Wicked by Gregory Maguire

The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

I was one of very few women I know, if not the only one, who had not yet read this book. Well, now that I’ve read it, I can say that I enjoyed it, and cannot think of why it took me so long to get around to doing so.

This is the “origin story” of the Wicked Witch of the West, the antagonist to Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. In Maguire’s treatment, the Witch, whose given name is Elphaba, is not a cookie-cutter fairy tale prop. Her green skin is only the first of her problems and her intellectualism and deep thinking are in grave contrast to the shallow, pretty people she seems to find herself among so often. She is a complex person whose passions are motivated by a lifetime of pain, guilt and, eventually, obsession.

Not only the Wicked Witch, but the land of Oz itself gets a deeper study and explanation in Wicked. Oz seems less like the strange, magical, random land Dorothy discovered but a politically unstable and oppressed nation with rigidly defined social classes and racism. Not surprisingly, much of the beauty is only skin deep. I got the feeling that the details in Wicked are the behind-the-scenes realities that Dorothy would fail to notice, being just a child.

Maguire presents his version of Oz with much of the lilting, poetic, clever style of a children’s story, but with an adult vocabulary and adult situations. I would say that the language of this novel was its most enjoyable aspect to me. Sure, Elphaba’s story is worthy and interesting, but I found even more joy in reading descriptions like, “To Glinda she [Elphaba] looked tired and terrified, but strong, as if her form were knit with iron and whiskey instead of bones and blood,” or Elphaba’s explanation of her own re-invention: “I wouldn’t mind leaving myself behind if I could, but I don’t know the way out,” and, “I who have always been unbecoming am becoming un.”

In the end, Elphaba is a sympathetic character and only the most heartless among us wouldn’t grieve for what she becomes and what becomes of her. (I can think of at least one popular villain’s origin story that completely misses the mark here.) Though there is much clarification and revision of the story of The Wizard of Oz, and a sad and complex Wicked Witch of the West has been created, Maguire does not (or cannot) make Dorothy, our original heroine, into the villain. An antagonist (though reluctant), a pawn of the Wizard, extraordinarily naïve? Yes. But not the villain.

What a world…what a world.



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