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I saw the Broadway play "Wicked" and loved it. A friend, who had also seen the play, said that both her and another friend had started this book but couldn't get into it. I have to give great kudo's to the writer of the Broadway script, for creating the show they did out of this story.
Well the book and the play are two separate creatures. If I hadn't seen the play, it might have been easier to read. I thought it would be nice to read the book that the play was based on so that I could learn about the story in depth and fill in a few questions I had.
I think it is misleading to have the cover of the book the same graphic as the one used by the play.I really wanted to like this book, but it took me over 2 months to finish this book because it didn't draw me in. Other than having similar characters and three or four basic plots points, there is no relation to the play. Besides that the story is dark and weirdly twisted.
But I kept wanting it to follow a line it just wasn't going to go down. If you like the book, you probably won't like the play.
I was shocked at the most pornographical scene I have ever read. This was a scene acted out by wooden puppets, of a married man with a widow and her daughter at the same time. I was so angry to come across such filth that I stopped reading right there on page 13. I had been so excited to read it but it was not worth the effort.
The problem with this novel is that it started out great; Wicked Witch is listening in on the Scarecrow, Lion, and Tin Man maliciously talking about her. This is what this book was, except worse, because its greatest transgression was the potential it had, yet chose to squander. Gregory Maguire COMPLETELY drops the ball and loses everything this novel could have been.
Zoom out to the country of Oz, which is represented as this totalitarian, oppressive force lead by the Wizard. Even when she was fighting for animal rights it was with this listless "I'm not going to win anyways" attitude; she's given absolutely no power to fight the odds against her.Long story short - the type of fiction you're writing is FANTASY Maguire; if I want to read prose about those who never try and always lose, I don't have to extend my imagination to a world of talking Animals. From the offset, the female protagonist is misunderstood by everyone surrounding her.
Elephaba (the Wicked Witch) becomes this insipid recluse; as vapid as her roommate (who later becomes the Good Witch that Dorothy will meet) she fights an ominous force that Maguire never truly reveals, and when she loses she runs away and keeps running from her past until she's inevitably killed by Dorothy.I'm no feminist, but surely Maguire could have made a stronger character out of her. Flash back to the Wicked Witch's birth and upbringing, which is violent and foreboding.Excellent start-- I'm intrigued so far. You could even say I'm captivated.Then.nothing.I'm serious; 400 pages of drivel.
I'll look out the window and read the words written in the eyes of those that settle for `mediocre'. Such are the greatest transgressions of this world.
The play is great; the book is awful.The play is based only loosely on the book, taking only its concept and telling a much better and enjoyable story.But the book is weird and perverted and no fun. If I had read this weird book first, I never would have gone to see the play. Fortunately for me, I saw the play first. The ending makes no sense: after hundreds of pages of character development, the conclusion is both non-sequitur and non-sense. Save your money.
Possibly not yours. But if you watched Return to Oz and thought "now THIS is how Oz stories should be", then I'd suggest giving it a miss.For the record, this is not folk-lore for Oz.
Going into this, I was not expecting or hoping for cursing and sexual vulgarities, and after a while it became annoying. There's too much of it, and the storytelling is not exactly engrossing.
If you're a fan of the old Oz stories, you may be quite disappointed like me. If you're into that, you will probably like this.
There's the musical, which I'm sure is delightful in its own way, but far too much of this book and the musical have to do with the "Let's sparkle. Let's be dramatic." state of mind.
The author is not the same man who wrote the originals, which I think it stands to question: "Why don't you create your own fictional world." This just encourages the use of remaking things.So not my cup of tea. It's just a warning.
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