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ceallaighsbooks 's review for:

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
5.0
adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven: A mix
Strong character development: Yes
Loveable characters: Complicated
Diverse cast of characters: Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes
“‘But maybe there’s something to what you say,’ said Elphaba. ‘I mean, evil and boredom. Evil and ennui. Evil and the lack of stimulation. Evil and sluggish blood.’
     ‘You’re writing a poem, it sounds like. Why ever would a girl be interested in evil?’
     ‘I’m not interested in it. It’s just what the early sermons are all on about. So I’m thinking about what they’re thinking about, that’s all. Sometimes they talk about diet and not eating Animals, and then I think of that. I just like to think about what I’m reading. Don’t you?’
     ‘I don’t read very well. So I don’t think I think very well either.’ Galinda smiled. ‘I dress to kill, though.’” 
 
author: Gregory Maguire 
published: 1995 
publisher: HarperCollins 
 
genre: literary fantasy—Wizard of Oz retelling 
setting: Oz 
main themes/subjects: goodness vs wickedness, religion vs sorcery, nursery rhymes, mothering, boarding school, evangelism & missionary work, fascism (with economic exploitation, ecocide, & racist scapegoating—PLEASE forgive me that unintentional-i-*swear* pun omg 🫣), everything is political, atheism & anarchy, forgiveness & familial guilt, home & belonging, fierce femmes: mother, maiden, crone, midwife, nanny, lover, headmistress, chaperone, nun, hag, matriarch, goddess, witch, auntie, tyrant… legends & mythology, fate & regret, the agency of children 
representation: polyamory, disability, characters of color (i swear i’m not doing this on purpose: Fiyero & Turtle Heart are non-white characters…) 
tropes: magic school, anarchist revolution, magical objects 
 
blurbs: 
“Amazing novel.” — John Updike 
 
“But even with these effects of light and atmosphere, the midwives couldn’t deny what they saw. Beneath the spit of the mother’s fluids the infant glistened a scandalous shade of pale emerald.” 
 
my thoughts: 
Some context for this review: I am a huge Gregory Maguire fan. After Helen Oyeyemi & Akwaeke Emezi, he is my favorite favorite author of all time. I have read all of his books for adults—except for the Wicked series. I purposefully saved his most popular books for last. It’s been six years since I read my first Maguire book (Hiddensee in 2018) & I have finally read book one of The Wicked Years. 
 
I was somewhat familiar with the musical adaptation going in. I also read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz directly before picking up Maguire’s retelling. & I grew up watching the 1939 film (it was my mother’s favorite movie). I still was not prepared for what Wicked, the book, actually ended up being: an incredibly dark, devastating, & gut wrenchingly beautiful story of the plight of everyday people, their sense of self, their individuality, their souls in the face of economic & sociocultural fascism. The depth into which Maguire explored themes like love, mothering, religion, spirituality, polyamory, abolition, anti-capitalism, anarchic revolution, forgiveness, fate, free will, & the “purpose” of any one individual life or the effect one can have on the events of the world around them, was absolutely brilliant. 
 
In fact, the last book of Maguire’s that I had read just before coming to Wicked was his Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister which was similarly broad & deep in its thematic explorations & Wicked went toe-to-toe with that one. I was also particularly astonished & impressed by how unique & original this book felt in all aspects from the characters & the story itself, to the language, the world-building, the way magic & mystery, & the school & the abbey & the castle were all crafted—just everything about it felt new (indeed I couldn’t even think of any non-Maguire-authored comps to include in my “further reading” section!) which is especially surprising to find in a retelling. Author Philip Pullman acknowledged this as well in his blurb for the book: “Maguire did something truly remarkable with this novel, in managing to inhabit, enlarge, deepen and find new dimensions in a world that had been invented by another writer, and in doing so make something entirely new. It’s an astonishing achievement.” 
 
Elphaba’s primary motivation is to “do good” to be good, to cause no one harm, & to oppose the systems & people who do cause harm. Throughout the book she experiences injustices—that so often feel senseless & inevitable—both against herself & those she cares about, & sees horrible people left unscathed & even rewarded (i.e. become prosperous, popular, outwardly satisfied with their life, wealthy, etc.) to the point where she cannot even conceive of what real justice might look like or in what kind of a world such a think might be possible. 
 
