Wicked

The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

By: Gregory Maguire

Narrated by: John McDonough

Heralded as an instant classic of fantasy literature, Maguire has written a wonderfully imaginative retelling of The Wizard of Oz told from the Wicked Witch's point of view. More than just a fairy tale for adults, Wicked is a meditation on the nature of good and evil.

Elphaba is born with green skin, a precocious mind, and a talent for magic. An outcast throughout her childhood in Munchkinland, she finally begins to feel as though she fits in when she enters the University in the Emerald City. While she hones her skills, she discovers that Oz isn't the Utopia it seems. She sets out to protect its unwanted creatures, becoming known as the Wicked Witch along the way.

Narrator John McDonough draws you in to Maguire's magical world of witches and talking animals, making it possible to believe in a land somewhere over the rainbow.

©1995 Gregory Maguire (P)2000 Recorded Books, LLC

Critic reviews

"A staggering feat of wordcraft." (Los Angeles Times)
"McDonough's excellent portrayals of Elphaba's outspoken, gravel-voiced nanny, Glinda's snobbish friends, and the wide-eyed, soft-spoken Dorothy make this excursion to Oz worthwhile." (Publishers Weekly)

Great reading, okay book...

I'd heard so much about the book, I'd built up wonderful expectations for it. I did enjoy the listen, but I am quite disappointed in the novel overall.

First, I have to say the narrator was absolutely wonderful. The quality of voice and character was delightful, and I never tired of hearing him.

The story captivated me for about the first 2/3 and then started losing focus and the characters seemed to tumble out of control. By the end, I had absolutely no idea what the point had been. I had fallen in absolute love with Elphaba, and felt that her character was completely abandoned by the author in the last act. Some of the character turns were unpleasant, but necessary; others seem completely random and confusing.

Plot devices were introduced in the beginning, and then abandoned until the absolute end, when they addressed in a peculiarly obscure fashion, answering virtually none of the questions that were the basis of the story.

Since I have already purchased "Son of a Witch", I can only hope that the questions left unanswered are addressed there, and that its characters are treated with more care.

A Wicked Delight!

I've been a Wizard of Oz fan for far too many years to count, and a couple of years ago had the opportunity to enjoy Wicked on the London stage. I was very excited to find the audiobook here on Audible, as it goes into so much more rich detail than could ever be delivered in the stage version. Don't get me wrong, both were awesome, but the audiobook just delivered so much more and kept me enthralled for hours at a time. I literally could not wait to listen to more!

Excellent writing, excellent vision.

This book was well written, first and foremost. The language itself is beautiful. The story it tells is complex and involved, and the fully fleshed characters are consistently believable in their world. Excellent book if you like fantasy of Tolkein quality, or if you liked The Wizard of Oz and want a more detailed view of the world.

My only complaint was that the ending seemed forced, and there was a point near the end where the narrative seems lost, as though the writer had had so much fun with his story that he suddenly realized he wasn't sure how to get back to The Wizard of Oz story. It starts seeming a little more contrived then, and I found the ending a bit weak in comparison to the rest. Minor flaw, really, in the context of such an impressive achievement.

A note of caution: I got this to listen to with my kids. Mistake. This is not kid friendly. Lots of sexual innuendos and some outright sex. Not bad for adults, but you might blush while wondering how much of that your child understood.

I surprisingly didn't like the book

Any additional comments?

