His wicked WICKED ways....
Dec. 9th, 2004 09:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
djonnOkay, 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?)
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?)
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-09 10:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-09 11:27 am (UTC)I liked it, mostly, although it's weird as hell. I found it difficult to make much of it work with Oz as I know it, although there were details that were interesting (such as the treatment of Ozma, who is described as having been "hidden" at the time when much of the action takes place). I can't answer what Maguire is up to, though. I think I can agree with your "Kraith Oz" assessment. He seems to have made a genuine effort to invent motivation for some of the things the Wicked Witch did in the book/movie, but the substrate on which he's laid this is such a perversion of the universe laid out by Baum that it's almost impossible to reconcile the two.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-09 01:23 pm (UTC)Now here our experiences differ. Thing is, Wicked was not published under genre colors; it was published and marketed as mainstream/literary, became a wildly successful bestseller, and is still selling like gangbusters in trade paperback (no mass market edition) nine years after original publication, to the extent that when I went looking for a copy at Powell's (City of) Books, there were fifteen or twenty shiny new copies and none at all used -- according to the clerk who looked it up for me, the lone used copy listed on the regular search had been snapped up several hours before I got there, probably within minutes of hitting the shelves.
And Maguire has since published some half dozen more novels, all or nearly all reverse-spins on classic fairy tales (Snow White, Cinderella, Beauty & the Beast).
I can't speak to the musical; I've seen part of a number as excerpted on the Tony Awards TV special, and that's all. But the novel to this point (deep into Winkie Country, er, the "Vinkus") is merely very, very strange. I suspect I'd like it better if Maguire had filed off the serial numbers and done the same story with no overt Oz connection.
FWIW, Maguire does seem to have done his homework; the novel references material from throughout Baum's canon of fourteen Oz books, not just The Wizard of Oz. But the references mostly just sit there being references to little discernible purpose.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-09 01:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-09 01:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-09 03:15 pm (UTC)I am further bemused by the "Reader's Group Guide" questions in the back of this edition; the first two questions invite readers to discuss whether Wicked has changed their concepts of the original book/movie. To which I respond "Not hardly!", because Maguire's book really has nothing to do with Baum's Oz, names notwithstanding.
And yet I have to say I am rather looking forward to the book group meeting -- partly I am trying to imagine what people see in this book, and partly I'm anticipating the jaws dropping when I launch into my rant....
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-10 07:03 am (UTC)