]

Yeah - I did like the book, to be fair. I think I feel like the musical does a better job at making you care about the characters though and therefore at highlighting the issue of good vs evil. In the book it was sort of like "Well, Elphie is sort of a bitch" whereas in the musical she's much easier to relate to. Also, yeah, I agree Galinda was a good example of someone who could have been cool and then just wasn't because Elphie left, but I feel like it could have been better developed. Like in the musical she actually becomes retributive (is that a word? ha) and takes actual action whereas in the book she doesn't do much of anything after Elphaba leaves. I did like the political aspect of Oz though, that was cool, because, yeah, the book is so rosy and happy and crap. It was interesting to see a more realistic portrayal of the "underside" of Oz. I do wish that the author had elaborated on the subversive group Elphie was in, or even giving a bit more explanation of how the wizard came to power. But yeah, I'm betting if I had read the

[sixwaysfromweds]

oh good. i feel relieved and rather validated about my opinions of wicked after reading this post. i read it my freshman year when my roommate reccommended it to me (of course, her favorite book was "wizards' first rule" which my sister and i have read and like to make fun of for being overly angsty and wierd). i do'nt remember it a lot but i do remember feeling things that agree with most of what you just said -- the storyline was really disjointed which distracted me and i couldn't really find anything in the characters that made me care about them. and there were several things that, like you said, tried to be deep but just didn't resonate on any level with me and felt somewhat fake. i kept feeling almost, but not quite, about the whole book. so... yeah. thanks for your post. yay book analysis.

[lobohermana]

Haha, thanks no problem. You should listen to the musical though, even though it's trite (it is a musical after all) I really like it. And it builds the characters better and doesn't try to be quite so deep with all the random religious stuff.