Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

[February 2010]

**********
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Gregory Maguire

number of voters: 5
percentage of voters who finished the book: 80
highest rating: 4.75
lowest rating: 3
average rating: 4.05

percentage of readers who, with knowledge of both, preferred the musical to the book: 100

*****

And so I find myself once again in the unenviable position of writing a recap of a discussion about a book that I did not read—a book that, after a handful of excruciating pages, I could not stand even an attempt at reading. I recognized these storybook names—the munchkins, the wicked witch of the west—and these fantastical faces—squat and plump, a ripe shade of green—but everything else was foreign and, to be honest, a bit nauseating.

And so I left it to others, far more brave than I, to tackle this doorstop of a novel. Maybe they would see something in it that I could not or did not want to see.

Not so much.

To summarize the words of those brave readers: The author was trying too hard and trying to fit too much in. There was no flow to the story, which jumped around way too much. It was too political. There were no redeeming qualities in the characters, who were thus simply unlikable. There was too much happening and not enough depth. The author shot for “epic” and didn’t pull it off.

But maybe there was something there that none of us could quite see. It was, after all, a brilliant idea, completely original (that is, if you discount the fact that the novel is based on someone else’s work), and asked some interesting questions (for example, how do our experiences shape us?). It’s up to the individual reader to decide whether this smattering of qualities is worth wading through such prolific misery.

To make a long story short, which perhaps the author himself should have considered, we did not really like it, we would not recommend it, and we wished we’d spent the time going to the musical instead.