Saturday greetings, fellow book lovers, and welcome. Today marks the end of the first week of the Read-Along of Gregory Maguire's
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. This week's assignment was Part One: The Munchkinlanders. After 6 days of procrastination, I finally sat down and read it this morning, and just finished reading not 30 minutes ago.
Anyway. Follow me below the fold, and I'll "entertain" you with my random-ish thoughts about this book (so far).
In conversation just this morning with a friend, I was talking about my first encounter with the great plains of the midwestern United States. I grew up in the Mojave Desert and have spent much of my life living close to the Pacific Ocean, so I have never felt intimidated by vast expanses, whether of ocean or of desert. But when I was in my mid-twenties, I went with a friend on a vacation to the Black Hills of South Dakota.
The single most lasting memory of that vacation was getting off the plane in Rapid City. Disembarking meant climbing down those portable steps right onto the tarmac, which we did. Once on the ground, I turned around, and was confronted with my first glimpse of the plains, of their seemingly endless vastness. And it freaked me out. I couldn't wait to get out of there and into the safety of the hills.
I'd never figured out why that was, until it occurred to me this morning: there was no transition. I got onto a plane at LAX, flew for a few hours, got off the plane, and bam, I was in the middle of (literally) another world, and it did a number on my head. My second voyage into the great plains was very different; I was driving, and I crossed the Rockies, went through Denver, and then descended into Kansas. I saw it coming, and it didn't bother me at all. Quite the opposite, in fact; I was quite taken with it.
So, the question I'm sure you're asking yourself at this point is, what the hey does this have to do with Wicked? Well, I'm getting to that, but I'm taking the stream-of-consciousness route, so just bear with me. I'll get there.
As I began reading Wicked, particularly the first couple of chapters, I was just not getting into this book. It didn't engage me at all. (Having now finished the first part, I'm feeling a bit more engaged, but I'll come back to that.) So, I was wondering why I wasn't getting into this book, and then I found myself thinking about another book (books, rather) -- the Harry Potter series. And here's what occurred to me: The Harry Potter books are like my second trip to the plains, in that there is transition. JK Rowling does a beautiful job of linking the fantasy world of Hogwarts to the real world. She does it primarily by starting Harry off in the "real world" of Privet Drive; by making him entirely ignorant of the wizard world, and by revealing the wizard world to Harry as it's being revealed to the reader.
Wicked, however, is more like my first trip to the plains; Maguire just drops his readers into a fully realized world, and leaves us to find our own way. This is a perfectly valid literary tactic, but it's a riskier one, because if we're not fully engaged very early on in the narrative, the writer risks losing us entirely. And that's almost what happened to me.
I did finally engage, though, and having finished Part One, I wonder:
- Why is Elphaba the way she is? Is it because of something in her parents' past? Is it something magical that has yet to be revealed? Is it evolutionary? Or is it because she was born in the dragon clock-wagon?
- What is the significance of Elphaba's teeth, and her initial urge to chew on herself?
- Who is Turtle Heart, and why is he introduced in the first part of the book? What is his connection to Elphaba (there certainly seems to be one)? Is he going to end up a major character in this book, or is he more just a device for introducing the theme of rubies into the narrative?
- What is the significance of religion in this book?
- This has been touted by reviewer after reviewer as a political allegory. What are the political themes, if any, that have surfaced in Part One?
Some other just random impressions of the book:
- At least at first, in the first two or three chapters, I found the prose style to be rather clunky and pedantic. Good prose flows, and great prose is downright musical, and my first impression of Maguire's style was that he has a 'tin ear'. A little too broad and overt with the analogies; using the word "like" just a wee bit too much for my taste.
- So far, and with the sole exception of Turtle Heart (and to a limited extent Elphaba) I don't find his characters particularly interesting. Turtle Heart is the most interesting so far, because he's the only one who has (IMO) his own voice. Elphaba is interesting because she is, as we all know, the central character, and because she is at this point still a complete mystery.
So, I am not wild about Maguire's writing style, and I'm not wild about the characters (yet, anyway). So what do I like, so far?
I dunno. I'm curious enough to want to know what happens next. I guess I'm relying on the plot to carry me through this book, and I'm hoping that the world of Oz as imagined by Maguire is going to become more fully realized as we go along. So, I'm gonna hang in there.
Before opening this up to comments, a couple of, you know, boring things.
- In order to try to keep the spoilage to a minimum, I'm now going to open the floor to discussion of each week's reading at the end of the week, not the beginning, which is why we're discussing Part One today. The presumption is that everyone has now read Part One, and if you haven't, proceed at your own risk.
- Again, to try to keep spoilage down, please don't leap ahead to future events in the book as part of this discussion. And if you absolutely must do so in order to make a coherent point, please warn us by putting the word(s) "Spoiler" or "Possible Spoiler" in your subject line. This does not apply to speculation, obviously, but it does apply to anyone who's read ahead and knows more than the rest of us do.
So. What about you? What do you think so far? And don't restrict yourself to the questions/issues I've raised - the floor is wide open.
Next week: We'll be discussing Part Two of Wicked. Same Bat-Time, same Bat-Channel.
Happy reading!