When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum's classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil?
Gregory Maguire creates a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the same way again. Wicked is about a land where animals talk and strive to be treated like first-class citizens, Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class stability and the Tin Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to be the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, a smart, prickly and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil.
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Review:
After the release of the Wicked movie last year, my social media feeds were flooded with clips, memes, fun facts about the story—and eventually, the book crossed my path. I didn’t expect that I’d end up extremely bored by it.
Don’t get me wrong—the movie was enjoyable, and possibly, if I ever get to see the musical, I’ll probably like it too. However, I’m not in love with it, nor am I obsessed with it like I once was with the original movie The Wizard of Oz.
And to be honest, Wicked feels to me like a fanfiction that was officially published (or at least, that’s how I see it).
Wicked is basically the story of the Wicked Witch of the West and how she became the villain of the story. Here we see how she attends Shiz University and meets Glinda (originally Galinda).
I think the story starts off quite well by introducing us to Elphaba—why she’s green, how she ends up studying at Shiz, the presentation of various characters, and so on. However, I found two things that I just couldn’t get into, and they made the reading experience feel very heavy.
First, I think the author takes too long to build the world. He adds a lot of detail to the story and introduces one character after another, to the point where I got lost and couldn’t remember who was who.
Second, the political fiction. In the book, animals can talk and are sentient beings. Little by little, they begin to lose their rights, and Elphaba becomes someone who fights for their cause. The thing is, I’m not very interested in politics, let alone fictional politics. I usually avoid books that deal with those kinds of themes.
So, from the halfway point onward, I found it boring and very hard to get through. On top of the other things I didn’t enjoy, I just tried to finish the book as quickly as I could because I didn’t want to keep reading it.
It really makes me sad, because I truly wanted to like it, especially given how popular the book is—but that wasn’t the case for me. My personal reading preferences just didn’t align with this book. I also think the way it’s written made it harder for me to digest.
It’s really a shame.
Have you seen Wicked?
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