WICKEDly dull.
Wicked, by Gregory Maguire, 406 long pages
I was excited to read this book; I expected a great read.
Wicked relies on a gimmick. Though the result could be worthwhile, and I thought it would be in this case, it's not. There's just the gimmick.
Wicked is too long by at least a hundred pages - though the story could easily have been told and done, and the reader is feeling done with it, we're still left slogging along.
Just as the story is building to what turns out to be the (aborted) climax, halfway through, the author suddenly, jarringly, shoves the protagonist into a convent (though she's a complete non-believer), and then has her do absolutely nothing for the next several years (well, she cleans some floors or something).
Though there are still a couple hundred more pages, the book is over right there. You keep hoping, expecting, it to somehow start up again, but neither the book nor the characters will ever have any interest in anything again. It's over.
The story has, at that point, somehow become a political thriller (Wicked zigzags all about without ever finding an identity). Perhaps the deadness of spirit in a once-impassioned radical, after she's lost faith and/or hope, would have been a worthwhile exploration. Instead, the story just ends.
For some reason, the author keeps writing more pages. For no reason, really.
(The Nature of Evil theme is so incredibly weak and puerile in its rendering as to be nothing more than a tedious distraction from the plot. The characters basically step outside the story for a bit, discuss it, and then go back to whatever they were doing.)
If this were a book of paintings, it would go from lush oil at the beginning to somewhat interesting (dark) watercolors in the middle. After that, there'd be a few nicely shaded drawings, some sketches and finally just stick figures. And that's what you're left with.
It never answers its own questions, and never bothers to resolve all the threads that just trail off (and much of what keeps you reading, long after the book has clearly died, is some hope of seeing those resolved - they won't be).
Crucially, Elphaba never actually becomes the Wicked Witch of the West. The author just crams her into that role as abruptly and jarringly as he crammed her into the convent, and suddenly has her say words that have nothing to do with the character we've seen for the past zillion pages.
It's like she was suddenly turned into a puppet, just so Dorothy can accidentally kill her, as if the author forgot she was supposed to be the Wicked Witch of the West and suddenly cut-and-pasted in a brief bit about that, so he could have this gimmick to sell it. (That's the climactic confrontation we've been anticipating for 400 pages?)
It's your standard workshop-fiction type of book - lots of attention to the phrasing, self-important symbolism, Meaningful (capital M) conflicts, one or two words that might send you to the dictionary - but there's no real fire here, and the author not only doesn't have much of a story to tell, but also fails to explore his characters and theme.
If this weren't an alternative view of a familiar character, nobody would read it. There'd be no point. And though that marketing hook will pull many a reader in (as it did me), ultimately there isn't any.
I was excited to read this book; I expected a great read.
Wicked relies on a gimmick. Though the result could be worthwhile, and I thought it would be in this case, it's not. There's just the gimmick.
Wicked is too long by at least a hundred pages - though the story could easily have been told and done, and the reader is feeling done with it, we're still left slogging along.
Just as the story is building to what turns out to be the (aborted) climax, halfway through, the author suddenly, jarringly, shoves the protagonist into a convent (though she's a complete non-believer), and then has her do absolutely nothing for the next several years (well, she cleans some floors or something).
Though there are still a couple hundred more pages, the book is over right there. You keep hoping, expecting, it to somehow start up again, but neither the book nor the characters will ever have any interest in anything again. It's over.
The story has, at that point, somehow become a political thriller (Wicked zigzags all about without ever finding an identity). Perhaps the deadness of spirit in a once-impassioned radical, after she's lost faith and/or hope, would have been a worthwhile exploration. Instead, the story just ends.
For some reason, the author keeps writing more pages. For no reason, really.
(The Nature of Evil theme is so incredibly weak and puerile in its rendering as to be nothing more than a tedious distraction from the plot. The characters basically step outside the story for a bit, discuss it, and then go back to whatever they were doing.)
If this were a book of paintings, it would go from lush oil at the beginning to somewhat interesting (dark) watercolors in the middle. After that, there'd be a few nicely shaded drawings, some sketches and finally just stick figures. And that's what you're left with.
It never answers its own questions, and never bothers to resolve all the threads that just trail off (and much of what keeps you reading, long after the book has clearly died, is some hope of seeing those resolved - they won't be).
Crucially, Elphaba never actually becomes the Wicked Witch of the West. The author just crams her into that role as abruptly and jarringly as he crammed her into the convent, and suddenly has her say words that have nothing to do with the character we've seen for the past zillion pages.
It's like she was suddenly turned into a puppet, just so Dorothy can accidentally kill her, as if the author forgot she was supposed to be the Wicked Witch of the West and suddenly cut-and-pasted in a brief bit about that, so he could have this gimmick to sell it. (That's the climactic confrontation we've been anticipating for 400 pages?)
It's your standard workshop-fiction type of book - lots of attention to the phrasing, self-important symbolism, Meaningful (capital M) conflicts, one or two words that might send you to the dictionary - but there's no real fire here, and the author not only doesn't have much of a story to tell, but also fails to explore his characters and theme.
If this weren't an alternative view of a familiar character, nobody would read it. There'd be no point. And though that marketing hook will pull many a reader in (as it did me), ultimately there isn't any.
posted by kneel at 2:06 PM
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