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christiansavin 's review for:
Wicked
by Gregory Maguire
slow-paced
Loveable characters:
No
I didn't mind that Maguire wrote a banquet of moral bankruptcy through which he wanted to show, ridicule and ponder about all the things so many of us refuse to or are too ignorant to see (though, there are things that Maguire himself seems to refute, such as the concept of hope). I also don't care about the play or the movie loosely inspired by his book (DO NOT GIVE THIS BOOK TO ANYONE UNDER 18, THIS IS NOT FOR CHILDREN), now even less than before.
However, I hate what he did to Oz. In order to make Baum's world fit his narrative, he had to turn it upside down in every single aspect, with the utmost disrespect. Oz is a matriarchal society -> Maguire turned it into a fascist misogynist nightmare. Worse than that, all the female characters are ridiculed in one way or another, even Elphaba, not by and for the purpose of the plot, but by the narrator himself. There's nothing wrong with depicting old, fat, shallow, power hungry or corrupted women, but Maguire's descriptions are so cartoonish, almost grotesque, just for the sake of it. I'm not even getting into the whole Animals rights bs because it's simply a bad allegory (or it isn't? is Maguire literally that mad that the Bible says that animals have no souls? I mean same, but holy s**t, get a grip dude). Also, get this, Oz is, worldbuilding wise, a pagan world. What did Maguire do about that? He colonized it with religion. Religion isn't just there, it's nauseatingly sewed within the very fabric of every single worldbuilding and plot aspect. While I was reading, I couldn't stop asking myself why couldn't he just wrote an original story instead if he had to twist Oz into a such unrecognizable shape - and the reason is, of course, that nobody would have cared if this was an original story. This glorified fanfiction wouldn't have existed if MGM wasn't so cheap and hired one extra actress to play the actual Good Witch of the North, and avoided that major plot hole created by having her merged with Glinda. Because yes - this is a fanfiction of the 1939 movie, not Baum's actual work.
Some kind of credit is due where some kind of credit is due, at least the Wicked Witch is not entirely presented as a misunderstood, poor, poor victim of her upbringing. She is, by all means, worse than Baum's original character. She's a useless rebel. The true Witch was just a tyrant with a proclivity for animal manipulation magic. Maguire's witch is a self-righteous radical. She uses Dr. Dillamond's revolutionary research to artificially create flying monkeys. She sees nothing wrong with the fact that the failures of her little genetic experiments had to be mercy killed. According to her, people who torture others, or choose to use their influence to do bad, deserve to die (even an 11 years old; she, and adult, could've verbally put the brat into his place, but nope, only way you could deal with problem kids is by killing them, apparently). Of course, she fails to see her own faults. Just like Madame Morrible had "a choice", so had she, as the rightful ruler of Munchkinland, the choice to claim her title and actually help the Animals she claimed to care so much about. So, did she do it? Did she do anything that would actually help anyone in any material way? NO. I don't know if Maguire portrayed her the way he did to mock real life tankies, but that is precisely how I choose to see it, because the dots connect too well. As for Nessarose, our very Wicked Witch of the East, there's no character more ridiculous than her. She's a religious fanatic, ok, fine, sure, whatever. But a religious tyrant? Why, where, how? Has Maguire ever heard of the "show, don't tell" rule?
The Philosophy Club scene was just as horrifying as anyone makes it out to be.... and that's why I liked it so much. It's so horrifying that it becomes fascinating. Though I should say, I hate its follow up, or rather, the lack of a proper follow up. Tibbett is graped by and gets AIDS from a Tiger and the story never focuses on him again. He only gets a paragraph summarizing his final moments and that's it. He doesn't get the chance to voice his own experience, not is anyone else ever acknowledging what he's been through. And no, I'm not counting the short handed remarks during conversations of old friends seeing each other again after a long while as proper handling. I don't care that Maguire's depictions of grape survivors are accurate to the 90's, I wanted him to properly explore his characters' victimhood (this includes Melena). He glamorizes his fanfiction as this deep dive into the nature of evil. Well, evil could also be explored through victims of evil acts and the lasting effects of such acts, no?
The only real silver lining of Wicked was Maguire's purple prose, I genuinely enjoyed his writing and was the only thing that kept me hooked. The pacing was awful, though. But yeah, I think I'll stick with Baum's original work.
I would also recommend watching Dominic Noble's two videos on the book, they provide a lot of good insight:
"I Did Not Enjoy Reading Wicked" https://youtu.be/nwcANKtZkTs?si=gpoN_bEuQgoxQs20
"Wicked ~ Lost in Adaptation (The Book)" https://youtu.be/Vp-s5cpxK00?si=WhPRfo4W-xsF5Ilr
I'll end with this quote:
'The more civilized we become, the more horrendous our entertainments,' said Frex.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Rape