Wicked

I haven't blogged much lately and it usually is because I'm busy off-line. Reading books can be a major reason for my lack of blog entries. I've been reading plenty lately, I'm on my third book in the last two weeks. I outlined one book in my last blog post, here was another one, this time fiction.
I have a major interest in non-fiction in the last decade or so, but ocassionally I return to the world of fiction just for fun.

Wicked, The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory MaGuire has caught my eye at the bookstore a few times in the last few years, this time I picked it up. Boy, was I surprised.

The premise is simple enough, what brought about the Wicked Witch of the West? Who is she? Where did she come from? What made her "wicked?" Essentially, questions that the movie never answered much less posed.

I was intrigued by the politics of Oz that I never bothered to imagine. The movie has the Wizard of Oz in charge, but how did he achieve this superiority? Would not have at least some in Oz opposed such dictatorship? Were all Ozites just unquestioningly happy or did they not have problems never alluded to in the movie (and book by Frank Baum)?

All these years we assume that the Wicked Witch of the West was an evil tyrannt, yet with little substantial proof that this was true. This book gives us reason to wonder if that's true. I love the occassions in the book where the discussion of evil takes place. What is evil? Is evil real?

I won't spoil the book, but this book takes us through the complete life of the Wicked Witch of the West, Alphalba as she's named, from birth to death. You may think you know the end, but endings are known because of the point of view of who wins in real life. The "losers" ending is vanquished as untruth, not fact. This book will make you think a new ending.