Wicked - The Book (A GC Book Club Discussion)
 

Since it is meant to be a "group discussion" type book, let's discuss...

WARNING FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT READ OR ARE IN PROCESS...THERE WILL MOST LIKELY BE SPOLIERS IN THIS THREAD!!

I sent my copy to my aunt in Illinois to read, so if anyone else has a copy handy and can post the discussion questions in the back of the book...that would be a good starting point. (Or maybe I can find them someplace online)...

From the Reader's Group Guide of "Wicked":
1. Gregory Maguire fashioned the name of Elphaba (pronounced EL-fa-ba) from the initials of the author of The Wizard of Oz, Lyman Frank Baum - L-F-B - Elphaba. Wicked derives some of its power from the popularity of its source material. Does meeting up with familiar characters and famous fictional situations require more patience and effort on the part of the reader, or less?


I felt like it required less patience on my part, because of how familiar I was with the original story. I grew up reading the "Oz" series books when I was little, which is 12 or so books that L. Frank Baum wrote, involving characters like the Tik Tok creature and Osma, so I was familiar with the back ground of all of them. I also knew about the different regions of Oz, like Munchkinland and Gillikin, so it was an interesting refresher of things I found familiar, along with a fascinating introduction of some new (the main) characters in Wicked. I can see how it would be more difficult for some people though, especially having to change your perspective from what we've always believed about The Wicked Witch, and what we read about Elphaba.

For the most part, I think that was the part of the book that required the least patience. If he had taken the characters and COMPLETELY changed their personalities, then I believe it would have required a lot of patience. I believe he stayed pretty true-to-form for the most part. Although, he does have some creative licence for that, especially since people change as they get older (and even within the book the characters show a coming-of-age change in personality).

It was a lot more politically driven than I had intended for. Sometimes I felt lost in all the descriptions and backstory. Sometimes I felt like saying "Get to the point!"

But I enjoyed the book. Maybe more so that the sequel, Son of a Witch... which follows the story of Lir after Elphie's death. That was a strange book.

But the only reference I had on the Wizard of Oz was the movie adaptations... all "disney-fied" in their glory.

Though Tik Tok sounded really familiar. Don't know where though.

Return to Oz...it was a movie too (thank you Fairuza Balk- she always plays the wierdest characters) IMDB's movie page for Return to Oz You might have seen that, and that movie has Tik Tok (The Royal Army of Oz) in it.