Wicked, by Gregory Macguire

The short version: The life of the Wicked Witch of the West is chronicled here.

This book is the story of the Wicked Witch of the West, from birth to death. The original series of Oz books by Frank L Baum were very scant on details of why the Witch was the enemy of the good people of Oz. I can’t remember exactly what I thought the first time I heard the story of Dorothy in Oz, but I am fairly certain that I didn’t dwell long on the just why the Wicked Witch was so wicked. In the world of children’s books, there’s good heroic types, often with some tragedy or quest thrust upon them. On the other side of the coin are the one dimensional, wicked evil folk who constantly prey upon them.

Taken beyond the realm of a child’s understanding, the black and white concept doesn’t stand up to critical thinking. What was the problem with that Witch, anyway? How does one take up the life of a villian, and do well enough at it to be reviled as the Wicked Witch of the West?

The telling of the Witch’s story also tells a story about Oz. The writing style of the book is light fiction, and there are elements of fantasy and whimsy that are reminiscent of a book suited for a young adult reader. There are talking Animals who are separate and distinct from the more mundane non-speaking animals. Too bad for them that the Wizard of Oz has proclaimed that they will no longer enjoy the rights and luxuries of other intelligent creatures, and must return to their homes to be used as plow animals, common cattle, perhaps even served up as a nice rare steak. The Munchkinlanders are there as well, not merry, childish half-pints, but complex, very human folks with day to day worries that go far beyond being short, though it is certainly true that social climbing Munchkins all try to marry into some height. The Emerald City is there, and nothing has really changed. What is new is that everything in Oz has put under an unkind microscope, revealing quite a bit more grit, intrigue, sexual deviance, and evil than Baum revealed in his original tales. Not so suitable for the young reader, after all.

The trick that makes the book interesting is that the the Witch’s story weaves in and out of the Oz story without altering the classic story. In fact, it seems as if everything stays true to the form of the original. As a result, this book sometimes reads like an expose, detailing the sorrid rest-of-the-story Baum left out. It is as if Baum’s version is the child’s story- made just so, well within a child’s grasp. What really happened was a lot more complicated and tragic- not easily depicted in a simple child’s palette without significant omissions. Macguire achieves this adult retelling without any upstaging of the original. His protagonist’s name, Elphaba, aka Wicked Witch of the West, comes from Baum’s initials.

I found myself drawn in as much by the new details of the Witch’s life as I did the intersections her story made with the classic Oz legend. The book does an excellent job of fleshing out the Oz universe in a believable fashion, even as it takes a direction that Baum, also famous in his time as the author of the much loved Mother Goose in Prose, would have never gone.