His wicked WICKED ways....

Okay, here's an actual question for the gallery.

In the midst of numerous other projects -- some paying, some holiday-related, some just there -- I have become involved in a local book group whose current assignment is Gregory Maguire's Wicked, the much-promoted yarn usually described as "Oz from the Wicked Witch of the West's point of view".

I had not previously read the book despite a long-standing interest in Oz, and am presently about halfway through (just getting to the Winkie Country section), and have been wondering almost from the start what the heck the fuss has been about, because so far as I can tell, Maguire's book has nothing save some of the names to do with anything Ozian. Nor do I quite see what Maguire's narrative purpose/agenda is apart from the Oz connection, and I'm far enough into the story that surely something ought to have surfaced by now. And in light of the recent wave of discussions about fanfic, slash, and related topics, this has me severely puzzled.

Certainly Wicked is not parody in either of the usual senses -- it is not remotely funny in the way of humorous parody, and it introduces much too much new/independent material to operate as parody in the more literary sense. I don't see how it can operate as satire, because my understanding of satire as applied to existing works is that it's supposed to illuminate, challenge, or ridicule the work being satirized -- and again, there's just too little correspondence between the source material and Maguire's landscape to make comparison useful. (There's also the problem of what he might be satirizing; most of the content is lifted from Baum's books, but key elements not in the books are also borrowed from the 1939 film, most notably Elphaba's green skin.) Nor is Wicked an homage or pastiche, as the former is supposed to honor the spirit of the original and the usual purpose of the latter is to emulate or extend the canon, not to warp it.

But what that leaves one with is fanfic, and way-out-in-left-field alternate universe fanfic at that. I seem to remember a bizarre variant universe called "Kraith" popping up in early Star Trek fanfic; the closest I can come to pigeonholing Wicked is as "Kraith Oz". And that seems awfully, awfully weird for a professionally published novel that has spawned a popular musical and given its author his own market niche.

So, three questions. (1) Am I the only one to find Wicked so spectacularly overhyped? (2) For those who claim to understand the book, what is Maguire up to, anyway? (3) Does looking at Wicked as fanfic give anybody any clues as to how the fanfic/profic universes intersect, or don't? (And if it is fanfic, what kind of fanfic is it?)

His wicked WICKED ways....

Okay, here's an actual question for the gallery.

In the midst of numerous other projects -- some paying, some holiday-related, some just there -- I have become involved in a local book group whose current assignment is Gregory Maguire's Wicked, the much-promoted yarn usually described as "Oz from the Wicked Witch of the West's point of view".

I had not previously read the book despite a long-standing interest in Oz, and am presently about halfway through (just getting to the Winkie Country section), and have been wondering almost from the start what the heck the fuss has been about, because so far as I can tell, Maguire's book has nothing save some of the names to do with anything Ozian. Nor do I quite see what Maguire's narrative purpose/agenda is apart from the Oz connection, and I'm far enough into the story that surely something ought to have surfaced by now. And in light of the recent wave of discussions about fanfic, slash, and related topics, this has me severely puzzled.

Certainly Wicked is not parody in either of the usual senses -- it is not remotely funny in the way of humorous parody, and it introduces much too much new/independent material to operate as parody in the more literary sense. I don't see how it can operate as satire, because my understanding of satire as applied to existing works is that it's supposed to illuminate, challenge, or ridicule the work being satirized -- and again, there's just too little correspondence between the source material and Maguire's landscape to make comparison useful. (There's also the problem of what he might be satirizing; most of the content is lifted from Baum's books, but key elements not in the books are also borrowed from the 1939 film, most notably Elphaba's green skin.) Nor is Wicked an homage or pastiche, as the former is supposed to honor the spirit of the original and the usual purpose of the latter is to emulate or extend the canon, not to warp it.

But what that leaves one with is fanfic, and way-out-in-left-field alternate universe fanfic at that. I seem to remember a bizarre variant universe called "Kraith" popping up in early Star Trek fanfic; the closest I can come to pigeonholing Wicked is as "Kraith Oz". And that seems awfully, awfully weird for a professionally published novel that has spawned a popular musical and given its author his own market niche.

So, three questions. (1) Am I the only one to find Wicked so spectacularly overhyped? (2) For those who claim to understand the book, what is Maguire up to, anyway? (3) Does looking at Wicked as fanfic give anybody any clues as to how the fanfic/profic universes intersect, or don't? (And if it is fanfic, what kind of fanfic is it?)