Gregory Maguire’s Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West is a novel about perspective. Almost everyone who comes to Maguire’s novel comes to it with a built-in preconception of the titular character. Whether that perception has been arrived at courtesy of the L. Frank Baum books upon which Maguire builds or, more likely, the 1939 MGM musical film adaptation, it is fairly safe to suggest that we all have a ready-made concept of the Wicked Witch of the West. She is green, and she is evil. She does not mind tossing a little fire Scarecrow’s way, and she has an unhealthy obsession with a certain pair of shoes stolen right off her dead sister’s feet by that supposedly “good” witch, Glinda. Maguire commences his retelling of the story by introducing the future witch as a baby born with a sickly green tint to her skin and a high-level aversion to water. Things begin to go off the rails from the perception one brings to the novel once she meets a beautiful bubbly blonde who inexplicably becomes her best friend: Galinda. No, that’s no typo. Before she becomes Glinda the Good Witch, our perceptions are challenged with the introduction to Galinda, a young college woman who gives off the impression of being an airhead, but, in reality, is anything but. From that point on, every perception one brings to the novel based on what one knows is consistently challenged.
But the novel proves to be about perceptions on a much deeper level. Who were the Americans fighting against the tyranny of the British in 1776? Were they freedom fighters, or were they terrorists? Ask the average American and the answer is very clear. But consider it from the other side for just a moment. It is not a question of right or wrong, but merely perception. There are always two sides to a revolution, and what is clearly a terrorist to one person is very clearly a freedom fighter to another--and vice versa.
Even the greatest fans of the novel will grudgingly admit that the last fourth or so of the novel is not quite as engaging as that which came before it. Not that it isn’t as brilliantly told, understand, but it is not as engaging. And there is a reason for that. This assertion is obviously up for argument and debate, of course, but the most engaging part of the novel for a great many readers is the section in which Elphaba—the future Wicked Witch of the West—becomes a freedom fighter on behalf of Animals (as opposed to animals, Animals are those beasts with sentience…like the Cowardly Lion, for instance). Or, in the eyes of the Wizard and his secret police, a terrorist on behalf of animals that may be able to talk but certainly are not equal to humans.
The story that Maguire tells in his novel is a long way away from what is likely the more familiar version of Wicked for many of its fans. The musical version offers a happy ending and, in comparison to the novel, only barely touches upon politics as a major theme. In the novel, the politics of the Wizard and his fascist cronies is the meat of the book and provides the most thrilling and the most heartbreaking moments for Elphaba. It is ultimately a story that poses a question that one should be quite careful of answering lest they be asked to apply the same conditions to the real world they live. The question is not whether Elphaba is a wicked witch nor not. The question is whether Elphaba is a freedom fighter or a terrorist?
