Madie's Margins, I think this book broke me- Wicked

Okay, everyone, say it with me now, “What the actual heck Gregory Maguire?”

I think enough time has passed since the release of the movies based on a musical based on a book pretending to be based on a book but is actually based on a movie based on a musical based on a book for me to talk about “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West,” or just “Wicked,” by the aforementioned Gregory Maguire.

In good faith, I cannot recommend this book to lovers of the Wicked movies, the Wicked musical, “The Wizard of Oz” or anyone really. That’s not to say the novel isn’t worth anything, that’s not even to say I hated it. There were certainly parts of it that I hated, and then there were parts I actually found interesting, even loved. The problem is I don’t know how to reconcile all of these parts into a solid position. Instead, I sit here typing this, wondering, “What on earth, Gregory, what on earth is wrong with you?”

This review will contain spoilers—you've been warned!

Let’s start off with a talk about some issues I have with Maguire’s book.

Firstly, he’s simply doing too much. As I was reading through the first part of five, I wondered if I was too dumb for “Wicked,” because I just couldn’t figure out what Maguire was trying to say.

After a while, though, I realized the problem was how the book was trying to say so many things at once. Maguire tried to play in the sandboxes of religion, morality, oppression, sexism, racism, implicit and explicit bias, sexuality, politics, corruption, identity, destiny vs. will, forgiveness and so on all at the same time. There were some moments when I could really feel the gravity of these subjects and when I was legitimately moved, but there were also moments where I couldn’t keep straight what related to what theme.

I was also really uncomfortable with the sheer amount of unnecessary and disturbing material, perfectly encapsulated in the Philosophy Club scene, which I don’t really want to write about, but it is truly disgusting and is not relevant to the plot. How Maguire came up with this is beyond me, but I can tell you that this is the point at which many stop reading, for good reason. Just, ew. Ew ew ew EW. I feel like Gregory Maguire was really chasing shock value rather than any sort of deeper meaning in moments like this.

Moving on, thank goodness, while I never found the book boring, the pacing was all over the place. Some bits were very rushed; others wandered away from the plot only to suddenly snap back to the main plot. For example, Elphaba spent seven years in a nunnery situation. It had some interesting bits, but it was mostly just a mega-tangent.

Anyways, there’s this very strange, dark, absurdist, gross, satire situation, and it’s doing too much, and it gives me the ick, and the pacing meanders, but boy did it make me feel something at the end. The fifth and final part somehow tied everything together in a really impactful way, and I actually started feeling very emotional; now I don’t know how I feel about the book as a whole.

Wicked was bad, an open and close hate read, and now you have to evoke this strange beauty.We see Elphaba yearning to finally just give up on stopping the wizard, give up her unexplained hope over her sister’s shoes, give up her unresolved guilt over her lover’s death and to just have a soul instead. More than justice, hope and forgiveness, Elphaba wants a soul, and what is a soul anyways, in this context? The novel ends after Elphaba’s water-induced manslaughter with a callback to a bedtime story, one about the defeat of a witch. The audience asks if the Witch is ever going to return, if there will be an ever to her after. “Not yet.” I was stunned, I was reeling, I was awed. Then, I snapped back out of it.

I’m so confused as to how Maguire conceived “Wicked,” why Stephen Schwartz read it and decided to whimsy-ify it into a hit musical and how I can simultaneously hate and love it at the same time.

After much puzzling, I cannot definitively rate this book, which I find impressive in its own way. What is more fitting for a book about ambiguity to have an ambiguous review?

Congratulations, Gregory Maguire, you have stumped me, you strange man.

All there is left to say is that “Wicked” is a work of art.You don’t have to like art, but you do need to recognize it. In my opinion, “Wicked” is no masterpiece, but it sure is something, and I thank you for letting me ramble on.

I’ll be back next week, hopefully with a bit more sanity.