WICKED? OR...MAYBE, NOT?

Yesterday evening I regretfully closed the cover on the final page of Gregory Maguire's first novel, Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West. He has written several more since this one, which was written in 1995, so I await several more such delights. This is one amazing book, as so august a presence as John Updike is quoted as saying, on the cover: " 'Amazing novel.' John Updike, in The New Yorker."

From the cover copy also this "When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West...we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious Witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil?" It was evidently these questions that got Maguire musing deeply on this story, and upon the nature of good and evil. This is Elphaba's story, her family, birth, college years, her years as a revolutionary firebrand trying to overthrow the Wizard's government as it becomes more and more despotic. Elphaba is the Witch's given name, she is called Elfie by those close to her, Fabala by her father, Fae is her code name in her anarchist cell. I give you her names because they are part of what makes her so real a personage. Like all of us she has many facets, and many names for different sides of her personality. It is an intense psychological study of an independent, troubled, lonely, deeply intelligent woman, an undeniably human personage.

This is a long, dense novel, it is a fantasy of course, but it is a fable full of philosophic and spiritual discussion and thought. The place of religion in society is a large feature of this story. Politics is yet another aspect, in fact the New York Newsday review calls it "a political cautionary tale." This is a book that continues to reinforce my growing conviction that fantasy (and science) fiction is ever more the best vehicle for exploring the large issues of our times: moral ambiguity, the nature of good and of evil, political power, the diversity of human society, the diversity of our beliefs. Most of the books in the past year which have made me really think, really ponder anything more than plot and story, have been fantasy fiction. Philip Pullman, Neil Gaiman, Louise Erdrich (yes, Louise Erdrich - her growing body of novels about an inter-related group of Ojibwe Indian characters is growing more Magical-Realism in its tone with every book), Terry Pratchett, and now Gregory Maguire.

Dense, philosophical, political - yuck, who would ever want to read this book for fun? At this point in my life, fun - recreation, relaxation, brain-draining - is the only reason I read the books I speak of here. It's a great story, just on surface elements. It's fun to follow the threads, the places where it coincides, with Baum's Oz books, it's fun to live in an alternative world. For instance, in my favorite section of the book, that dealing with Elfie's college years, her room-mate is a young society girl named Galinda, who chooses sorcery as her major, and whose name in later years gets shortened to "Glinda."

Last, but far from least, it's lyrically lovely writing. Here is the Witch, on her first long-distance ride after learning that her cherished broom was also a means of transportation:

" She slept by daylight in the shadows of barns, the overhand of eaves, the lee of chimneys. She traveled by night. in the gloom, Oz spread out below - she hovered above it at about eighty feet, near as she could reckon - and the country side made its geographical transformations with the ease of a vaudeville backdrop on rollers. The hardest passage was down the steep flanks of the Great Kells. once free of the mountains, however, she saw Oz level out into the rich alluvial plain of the Gillikin River.

She flew along the waterway, above trading vessels and islands, until it fed at last into Restwater, Oz's largest lake. She kept to its southern edge, and took a whole night to traverse it, as it endlessly lapped in black oily silk waves, into sedge and swamp. She had trouble finding the mouth of the Munchkin River, which drained into Restwater from the eastern direction. Once she did, though, it was easy to locate the Yellow Brick Road. The farmland beyond grew even more lush. The effects of the d rough, so drastic in her childhood, had been eradicated, and dairy farms and small villages seemed to prosper, happy as a child's toy town set, cunning and cozy in the wrinkled, nappy land of arable soil and accommodating climate."

Since this book is ten years old, I may be speaking to the converted, and I am just late tothe party. But if you too have missed it, attach it now to your reading list.