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Did ya'll ever discuss Gregory Maguire's novel Wicked here at Hatrack? I searched but didn't find anything.
There are discussion questions at the end of the novel but I can't find any intelligent discussion of them online anywhere (esp. the Gregory Maguire bb).
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I've read it and enjoyed it. I also have the soundtrack from the musical. It's wonderful but very different from the book from what I can tell. I haven't seen the play.
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It was okay, although a lot of it's luster was diminished with the thoroughly disappointing sequel "Son of a Witch".
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Yes, I know several people who have seen the musical version of Wicked and it apparently has a happy ending - so very different from the book.
I take it from HumanTarget's reply that Son of a Witch doesn't answer any vital questions raised from the first book?
Like why is Elphaba green??? I know Melena fooled around with the Wizard and seems to have drank from the green bottle of Miracle Elixir that he has. But what's that all about?
Posts: 874 | Registered: Oct 1999
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I read it after it came very, very highly recommended. I listened to Son of a Witch on CD. While I thought Wicked was ok (not great, but not the worst thing I've ever spent time reading), Son of a Witch was just...bad.
Posts: 4077 | Registered: Jun 2003
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I agree that for me Wicked was just okay. The back of the book made it seem like it would be some great analysis of the nature of evil. Instead we have a character who never actually accomplishes anything. She leads a sad, pathetic life and in the end dies an ignoble death. The message of the book seems to be that imcompetence = wickedness. This may very well be true some of the time, but it wasn't quite what I was looking for from the book.
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I liked the book a lot, but I haven't read it in awhile. I'm going to see the show in about a month and I'm really looking forward to it despite the fact that it's very different.
That's too bad that Son of a Witch is bad; my mom brought it home from the library for me to read, but now I'm not sure I want to. Maguire's other books were ok - Mirror, Mirror and the Cinderella one, but I don't think any of them were as good as Wicked.
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I've enjoyed all the Maguire books, but I think that my favorite is "Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister".
Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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I hated this book. It seemed badly done in every way. For some reason, I read it to the bitter end, but I hated it even more. He left so many things undone at the end. Was that just so he could write a bad sequel?
Hm. I suppose I'm not contributing to the discussion. Sorry, I'll run away.
Posts: 6415 | Registered: Jul 2000
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I thought it was brilliant, and maybe one of the best books I've read in the last ten years. With the violence, and the sex, and the implied bestiality, and the way the Wizard of Oz is portrayed as a bumbling governer who has to be stopped because he's effing up the liberties of Animals and raping the natural resources of the land.... Geez. Who ever had the idea of treating Oz as if it were a real place? It's a genius move. And I didn't think it could have been handled any better.
Posts: 2267 | Registered: May 2005
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I have tickets to see Wicked (the musical) in May. My husband and I were planning to read the book prior to attending the musical. Neither of us know much about it other than we'd heard the musical is fantastic and is based on a book. Am I to gather from this thread that it isn't worth the time?
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The book seems to provoke widely mixed reactions. That's what I take from this thread, anyway.
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quote:Originally posted by sweetbaboo: I have tickets to see Wicked (the musical) in May. My husband and I were planning to read the book prior to attending the musical. Neither of us know much about it other than we'd heard the musical is fantastic and is based on a book. Am I to gather from this thread that it isn't worth the time?
Well, if you are anything like me don't read the book until after you see the play or you'll just sit there picking apart how different the play is and may not enjoy it as much. From what I've heard the play is fantastic and less strange than the book. I enjoyed the book a great deal but I can see how others would not.
Posts: 37 | Registered: Oct 2005
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The musical is supposed to be fabulous even if it is very different from the novel. I don't think you need to read the novel before seeing the musical. In fact, maybe best not to do so. Read it after.
Okay, some like it, some don't.
The Wizard was very bumbling in the original Wizard of Oz film, but in the book he seems much more insidious.
Still, I think there is "supposed to be" some significance to Elphaba's green skin and those killer baby teeth that she is born having. That's what I'm hoping to hear your opinions of ....
Posts: 874 | Registered: Oct 1999
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The musical IS awesome. It's just very different from the novel, much as movie adaptations are often very different.
as for Elphie's skin and teeth, there are references in a couple places in the novel to a curse uttered while Melena was pregnant with Elphie (and of course the curse itself), and there's the green elixir deal, but I don't remember it being absolutely answered one way or the other.
And I'll agree with KEGE, don't read in anticipation of the musical. I'd read a few years prior and had pretty much forgotten details that otherwise would have had me muttering in my seat for 3 hours.
Posts: 4515 | Registered: Jul 2004
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Actually, I read the thing a few years ago. I was visiting San Francisco when I saw a sign for the musical. I was totally thrown. I figured it would make as good a stage musical as Carrie did.
The book was incredibly dark. But it was a cool take on things. It reminded me just a little bit of A Barnstormer in Oz.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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quote:Originally posted by starLisa: Wow... they made a novel out of it?
Yeah. I hear that they also made books out of Lord of the Rings and The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.Posts: 10397 | Registered: Jun 2005
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How cool! Though I'm betting that The Lord of the Rings makes a spectacularly boring book. Great movies, though.
Posts: 12266 | Registered: Jul 2005
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Try the novelization of Les Miserables based on the Broadway play. This guy Hugo Victor does a half decent job.
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First of all, the music from Wicked is perfect. I haven't seen it, but I adore the soundtrack. It's so wonderfully different than the book.
On to the novel itself. I think Maguire did a brilliant job of setting the story up, but once he had to make his story fit the traditional Oz story, he floundered. Everything seemed too forced. I was thoroughly disappointed with the entire second half.
Posts: 866 | Registered: Aug 2005
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I don't remember a curse Melena uttered that relates to Elphaba being green.
Goody - do you recall where in the novel it's mentioned? (a page no. would be ideal but I won't ask for that)
Posts: 874 | Registered: Oct 1999
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Frex' comment about the Time Dragon ("evil is coming") in the very first chapter and Melena's reaction to it. And then just after Elphie is born when she bites a finger off one of the midwives ("What a child, that sips blood even before its first suck of mother's milk") And I know the Time Dragon thing is referred to a couple more times before she goes off to Shiz.
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