Wicked - The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

Wicked - The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West:

by :Gregory Maguire

If you’ve never read Frank Baum’s children’s classic The Wizard of Oz or seen the movie starring a very young Judy Garland, you should not be reading this book (or my review). Because you really should read the book or watch the movie one day and I wouldn’t want to spoil your enjoyment of either.
But if you know the story already, I cannot recommend this companion piece too strongly. In The Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Witch of the West was seen merely as a source of evil, a peripheral character who caused the troubles that Dorothy and her party had to overcome in order to free the land of Oz. Gregory Maguire chose to question the very idea of wickedness itself. Who or what is wicked? And how and why? Do the wicked also not have a strong rationale behind their behavior? The result is a wonderful, exciting and challenging book.
Wicked starts with the circumstances surrounding the birth of Elphaba, the green girl who would one day be known as “The Wicked Witch of the West”. It describes the unusual baby she was, the repressive atmosphere in which she grew up, her father’s religious fervor and her mother’s casual treatment of the baby girl she had not wanted. Elphaba enters University as young girl with strong convictions, a deeply embedded sense of right and wrong and a fellow feeling for the underdog. The political turmoil of Oz and the Wizard’s callousness towards the rural districts (where she grew up) and especially the Animals, sees her joining the underground revolutionaries.
The death of her lover leads her to her lover’s home in the mountains, in an attempt to find forgiveness from his wife. The wife herself frustrates this desire and insists on friendship instead and she stays on with the boy who may or may not be her son. Politics enters her life once more however and takes away this home and she is left behind at the castle with her attempts on biological engineering (trying to stitch wings on monkeys in an attempt to teach them to fly) and her reputation amongst the rural hillside folk as a sinister witch.
Her sister Nessa — the Wicked Witch of the East — after having taken over their part of Oz by a political coup, is killed one day by a house falling on her head. Elphaba flies down in haste to hear about a mysterious tornado and a girl called Dorothy, and that this girl caused her sister’s death, albeit indirectly. An old friend from University, Glinda the Good Witch has sent Dorothy to the Wizard, hoping that he will resolve the political crisis Nessa’s death has led to. Knowing the Wizard as she does, Elphaba then sets out looking for Dorothy, trying to stop her from taking Nessa’s powerful shoes to the Wizard.
From here on the novel shows the other side of Baum’s narration. Anything more than this would maybe spoil the novel for you, so I’ll keep quiet. But if you do read the book, try drawing the connections between the Baum and the Maguire versions. And try not to let Maguire brainwash you into thinking that it was Dorothy who was the (unwitting) cause of evil instead! Maguire is a powerful storyteller and it challenges the reader to find a ‘truth’ somewhere in between the two novels.

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