Product Description

When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum's classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil?

Gregory Maguire creates a fantasy world so rich and vivid that we will never look at Oz the same way again. Wicked is about a land where animals talk and strive to be treated like first-class citizens, Munchkinlanders seek the comfort of middle-class stability and the Tin Man becomes a victim of domestic violence. And then there is the little green-skinned girl named Elphaba, who will grow up to be the infamous Wicked Witch of the West, a smart, prickly and misunderstood creature who challenges all our preconceived notions about the nature of good and evil.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #957 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-01
• Released on: 2007-09-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 560 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780061350962
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

From Publishers Weekly
Born with green skin and huge teeth, like a dragon, the free-spirited Elphaba grows up to be an anti-totalitarian agitator, an animal-rights activist, a nun, then a nurse who tends the dying?and, ultimately, the headstrong Wicked Witch of the West in the land of Oz. Maguire's strange and imaginative postmodernist fable uses L. Frank Baum's Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a springboard to create a tense realm inhabited by humans, talking animals (a rhino librarian, a goat physician), Munchkinlanders, dwarves and various tribes. The Wizard of Oz, emperor of this dystopian dictatorship, promotes Industrial Modern architecture and restricts animals' right to freedom of travel; his holy book is an ancient manuscript of magic that was clairvoyantly located by Madam Blavatsky 40 years earlier. Much of the narrative concerns Elphaba's troubled youth (she is raised by a giddy alcoholic mother and a hermitlike minister father who transmits to her his habits of loathing and self-hatred) and with her student years. Dorothy appears only near novel's end, as her house crash-lands on Elphaba's sister, the Wicked Witch of the East, in an accident that sets Elphaba on the trail of the girl from Kansas?as well as the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman and the Lion?and her fabulous new shoes. Maguire combines puckish humor and bracing pessimism in this fantastical meditation on good and evil, God and free will, which should, despite being far removed in spirit from the Baum books, captivate devotees of fantasy. 50,000 first printing; $75,000 ad/promo; first serial to Word; author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
YA?Elphaba, the future Wicked Witch of the West, has gotten a bum rap. Her mother is embarrassed and repulsed by her bright-green baby with shark's teeth and an aversion to water. At college, the coed experiences disapproval and rejection by her roommate, Glinda, a silly girl interested only in clothes, money, and popularity. Elphaba is a serious and inquisitive student. When she learns that the Wizard of Oz is politically corrupt and causing economic ruin, Elphaba finds a sense of purpose to her life?to stop him and to restore harmony and prosperity to the land. A Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, Scarecrow, and an unknown species called a "Dorothy" appear in very small roles... The story presents Elphaba in a sympathetic and empathetic manner-readers will want her to triumph! The conclusion, however, is the same as L. Frank Baum's. The book has both idealism and cynicism in its discussion of social, religious, educational, and political issues present in Oz, and, more pointedly, present in our day and time. The idealism is whimsical and engaging; the cynicism is biting. Sometimes the earthy language seems appropriate and adds to the sense of place; sometimes the four-letter words and sexual explicitness distract from the charm of the tale. The multiple threads to the plot proceed unevenly, so that the pace of the story jumps rather than moves steadily forward. Wicked is not an easy rereading of The Wizard of Oz. It is for good readers who like satire, and love exceedingly imaginative and clever fantasy.?Judy Sokoll, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"... [a] magical telling of the land of Oz before and up to the arrival of Dorothy and company.... A captivating, funny, and perceptive look at destiny, personal responsibility, and the not-always-clashing beliefs of faith and magic. Save a place on the shelf between Alice and The Hobbit that spot is well deserved." -- Kirkus Reviews

"A magnificent work, a genuine tour de force." -- --Lloyd Alexander, author of the Chronicles of Prydain

"An outstanding work of imagination." -- --USA Today

"It is for good readers who like satire, and love exceedingly imaginative and clever fantasy." -- School Library Journal

"A magnificent work, a genuine tour de force." -- Lloyd Alexander, author of the Chronicles of Prydain

"An outstanding work of imagination." -- USA Today

"Children - children of all ages, as Maguire reminds us in this splendid novel - need witches. Gregory Maguire has taken this figure of childhood fantasy and given her a sensual and powerful nature that will stir adult hearts with fear and longing all over again. It's a brilliant trick - and a remarkable treat." -- The Times-Picayune

"It is for good readers who like satire, and love exceedingly imaginative and clever fantasy." -- School Library Journal

"It's a staggering feat of wordcraft, made no less so by the fact that its boundaries were set decades ago by somebody else. Maguire's larger triumph here is twofold: First, in Elphaba, he has created (re-created? renovated?) one of the great heroines in fantasy literature: a fiery, passionate, unforgettable and ultimately tragic figure. Second, Wicked is the best fantasy novel of ideas I've read since Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast or Frank Herbert's Dune. Would that all books with this much innate consumer appeal were also this good. And vice versa." -- Los Angeles Times

"Listen up, Munchkins. Stop your singing, stop the dancing. The Wicked Witch is no longer dead. But not to worry. Gregory Maguire's shrewdly imagined and beautifully written first novel, "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West," not only revives her but re-envisions and redeems her for our times." -- Newsday

Customer Reviews

Raises disturbing questions about nature of evil
If you can find a better bang for the buck than Wicked, please let me know. I picked up Wicked, knowing nothing except that its subject matter was the Wicked Witch of the West, to be drawn immediately into Maguire's splendidly imagined world of sentient animals, multiple societies, and unique physical laws. Wicked is an enthralling, great read, hugely entertaining. On top of all this, Maguire has Bradbury's gift for creating atmosphere. The pages are heavy with dark, mysterious magic; its moral laws are ultimately incomprehensible.

