55 Pages: Day One Hundred and Forty-Three

8/23

The Book: Wicked by Gregory Maguire

ISBN: 978-0-06-135096-2

Suggested By: Sissy Vaughn

Where: Home

When: 10-11P

Music: None

Company: The Family

Pages: 456- 519(63)

The Lead In: Looking at this book, deciding to just smash it out tonight.

The 411 on the 55: So the story ends the way you would expect it to end. Elphaba returns to her castle, awaiting the arrival of Dorothy and her group of travelers. Of course, they arrive, hijinks ensue and the Witch is killed with a flying bucket of water.

The 20/20: When I mentioned I would be reading Wicked, someone said “I can’t wait to see what you think of it!” I’m not sure if they were just looking for me to bash it or love it. So this is what I think of Wicked: the book was an interesting but I’m not crazy about it. It seems to be much ado about nothing. The story is Baum’s and Maguire just gave substance to secondary characters. Is it that groundbreaking? Not to me. It was funny, witty and irreverent, but in this era of cheap plastic throw-away books this doesn't stand out as unique. Maybe that thought was disjointed. I’m trying to say that the Wizard of Oz didn’t need to be retold, it’s a classic for a reason. If you retell the story and flavor it with a bunch of aspects that the original never included, I think you weaken it. Sort of like the Manga Bible. Or Pop-Up Moby-Dick. This modern world cheapens everything, and maybe Baum’s classic would have been better off without a rewriting.

Line of the Day: “The body apologizes to the soul for its errors, and the soul asks forgiveness for squatting in the body without invitation.” pg 514

Fact on the Fiction: Oh yeah, check it out. Manga Bible!