POSSIBLE SPOILERS

I found it really weird, but I really didn't care for this book. I love the play, and the idea is one of the best sounding out there to me, but the book itself has a talent of getting me mad and losing my interest. The aspects I didn't like are probably things that others wouldn't mind or would even love, but I couldn't help but be distracted by. I didn't even finish the first 7 hrs of the book, so for all I know, these things are different later on, and I'm only speaking for this section of the story. Anyway, I was distracted by the racism, the point of view shifts, and the incorporation of religion.
Firstly, the racism, I feel like could have been a wonderful facet to the story, but it was done in a way that I found inconsistent and unrelatable. Specifically with the Animals, there was very little said as to why the Animals are lesser creatures. The segregation seems weird because no one seems to think they are intellectually any lesser than humans, or if anyone does they don't say so, which I guess would make the segregation purely an aesthetic thing? Plus, in a college setting, where the thinking is generally more liberal and everything is questioned, the Animals debate is never mentioned. I know not everyone saw Animals as lesser, so why was there no division among the students even in just this aspect. Even when the story was being told by Boq, he didn't ever express any view on the segregation even though apparently Dillamond was his idol. I like seeing passion in a character, and having a crush on Galinda/Glinda is not good enough for me. It made him unrelatable and sort of two dimensional. Anyway, this is something I know I'm being picky about, and that didn't make this a bad story, it was just something that distracted me.
Secondly, I would get confused with who was telling the story and why. The point of view shifts from third person to first person (always the p.o.v. of a character I didn't care about) and I was distracted by this. I was also disappointed that the writer didn't take full advantage of the point of view switch and use it more for character development. It was like some outside person was writing a story from the point of view of a person they are observing and assuming thoughts that the person is having based on their actions. People think a lot more than the writer lets on and I felt like I couldn't understand any of the characters more than superficially. I know this is also me just being picky, but I felt like the switches made the story less fluid, and I didn't get the information I wanted that would make up for the awkwardness of the switch.
Lastly, and most importantly to me, the incorporation of religion. Now, I'm all for this, and all for fictional religions, but I didn't know what was going on here until the religions were explained by Frex and Nanny later on in the book while debating. This is a wonderful way of explaining things in a movie, but this isn't a movie. I didn't understand the significance of the clock at the beginning and why it was bad, why Frex was against it, why the people were so affected by it, and really what it was other than a prop. Since nothing was explained before Frex started showing action in his work, I had to assume that the religion was not made up and was possibly something like Catholicism or Christianity. But then the unnamed god was brought up, and the pleasure faith mentioned (which I had nothing really to compare to, other than maybe people who live life just for instant gratification and pleasure, but then, it didn't feel that way as it had a god itself which made me think this was inaccurate) and other actions confused me, like why he was so against the clock at the beginning. I really need someone to just name the main religions and just give a sentence or two on what they believe then I'd be able to understand what's going on better.



All in all, the reason I gave such a bad rating was because of the sequels. If this book was the only one in the series, I'd probably be able to finish it and still grumble about it a bit, but probably enjoy it overall. However, because of the sequels and because the writer apparently likes to leave some things unexplained until later makes me completely uninterested in finishing this book because I don't want to have to go on to the next books just to understand something in the first book. Overall, not completely terrible, but terrible for me personally.

Brilliant

An excellent listen, makes the reader think again about today's conflicts and the echoes that transcend fact and fiction, that history inevitably repeats itself and that truth and rightousness are a perception.

You can hear the narrator's spit

The story is a lot dirtier than I expected. It's not even sexy, just strange.

You can hear the narrator swallow his spit and his mouth clacks when he talks. It's hard to listen to for long time periods.

The narration was awful. He sounded like he was speaking in a tunnel or a tin can

Why was there such a weird noise in the background of his voice? Ruined a magnificent story. If it drives me too crazy I may have to return it. Wicked is a classic. More care should have been taken in the audio presentation.

Fantastic!!!

This was a wonderful story, and the narrator was excellent. I was so pulled into this storyline! I would definitely recommend this audiobook!!

a delightful and imaginitive prequel..

interesting take. couldn't wait to see how it all came back to the original.
at first I couldn't stand Glinda I thought she was horrible...like a Victorian socialite. rude and self involved.. by the end I wanted to beat Alfiba with her broom.. SHE was rude and self involved and obnoxious and self righteous.
love how it connected to the.movie and the back story of the Lion and tin man... I wonder how they made it into a musical? guess thats next!

Epic... not in a good way

Any additional comments?

Conflicts kept being developed between the characters and then dropped, which was frustrating. Halfway through I just wanted it to be over, but I felt the same way about Lord of the Rings, so if epic fantasy was what the author was going for I guess they succeeded.