Wicked: Revisited

Title: Wicked

Author: Gregory McGuire

Genre: I forgot the genre on my last review of this, but I am not quite sure what it would be. Fantasy, definitely, but I am not sure of what else.

Description: The life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West. I suppose.

All right, now that that is all out of the way, I would like to treat you readers to the view of another distinguished reader. I received an email from this reader, who has, unlike me, finished this book and here is what they think: (ta-da!)

Dear Raindrop,
I finished Wicked. This is an adult book. Lots of promiscuous sex. Lots of boring political talk. Plenty of nasty violence. And some philosophical discussions on the nature of evil.

I picked out what I thought I would use to make this into a musical. Then we printed up the 18 pages that are available on Wikipedia so I could compare my ideas to reality. Well, I was wrong. Entirely. I guess it hadn't occurred to me that the musical would just use the idea of telling The Wizard of Oz from a different point of view than Dorothy's, and then just take the names and some of the personalities from Wicked and entirely rewrite the book. People who die in the book do not die in the musical. People important to the plot in the book never appear in the musical. The nature of evil is never particularly addressed. Some of the better dramatic moments in the book (that could translate well to a musical) are never used.

From the description, it sounds like the music is all one song instead of separate songs for separate characters or events. This reminds me of Willy Russel's Blood Brothers (which I really like and have seen twice in London, by the way, in different years), where all the songs are different words to what is basically the same tune. Unifying, I guess. Though I am more attuned to a structure like South Pacific or Oklahoma, what the Wikipedia article calls a leit motif for each character.

So, where the book is X and R rated, the musical sounds like it is pretty generally G, and I think that is fine. Probably it is a better musical than it is a book. The book took forever to read (406 pages and not a masterpiece of writing) and I thought a lot of it was sad if not totally disgusting--and I wondered how the musical would deal with that. The answer is: it doesn't deal with it at all. It leaves it out.
-JCF

Thanks to our reviewer!! I hope you readers are all intrigued to go see the musical, but to put the book in up in the attic or the dumpster (anyplace will do) and pick up the Willoughbys(review coming soon). Here is my quick response:

From my experiences, I would say that all of Gregory McGuire's books are mainly for adults. I tried reading Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, (it was a birthday present from a friend when I turned 9 or 10) but it is along the same lines as Wicked. I think kids look at the book and think, "Wow, the true story of the Wicked Witch of the West. That sounds really cool." Well, guess again. They may also believe the book is like the musical. One of my sister's friends gave Wicked to her on her 10th birthday. Gregory McGuire's books must make good birthday presents, but they are not totally great as reading books.