Apparently doomed at conception, Elphaba is a truly terrifying infant. Razor-toothed and preternaturally intelligent, she is shunned from birth as a freak and a curse. She is nonetheless the tale's most complex, human, and compelling character, possessed of high moral sense and great courage. But neither of these qualities enables a single one of her brave, ethical actions to succeed. What are we to conclude from this?

How is it that Dorothy, the sturdy little nobody from nowhere who committed manslaughter as she landed in Oz, skips down the Yellow Brick Road impervious to danger while Elphaba strives and plots to reap only negative results?

Why is one protected while the other is doomed? Read Wicked and you will learn how the witch's monkeys became winged, where the rubies for those slippers came from, and, indeed, why the witch's skin was green. But you will wrestle, long afterward, with Maguire's moral pessimism and the snarl of grace and doom that underlies this novel. I know I will.

WICKED GOOD!
If you go into this story with expectations of a retelling of the classic "Wizard of Oz", then you may be disappointed...but enter with an open mind and a desire to be fully entertained, you'll find yourself incredibly satisfied by the end of this "Wicked"-good book.

Gregory Maguire sets out on an ambitious journey into the story that we grew up with, but by giving it a clever twist and fleshing out the characters we never got to know in the original. Yes, we all know about Dorothy and her annoying little dog...the twister, the house... But, how much were we told about how Oz came to be, or Munchkinland, or the Wizard himself? We were expected to accept these places and things as they were, without any explanation, and as kids, we did. We accepted that Glinda was the good witch and that the Wicked Witch of the West was evil...but why? Well, when you read "Wicked", you get the story, warts and all! You find that perhaps the Wicked Witch of the West (born Elphaba) wasn't entirely acting out of pure evil at all, nor was Glinda acting on behalf of all that's good. You find that perhaps there was a lot more going on in that particular world than you ever imagined...but luckily for all of us, Maguire does an excellent job of imagining it for us! The politics, the treachery, the origin of The Wiz himself...all of this included in this highly readable, immensely likeable book!

Don't start it expecting to read another take on Dorothy or her adventure in the "wonderful Land of Oz". She doesn't even enter into the picture until the very end! What you will find is an incredibly imagined story, for adults, that you'll find yourself thinking about for a long time after you've finished reading it!

Be prepared for the literal.
After hearing so many sparkling comments and reading stellar reviews, I was eager to begin Gregory Maguire's novel, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. As I began the story about little Elphaba and her promiscuous mother, her zealous father and the world they lived in, I waited patiently to get to the meat of the story, and the history of a timeless character. Unfortunately, I waited, and waited, and then finally reached the back cover and realised I was still waiting!

Even early on, I had trouble connecting with a single character. I found myself not really caring what happened to any of them, but I pressed on. As I did, it became clear that the reason I felt so disconnected was that the characters were equally disconnected. There was no feeling, no devotion, no love, no admiration, no hatred, no disgust. I knew that people were friends because I was told. I knew that Elphaba felt kindly towards Galinda because it was in black and white in front of me. Relationships came forth like Juno from the brow of Zeus; no development of any kind, simply born whole and unquestioned.

And Love. Love, the fifth element (if I may be so bold), has no boundaries and follows no set rules. But it has to be nurtured as it's as delicate as it is strong. All true loves are disected and picked apart in an attempt to see how they work. Not so with Elphaba and Fiyero. They simply love. We don't get the chance to know about that first flutter in Elphaba's breast, or the stirring in Fiyero's heart. We have no opportunity to question his infidelity with Elphie, but not with his sisters-in-law. What about this woman makes her so special to him? We'll never know.

Nor will we ever understand how Nessarose, the much loved younger sister, is displayed as a tyrant in her world. One moment she is giving out awards at some public event (a very untyrantlike thing to do I add), and the next moment she is a splat on the pavement with a house on her head. Her shoes, her blessed shoes, red and glinting in the sun, a symbol of...what? We're not sure. Certainly the wizard could tell us, but he doesn't.

On and on the story goes, dropping characters in willy nilly without so much as a blurb about their importance. We never meet Shell, the youngest and most complete sibling. Nor do we get a firm sense of Liir and the other (more legitimate) children that Fiyero fathered. And while the subject is touched on, no real reason for HOW the Wicked Witch of the West became just that is ever given.

What we are given is a healthy dose of politics. Politics that go no where, and compare to nothing.

Over all this novel reads like a poorly written assignment handed in by a college freshman who has no experience to draw on or emotions to invest.

"Class, today you will select a person from literary history and give them a new life! Make it 300+ pages, to be handed in by semesters end. Hop to it."

At the end of the day, I felt no richer for having read this book and appalled that it had gained so much praise. But then I felt perhaps some of the blame had been my own. The title is: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. It implies a straightforward, telling of the happenings and events in this one characters world. It was simply my mistake to assume I'd discover a vibrant flesh and blood character brought to life in these pages.

I've learned my lesson. You can tell a book by it's cover, or in this case, it's title.