Wicked Confession
May. 1st, 2005 09:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
qosI fell in love with the music of the musical Wicked before I had read the book. I had, in fact, picked up the book several times over the years and glanced through it, but nothing on the pages ever attracted me. When I heard the music to the Broadway show, I was bowled over. The emotion, the intriguing suggestions about the storyline, the power of the voices, were all overwhelming. I looked up some Wicked sites online and found a couple of synopses, and I liked what I read there.
So a couple of weeks ago, I ordered a used copy of the book from Amazon.
Three days ago, I finished reading it.
I didn't like it.
Thinking about it now, I think it's a similar reaction to the one I have to The Mists of Avalon: I don't really like any of the characters, I don't like the way the author has tried to make the world of the story more realistic by gutting it of beauty and magic (I do like a couple of more realistic versions of the Camelot story, and other legends, but not Mists. I am not so intrigued by his concept (which is much like the concept of Mists) that it makes the shortcomings of the plot and characters easier to take. But mostly it's an issue of not liking the characters, not being engaged or moved by them.
The written Elphaba does nothing for me. She is a person of strong feelings, but small effectiveness. She seems always blown by the winds, never really standing on her own. She never seemed to have any real power, personal or magical. I saw no reason for anyone in Oz to fear her or wish her dead. Her relationship with Glinda is under-written. I never really believed that there was a strong connection between them. It was stated a couple of times, but I didn't believe the way Maguire wrote it. She noticed the abuse of the Animals, but never seemed to demonstrate any particular insight beyond that. She didn't seem all that perceptive. In short, I never saw this Elphaba as a character who would ever express the feelings or ideas in such songs as "Defying Gravity" or "For Good."
The Wicked Witch of the West is a formidable character. She is, as someone else has observed, the ur-Witch of the American psyche. When we think "witch," most of us usually think of some varation on Margaret Hamilton in green make-up, shapeless black dress, and conical hat. Whatever the limitations of her magic, she has presence, and its easy to believe in her power, even if we don't get any really dramatic examples of it.
Maguire would have us believe that the Wicked Witch's "wickedness" is mostly bad press. I'd be willing to buy that if he had shown me an Elphaba capable of arousing more intense feelings in people. Or who made bigger, more dramatic mistakes that resulted in more people having grounds to hate and fear her, despite her good intentions.
I'll be interested in hearing from those of you who do like the book.
And I invite everyone to stop by my favorite place for an alternate look at the Wicked Witch of the West: http://www.geocities.com/almira_g/Almira.html
So a couple of weeks ago, I ordered a used copy of the book from Amazon.
Three days ago, I finished reading it.
I didn't like it.
Thinking about it now, I think it's a similar reaction to the one I have to The Mists of Avalon: I don't really like any of the characters, I don't like the way the author has tried to make the world of the story more realistic by gutting it of beauty and magic (I do like a couple of more realistic versions of the Camelot story, and other legends, but not Mists. I am not so intrigued by his concept (which is much like the concept of Mists) that it makes the shortcomings of the plot and characters easier to take. But mostly it's an issue of not liking the characters, not being engaged or moved by them.
The written Elphaba does nothing for me. She is a person of strong feelings, but small effectiveness. She seems always blown by the winds, never really standing on her own. She never seemed to have any real power, personal or magical. I saw no reason for anyone in Oz to fear her or wish her dead. Her relationship with Glinda is under-written. I never really believed that there was a strong connection between them. It was stated a couple of times, but I didn't believe the way Maguire wrote it. She noticed the abuse of the Animals, but never seemed to demonstrate any particular insight beyond that. She didn't seem all that perceptive. In short, I never saw this Elphaba as a character who would ever express the feelings or ideas in such songs as "Defying Gravity" or "For Good."
The Wicked Witch of the West is a formidable character. She is, as someone else has observed, the ur-Witch of the American psyche. When we think "witch," most of us usually think of some varation on Margaret Hamilton in green make-up, shapeless black dress, and conical hat. Whatever the limitations of her magic, she has presence, and its easy to believe in her power, even if we don't get any really dramatic examples of it.
Maguire would have us believe that the Wicked Witch's "wickedness" is mostly bad press. I'd be willing to buy that if he had shown me an Elphaba capable of arousing more intense feelings in people. Or who made bigger, more dramatic mistakes that resulted in more people having grounds to hate and fear her, despite her good intentions.
I'll be interested in hearing from those of you who do like the book.
And I invite everyone to stop by my favorite place for an alternate look at the Wicked Witch of the West: http://www.geocities.com/almira_g/Almira.html
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-02 12:06 am (UTC)it's been a number of years since i read it, so can't comment much more specifically. i found elphaba sympathetic.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-02 12:34 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-05-02 01:15 pm (UTC)