Something Wicked Happened to Me

Day ten of my holiday sees the end of my fourth book, ‘Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West’, a book which I have been dying to read for a long time, but just haven’t had the time to dedicate to it.

As a fan of the musical Wicked, having seen it twice, one of which being on the West End, and one being able to review it as part of one of my university modules, really gave me the room to explore the musical and look at all its little details and nuances. It has quickly become one of my favourite musicals, to both listen to on my musical theatre playlist and to go and see. The way the story weaves in between the story of the Wizard of Oz is so clever, while also creating a story of its own. The characters which we knew as the Good Witch Glinda and the Wicked Witch of the West are now, Galinda and Elphaba who met at Shiz University and become great friends. We follow them on their journey of friendship and come to find out how they got their titles. There is also little sort of ‘in’ jokes which the audience who are assumed to have seen the Wizard of Oz, as of course we know what happens to bring Dorothy to Oz. It’s just a great animated prequal.

I always loved the message that the musical portrayed to its audience. A message of love, acceptance, embracing your differences and mostly importantly of friendship. As someone who felt like somewhat of an outsider at school, (always getting involved in extracurricular activities within the music department rather than messing about in the playground) this message rang true with me and gave me hope that other children would get a feeling of comradery with Elphaba and her green skin.

Having had the Gregory Maguire book, from which the musical based , waiting on my shelf for me to finally give it some attention, I have to say I wish I hadn’t been so excited to read it. I was always led to believe that the musical was basically a sung though version of the book. Granted I wasn’t expecting the book to be word for word the exact same, but I was hoping that the story would be at least very similar. I cannot tell you how wrong that belief was. The only thing these two things have in common, in my opinion, is the characters, their personality’s, and the world in which it is set.

Don’t get me wrong, when I got past the disappointment I enjoyed the book. There are characters in it which are forgotten in the musical, characters which are prominent in the book and even have some importance. I also enjoyed reading about the other areas of Oz that were not discussed much in the musical, such as the Vinkus and Quadling Country. We also learn more about Elphaba’s family. In the musical her mother only makes an appearance for a very short time when describing the indiscretion from which Elphaba was born. But in the book, we get much more time with Melena. We hear of the sadness that the new addition brought her, the green skin being such an unusual thing for a child to have but the sharp teeth even more so. We also hear more about the faith of Elphaba’s father and the many quests he undertook to help various people in Oz. Nessarose is somewhat different in the book than she is in the musical. In the musical she is unable to walk but still has all of her limbs. However, in the book she was born with no arms and so has trouble balancing and needs assistance to walk. She has strong religious beliefs which only get stronger as the years go on. While at Shiz her father sends her some shoes, which he decorated with glass beads crafted by his own hand. These are the shoes which we then know too be the ruby slippers in the Wizard of Oz.

The other problems I had with the book lay in the way it is written. There are many different sections which have chapters within them and originally, I found this hard to follow. As I kept reading I got used to this structure and even began to enjoy it. Some of the sections allowed you to see the story from different characters point of view. It’s not till the second half of the book that we get the story from Elphaba’s own point of view. This almost gives it the sense of being both autobiographical and biographical at the same time, if of course this was a true story.

So, although I was originally disappointed in the book, I did actually enjoy it. My only warning to people who love the musical and who are going on to read the book is this: don’t expect a written down version of the musical, because you just won’t get it. Although many of us are led to believe that will be the case I think we have been misled somehow. I have also come to realise that on the front cover of the book it says, ‘The novel that inspired the hit musical’, I think using the word inspired is very clever. It hints that the musical would be based on the book but in reality, it was more of a muse.

But of course, this is a music blog, and I haven’t yet talked much about music… Although there are no references to the musical in the book there are references to music. References which I really enjoyed. The first happened when Doctor Dillamond, the only Animal professor at Shiz university, made a breakthrough in his findings about the nature of Animals. He was so excited he started singing his findings to Elphaba, who takes down his dictation (he is a goat after all, he cannot write with his hoofs!) Elphaba says he ‘composed arias out of what he was seeing! Recitatives about structure…’ not only was music mentioned but the technical terms used are so unexpected and could be somewhat meaningless to some readers and it doesn’t stop there. Elphaba goes on to describe the tremolo, vibrato and sostenuto that the Dr used at times. Another reference to music happens in a pub. A place with which I am very acquainted this week (Ireland has some good pubs I’ll tell you that for free). It’s late in the evening and everyone has had a few drinks, Elphaba is called upon to sing. From the first note her audience are captivated. So, captivated in fact that the audience shut their eyes and imagine the places she described. Only good singers have the ability to enthral an audience to that extent. It seems we have found another similarity between the book and the musical. Elphaba has an exquisite voice.