“Elphaba didn’t wait to be called on. She stood up in the balcony and launched her answer out in a clear, strong voice. ‘Doctor Nikidik, the question you asked was who can tell if this is an Animal or an animal. It seems to me the answer is that its mother can. Where is its mother?’” 
 
Something was especially impactful & propitious about this reading was how much it resonated with the present moment. Reading about the Gale Force & their terrorizing campaigns against the Quadlings, & the Animals, & the Winkies was word-for-word the kinds of things we are hearing about what is being done right now by the IOF to Palestinians, or by the RSF to the people of Sudan, particularly of the Darfur region, & by the police forces of western nations to their Black, Indigenous, & immigrant communities. (See my expanded quotes & annotations for more on this, below.) 
 
It was also pretty dissonant to see sooo many corporations (T-Mobile, KIA, Target, Starbucks, I think there was even an insurance company whose commercials I was seeing for it? not to mention all the merch tie-ins with Crocs, OPI, Forever 21, Aerie, etc. etc.) involved in the marketing for the new (Nov 2024) film adaptation when the book is all about being critical of & showing the inherent evils of systems like capitalism, pseudopopulism, & consumerism—even Baum’s original series was largely based on these themes! (See my review for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz here.) 
 
“‘The real thing about evil,’ said the Witch at the doorway, ‘isn’t any of what you said. You figure out one side of it—the human side, say—and the eternal side goes into shadow. Or vice versa. It’s like the old saw: What does a dragon in its shell look like? Well no one can ever tell, for as soon as you break the shell to see, the dragon is no longer in its shell. The real disaster of this inquiry is that it is the nature of evil to be secret.’” 
 
On the one hand it’s pretty sinister to see the very entities against which these books are fighting co-opt their stories in the service of high capitalist marketing & merchandizing campaigns directed towards memorabilia- & other middle & upper class swag-collectors, BUT—& this was my first thought / reaction—it is also rather heartening to see such a selection of books being given this amount of attention & seeing this amount of effort being put in to making sure as many people go see this movie as possible BECAUSE then, maybe?, they’ll go read the book? And get radicalized?? 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻🤣 I, like Baum, choose to remain an optimist to the end of my days. 
 
i would recommend this book to readers who love expansive & subversive retellings of classic stories, the “villain’s” side of the story type retellings, & books with strong sociopolitical themes—especially re: justice/injustice—& explorations of the complexity of the sentient animal (incl. human) experience—particularly re: mothering, feminist power (for good & evil), conformity, revolution, forgiveness, guilt, fate, & agency. this book is best read intentionally; it’s a hefty one & it gets real deep, but the payoff is well worth it. 
 
“She had swathed herself in long dark skirts, like some sort of a religious woman, and tucked up her hair inside a tall wide-brimmed hat with a crown like a cone… The decades—Fiyero thought, in love with her or at least so frightened for her that he could mistake it for love—the decades looked on and didn’t notice her passing. They stared from their fixed mounts across at each other and didn’t see revolution striding between them, on her way to destiny.” 
 
final note: As of today (Dec 2024) I still have not seen the new movie adaptation (I can’t go to theaters for health reasons) but I’m also actually debating waiting until part two is out before watching part one? So I can watch them together? I’m fairly certain I will do this but we’ll see! However I am ecstatic about all the rave reviews I have been hearing about it. I literally have not heard one bad thing about it at all, even from folks I know who will always find something to complain about, they’re all basically saying this movie left them in tears. Gah even typing that I felt my resolve to wait until part two is out weaken so—stay tuned! I may cave. 🤣 
 
final final note: oh! I almost forgot to mention, in the 25th anniversary edition of the book there is an “afterword” by Gregory Maguire that is super interesting! The library ebook I was reading had it but none of my hard copy editions have it & I even have the latest edition so… idk which physical book actually has it… 
 
“Frex was the seventh son of a seventh son, and to add to that powerful equation he was descended from six ministers in a row. Whatever child of either (or any) sex could dare follow in so auspicious a line?
     Perhaps, thought Nanny, little green Elphaba chose her own sex, and her own color, and to hell with her parents.” 
 
CW // child abuse & death, violent deaths, Animal (& animal) cruelty & death, murder, religious zealotry 
spice level: 🌶️🌶️ 
season: Mabon 
 
further reading: 
 
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Check out my review on StopAndSmellTheBooks.com for more of my favorite quotes & additional thoughts & annotations.
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