Wicked!

An interesting exploration of the nature and root of evil, Wicked sets out some interesting characters and a well-defined setting, but eventually collapses under its own weight, melting away without much fanfare. The story of Elphaba, aka the Wicked Witch of the West, Wicked follows in the tradition of books like For Love of Evil or the one about the three little pigs told from the wolf's perspective--only it's much better written. Maguire avoids an easy hole to fall into right from the start by not telling the story entirely from the witch's perspective.

By doing so, he lets us see his most compelling character, Elphaba, that much more clearly. The Witch--complex, driven without knowing why and uncompromising without knowing what she believes in--commands your attention from the very first. Born with green skin and sharp teeth to a missionary family in Munchkinland, Elphaba seems marked from the very first to stand out. The story traces the rise of the Witch: her short, unhappy childhood; her days at an academy for girls spent studying biology from a garroulous Goat; her battle against the Wizard of Oz and his secret police; and her eventual destruction at the hands of an apple-cheeked girl from Kansas.

Along the way, we learn that she and Glinda, the "good" witch of the North, were actually friends at the academy--though at first Glinda spurns Elphaba because of her poor upbringing and sharp wit. We meet Nessarose, the Witch's sister, last seen wearing the ruby slippers underneath Dorothy's house, and find that she's actually a pious, upright, and moral person, with no arms. And we discover why and how the Witch came to be, and about her relationship with the Wizard of Oz and the Emerald City.

The best part of this novel is seeing how skillfully Maguire brings the land of Oz to life, infusing it with culture and character and populating it with all sorts of interesting folk. There are depths to Oz that the movie only hints at, at least to Maguire's fertile imagination. It's an interesting excercise in world building, something that's remarkably difficult to do for even the best authors. That Maguire has created something new out of Baum's novels is all the more remarkable.

Where the book suffers the most is in the uneven pacing of its plot. An inordinate amount of time is spent on minor characters, and particularly on Elphaba's time at the girls academy. By the time she actually moves out west and sets up shop, you're wondering how the story can be brought to an appropriate close because it quickly becomes clear that there's a lot of story left to be told and too few pages to do it in. Sadly, this turns out to be the case--the ending feels rushed and the book unfinished, almost as if a publisher, tired of waiting for the book, simply demanded that Maguire finish the book or return his advance.

Perhaps the musical was better. Any thoughts?