Respect Authority

As an avid reader and even more avid frequenter of bookstores, I’ve stumbled across Gregory Maguire’s Wicked more than a few times in the past several years. Particularly after the book was translated into a Broadway musical–which I am seeing for the first time this weekend–it became fairly impossible to avoid seeing Maguire’s various fairy-tale remakes on shelves everywhere. Only recently, prompted in fact by my imminent trek to Broadway, did I bother picking it up.

Here’s the thing: I really didn’t want to like Wicked, and for no particular reason. I suppose some part of me thought the very idea of revisiting stories already told was corny, to say nothing of a bit of a cop-out on the part of an author. I thought the book would be a cliche, the same way I have no intention of reading Stephenie Meyer’s fifth Twilight book, which re-tells Book 1 through the eyes of another character. In my world, where at any given time some 200 books wait, unread, in my apartment, there’s no time for repetition.

So extra kudos go to Maguire for manging to tell an excellent story that not only impressed me, but changed my mind entirely. What The Wizard of Oz dispels by way of hokey morals and annoying canines, Wicked re-offers through a much more somber lens: the story centers around Elphaba, a resident of Oz with green skin, who later becomes what we know as the Wicked Witch of the West. But more importantly, the story focuses on the political and religious inclinations of all the various people of Oz; it touches on questions of royalty and hierarchy, on political unrest, revolution and ruling with an eye to the divine. It brings up issues of good and evil, right and wrong, and guilt and forgiveness. In short, it’s a very serious book that just so happens to star a central character of its less-serious predecessor. Also, there’s sex. And dirty jokes. And violence.

So if anyone out there still reads books, this one comes highly recommended. I suspect it’s more worth your time than, say, Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland.