Wicked

I love twists in novels. In my personal life it’s not always so reassuring, but reading about Elphaba, aka the Wicked Witch of the West, in Gregory Maguire’s Wicked, was entrancing. I’ll point out that I read The Wizard of Oz when I was a kid, as well as the rest of the series. It made perfect sense to me after the series why nobody else read more than Oz, but at least I knew.

Even though Wicked was written by a different author, for a different audience, I think I held to some of that skepticism, hence the novel has sat on my shelf for over two years before I picked it up and began to read. Oh well, others have waited longer! And even this was jump-started by watching the movie with my nieces.... Goodness, I haven’t enjoyed a novel so much in such a long while that I can’t even put my finger on the last great reading pleasure. Maybe something of the Harry Potter series, but that really is a long time ago. (Last summer I read an engrossing book by Polkinghorn, but that wasn’t fiction.)

I often tell people that I’m not that into purely invented worlds in literature. I now know that in fact, I am incredibly impressed with fictional realms that are well done. I still don’t see myself becoming a science-fiction fan, but no longer think it’s absurd. Why shouldn’t one consider what it would be to show up in Oz as a green baby? And do great riches make one good in Oz? Or, where is the line between animals and Animals? Do politics entirely shape a person’s life in Oz and can one explain who one is without giving that and one’s religious upbringing a thorough examination?

Well, Elphaba is certainly a bright individual, grasshopper greenness aside. I have enjoyed meeting her and learning of her as much as most heroines I’ve met through the years. The fact that little Dorothy is not so unlike Elphaba is even more reason to consider how worlds collide. However we meet, may we extend abundant grace and forgiveness!