Wicked
I bought a copy of Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West last night. So far, so good. I'm a little bit disappointed that the author skipped from her toddlerhood directly to her first day at college, but that's just one of the author's conventions that a reader has to deal with.
The reviews for the book are fairly black and white - people either love it or they hate it. I'm probably going to really like it. The first scene described, when Elphaba eavesdrops on Dorothy and her pals speculating about her green skin condition, supposedly deformed sexual organs and commentary that she's probably addicted to her medication for her skin, really put me on her side. I began to hate Dorothy. Yes, she's just an ignorant farm girl, but did she have to be so freaking mean about someone she didn't even know?
I guess people are really like that. I've caught them at it myself, and I suppose it's that identification with the underdog that makes me like the poor wretch. I'd be willing to bet that the author sees a lot of himself in her, and probably had a snotty college roommate a lot like Galinda himself.
Maybe he intended to turn things around and show readers that sometimes a person they see as unlikeable may just be one diametrically opposed to their own point of view, and because of that straying from the norm, is viewed as evil.
I imagine that a lot of people who are down on the book aren't taking it as its own affair - they feel that it is damaging to their beloved Baum books and possibly the movie. Oooh, do not mess with the sacrosanct. LOL It amuses me to think of Elphaba's father, the minister, preaching about the evils of idolatry, and the haters of this book may likely be doing just that: idolizing an old series of books and the movies that followed. As if thinking of things a little differently from the usual spoon-fed version is somehow damaging their long-gone childhood, they cry in outrage.
LOL
Now I'm wishing I could see the musical. :D
The reviews for the book are fairly black and white - people either love it or they hate it. I'm probably going to really like it. The first scene described, when Elphaba eavesdrops on Dorothy and her pals speculating about her green skin condition, supposedly deformed sexual organs and commentary that she's probably addicted to her medication for her skin, really put me on her side. I began to hate Dorothy. Yes, she's just an ignorant farm girl, but did she have to be so freaking mean about someone she didn't even know?
I guess people are really like that. I've caught them at it myself, and I suppose it's that identification with the underdog that makes me like the poor wretch. I'd be willing to bet that the author sees a lot of himself in her, and probably had a snotty college roommate a lot like Galinda himself.
Maybe he intended to turn things around and show readers that sometimes a person they see as unlikeable may just be one diametrically opposed to their own point of view, and because of that straying from the norm, is viewed as evil.
I imagine that a lot of people who are down on the book aren't taking it as its own affair - they feel that it is damaging to their beloved Baum books and possibly the movie. Oooh, do not mess with the sacrosanct. LOL It amuses me to think of Elphaba's father, the minister, preaching about the evils of idolatry, and the haters of this book may likely be doing just that: idolizing an old series of books and the movies that followed. As if thinking of things a little differently from the usual spoon-fed version is somehow damaging their long-gone childhood, they cry in outrage.
LOL
Now I'm wishing I could see the musical. :D
posted by Me at 11:29 AM
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