8. Wicked

Book 8: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire (A++)

Wow, I am so excited to do a blog post on this book because I am in absolute love with it!!! I honestly didn't think I was going to enjoy it. I have shunned the musical for years because I hated the film and book The Wizard of the Oz so much!! I don't know what it was about it, but I never enjoyed the story. But Wicked!!! Now, that's a story.
It was so much deeper than just the story of the Wicked Witch of the West, whose real name is Elphaba. Through a five part novel, the reader follows the complete story from birth to death of the Wicked Witch of the West from the original The Wizard of the Oz. In its pages, the reader explores the magical Oz that Dorothy never shows you. And, Maguire does an unbelievably amazing job of writing a beautiful, emotional, deep story with undeniable detail and charisma. I could hardly put it down!!

From the musical Wicked

Not only are readers able to explore the behind-the-scenes of the classic book everyone knows but there's also deep discussion about life, death, evil, religion, and the rights of Animals - animals with souls that can speak, think, and feel. An example of these intellectual conversations appears in a banter between Elphaba and her lover Fiyero:
"You have no soul," he teased her.
"You're right," she answered soberly. "I didn't think it showed."
"You're only playing word games now."
"No," she said, "what proof have I of a soul?"
"How can you have a conscience if you don't have a soul?" he asked despite himself...

Elphaba and Fiyero

"How can a bird feed its young if it has no conscience of before and after? A conscience, Yero my hero, is only consciousness in another dimension, the dimension of time. What you call conscience I prefer to call instinct. Birds feed their young without understanding why, without weeping about how all that is born must die, sob sob. I do my work with a similar motivation: the movement in the gut towards motivation, fairness, and safety. I'm a pack animal wheeling with the herd, that's all. I'm a forgettable leaf on a tree."
"Since your work is terrorism, that's the most extreme argument for crime I've ever heard. You're eschewing all personal responsibility. It's as bad as those who sacrifice their personal will into the gloomy morasses of the unknowable will of some unnameable god. If you suppress the idea of personhood then you suppress the notion of individual culpability."
"What is worse, Fiyero? Suppressing the idea of personhood or suppressing, through torture and incarceration and starvation, real living persons...? (255-256)"
The entire book is equally as intellectually probing and downright deeper than a tale about a green-skinned witch.
Another favorite passage of mine is Fiyero's wife telling Elphaba about different types of anger.
"Tribal mothers always tell their children that there are two kinds of anger: hot and cold. Boys and girls experience both, but as they grow up the angers separate according to their sex. Boys need hot anger to survive. They need the inclination to fight, the drive to sink the knife into the flesh, the energy and initiative of fury. It's a requirement of hunting, of defense, of pride. Maybe of sex, too."
"Yes, I know," said Elphaba, remembering.
Sarima blushed and looked unhappy, and continued. "And girls need cold anger. They need the cold simmer, the ceaseless grudge, the talent to avoid forgiveness, the sidestepping of compromise. They need to know when they say something that they will never back down, ever, ever. It's the compensation for a more limited scope in the world. Cross a man and you struggle, one of you wins, you adjust and go on - or you lie there dead. Cross a woman and the universe is changed, once again, for a cold anger requires an eternal vigilance in all matters of slight and offense. (364-365)"
I find these statements about anger to be extremely respectful and most often correct.
My only problem with the book was the part IV In the Vinkus. I felt this part slowed the book down and didn't carry on an important part of the story. It developed who Sarima was and how that affected Elphaba and their life together, but wasn't as impressed with this part of the book. The first three parts were so amazing and beautiful that I felt let down when we ventured down into the land of Vinkus to confront Fiyero's wife. I just wanted Elphaba and Fiyero to stay in Emerald City forever as Elphaba did her secret terrorist work against the Wizard and Fiyero wrote letters to wife while loving on Elphaba. The sad thing was that character Elphaba wanted the same thing, but it wasn't meant to be.
My suggestion is to definitely read this book! I don't know about the musical, but if you whether you disliked The Wizard of Oz or not... you must read this novel!!!!

Maguire, Gregory. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1995. Print.