gregory maguire - wicked and confessions of an ugly stepsister
wicked i read because i plan on seeing the musical soon and wanted to develop my own idea of the characters and setting before i see someone else's interpretation of it. i'm not sure that i should have bothered.
confessions of an ugly stepsister i bought a while ago. i figured i would see if wicked was representative of gregory maguire's writing and if it was just as bad, it would go into the resell pile of books.
of the two, i definitely enjoyed confessions more. it had a more engaging tone and allowed some access to the characters, their motivations and feelings. with wicked, i agree with kwc, it does read like a biography, and an uninteresting one at that. it's a shame really, because i feel like the story, plot elements, etc had potential, it really was in how things were presented.
both books kind of left me somewhat dissatisfied with how the story ultimately unfolds and closes. it's as though the potential for an interesting interpretation of the stories was nowhere near reached. with wicked, you had great potential in looking at what motivated the villainess's heinous deeds. instead, the book follows different stages in her life, while leaving her mental and emotional developments obscure, which is what i would think makes that kind of retelling more interesting. a book which actually did a good job of this kind of retelling was phantom by susan kay. it totally changed how i saw the phantom and actually made me more sympathetic to the villain than the protagonists of the original story.
with confessions... i found certain mechanisms superfluous and other intriguing ideas left incomplete. the choice in narrator for prologue/epilogue versus for the actual story... a twist, yes. necessary, not at all. it did go more into the individual motivations of the character than wicked, but i didn't believe them. and it has that same problem as wicked, where the essential plot and the interpretation of the original story isn't dramatically different enough (especially towards the endings) to justify reading a whole new book on a story you've heard before. at least confessions had bigger font, some entertaining elements and... was shorter.
i probably also enjoyed confessions more because of some of the rants of the master painter struggling with his own work and reputation. but that doesn't really have much to do with the core story, it has more to do with the discussion of beauty which is found all over the story, but not really presented in a coherent manner.
some quotes i liked in the extended:
wicked:
pg 15:
"Brother Frexspar," said Bfee, the mayor of Rush Margins, "could you perhaps tone down our harangue until we get a chance to see what fresh new form temptation might take?"
"You have no mettle to resist new forms," said Frex, spitting.
"Haven't you been our able teacher these several years?" said Bfee. "We've hardly had such a good chance to prove ourselves against sin! We're looking forward to--to the spiritual test of it all."
confessions:
pg 47:
"Oh, Caspar," says Margarethe, "we will all be thrown out on our heads, and then what?"
"Nonsense," says Caspar cheeril. "He doesn't walk enough. He gets bad-humored. He'll be better when he gets back. This is part of my job, don't you see? I have to annoy him enough to keep him involved with the world. Otherwise he would latch the shutters and hide inside his paintings and never emerge. It's a steady trial for him, this habit of black spirits and black bile, and retreating from the world because of it."
"Does he request this of you?" says Margarethe.
"What he requests and what he needs are often separate things," says Caspar.
pg 119:
"So you have a mixed mind? Like most of us. You want the work and the reputation, and you also want to despise your patrons for refusing to pay for religious subjects. This way you can be unhappy whatever happens next."
pg 179:
"I've never drawn a line in my life," says Iris in a small voice.
"There was a moment in my life when the same was true of me," replies the Master.
pg 181:
"Approval is overrated," says Caspar, parroting his teacher. "Approval and disapproval alike satisfy those who deliver it more than those who receive it. I don't care for approval, and I don't mind doing without."
Comments
hmm...see, i tried reading "wicked" when i was really sick, so i wasn't sure in retrospect if i really didn't like the book or if it was because i couldn't focus on reading it at all (cuz i felt nauseous all the time). chunker said he liked the book a lot, so i figured i'd give it another try. your review echoes a lot of my thoughts from the first time i tried to read through it though.
Posted by: bleusky | August 18, 2005 03:36 PM
being sick couldn't have helped. i really finished it mainly because i wanted to before i watched the show.
i shouldn't have bothered.
but it makes a neat conversation piece. :)
i'm going to give gregory maguire a third shot. confessions was later than wicked, and more entertaining, so i'm wondering if he actually improves.
Posted by: honeyfields | September 1, 2005 11:17 AM