Book Review: Mirror, Mirror by Gregory Maguire
Short version: A clear winner- more readable than The Trolley, better historical hooks than The Crying of Lot 49, and less footnotes than The Illuminatus! Trilogy.
Gregory Maguire is a master of the mashup, combining a heaping portion of Snow White mixed well with Renaissance politics and intrigue. A touch of the sanctified and exotic comes into play when the long lost Garden of Eden sends its ambassadors into this tale. The prevailing details of the well worn story are here- the Magic Mirror is most definitely magic and reveals the fairest of them all, the lovable reclusive dwarfs figure prominently in the story, trying their best to protect the vulnerable Snow White from the very wicked Wicked Queen.
Who wants to read a story when everybody knows how it ends, and has known since they were very young? The devil is in the details. Carrying on in the vein of Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Maguire does an diabolically good job of drawing the reader into this twicetold fairly tale by casting it into a believable historical context. He transforms the simple cardboard “Once Upon a Time in a Kingdom Far Away” into a living and breathing backdrop as interesting as the storyline, demarcated by time and place, centered around the Italian countryside at the turn of the sixteenth century. This tale spans nearly twenty years, with only loose ends left after what can be presumed to be June 24, 1519. That date is never stated in the book, but Maguire’s infernal weaving of the past and the fairy tale compels one to fill in the blanks.
If the backdrop doesn’t command attention, the familiar story played out on the fresh canvas will. The dwarfs that populate this fairy tale world lack the saccharine quality made famous by Walt Disney. Removing the adorable whitewash leaves them more mysterious, magical, earthbound and hilarious. Their development throughout the story is the best subplot going.
The Wicked Queen isn’t forgotten- just how did she end up such an evil person? Maguire unfolds his version of this story by allowing the characters to speak in turns, and the Evil Queen gets her chance to tell her tale as she sees it. Her story is fascinating to follow, a powerful wicked woman navigating the treacherous quicksand of Renaissance politics. The Wicked Queen’s intrigues drives this story throughout, and Maguire captures and creates her beautifully. Rooting her in history makes her perhaps more interesting than Elphaba, the Land of Oz’s Wicked Witch of the West, the protagonist of his most popular book Wicked