Blog Post #2 Wicked by Gegory Maguire

I have chosen the first "making connections" prompt to respond to:

1.  Write about the connections you see between the book and your world, another book you have read, a film you have seen or a song. Add pictures or links to the things that you connect this book to.

I have been abnormally afraid of traditionally frightening things as far back as I can remember-- ghost stories, haunted houses, scary movies.  One of my earliest memories of being terrified by a movie involves me working up the courage to make it through the Wicked Witch's appearances in the Wizard of Oz without scrambling under the blankies, where I would be infinitely safer.  Naturally, as I am now reading about this woman who haunted my childhood, I am connecting what I remember about this villain from the movie to what I am learning about her as a... hero?  Well, I'm not sure if she'll be a hero yet, but she's the protagonist, so it's looking like she might turn out to be heroic.

When the baby Wicked Witch, Elphaba, is first introduced, she is quite horrifying and violent-- like a ferral cat but with shark's teeth and a penchant for biting.  That seemed to fit with the image of the adult woman she would become according to the film.  She ends up as an awful adult, so OF COURSE she was an evil demon baby.  However, now that I am about 100 pages in, I am seeing the Elphaba as a poor young woman off to school and being picked on by the other, wealthier and more popular girls.  Now I'm staring to feel for her.  She doesn't appear cruel and vicious.  She is shy, alone, and the target of the mean twinkies she's surrounded by.  This is the first place in the book we actually get to see Elphaba speak, which I expect will lead to revealing much more about her character than I currently know.

More than The Wizard of Oz, I am connecting this book to the 1985 movie Return to Oz.  Where the original was a family favorite, full of warm scenes and charming characters, this follow-up was nightmarish.  Don't be fooled by the light-hearted cover, this movie scared the snot out of all seven people who have seen it.  Dorothy wakes up in an insane asylum, and basically things get worse from there.  Dark, depressing, squalid-- the tone set in this movie is the exact one I get from the book.  Additionally, one of the characters is now referring to Ticky-Tocky brass, robot people.  In the pic at left, the rotund gent is just this sort of character, who, I believe, is called "Tick Tock".

The other thing I keep trying to connect this book to is the recent musical of the same name, which I have not seen and know nothing about save there is some song about defying gravity.  So far, this book is all squalor and meanness, which I have a hard time imagining set to music and jazz hands.  However, if producers managed to pull it off with Titanic the Musical and a Green Day album, I guess a re-imagining of a Hollywood classic shouldn't be beyond belief.

Finally, it's worth mentioning that I was also in the play The Wizard of Oz, when I was in high school.  My goodness, I didn't realize I had quite so many Oz-related connections.  That rendition of the story is much like the movie, but with a few different scenes.  The story with the Witch, however, was pretty much the same.  Although a former Munchkin, whose stage direction was to hide from the terrifying witch when she appeared on the scene, I will do my best to give Elphaba a chance to be this book's hero.

Blog Post #1: Wicked by Gregory Maguire

In class it took me about 20 minutes to read 15 pages.  The fantasy genre is difficult for me, and I am often distracted when I read in class because I am also trying to pay attention to whether or not students are on task.  As a result, I often end up re-reading sentences and paragraphs multiple times.  At home, I might read faster, but I haven't timed myself there yet.

This week I read some of Wicked on the couch in my living room.  My brain can't focus on words on the page if I can hear other words around me, so those I have to minimize.  When I read, it usually looks like this:

Lying on my right side, I clutched my book in my left hand and tucked my right hand under my pillow.  I held the book close to my face so that it's almost like I've got blinders on.  This way, I have a direct view into the world painted with the words on the page.  Since it was chilly this week, I also curled up with a comforter, pale green and poofy.  Because Penelope cannot resist the blanket, before long, she was circling in the routine she performs before settling in for quality cuddle time.  Beyond the immediate silence, I hear Penelope purring and the distant blasts of Battlefield 4 my husband is playing in the other room.  Once in a while I'll also hear a "A tank!! Jason, there's a tank!!", but other than that the house is hushed.

I'm having a hard time picturing what is happening in my book.  There is a Time/Dragon/Clock/Idol thing, a baby with green skin, a stranger with red skin, elves and other oddities.  These things don't exist in real life, so I am having trouble connecting what I'm reading with things I've seen before.  Since I can't do that, I have to create each image from scratch.  For me, that process is much more difficult than reading the realistic books I'm used to.  Further, I usually read books that occur in lengthy series (20+ books in a series!).  When I read those, my mind calls up the images I've already created for the characters and places in the books.  Beyond that, I am enjoying losing myself in a completely opposite world for a while.  This has been a very stressful few weeks for me, so I appreciate escaping to the world of the Munchkinlanders for a while.

I'm not convinced this book is for me, but I started it yesterday, and I'm 48 tiny-print pages in, which is pretty impressive for me.  Images are becoming more clear as I go, so I think I'll be able to stick with it.  More than anything, I think that what will drive me to follow through is my desire to know what all of the hype is about.  People LOVE this book, this story, this musical.  I'm hoping to see what is so great.  As of right now, I'm pretty grossed out by the rank descriptions of dirty characters.  It's kind of a minor aspect of the book, but it's something that is really bothering me.  Especially with the baby.  She can't get wet--we all know what will happen to the Wicked Witch of the West if she gets wet--so how do they keep her clean?!  All of this has me wondering, what do you people love so much?!  I guess I have another 490 pages to figure it out.

Welcome!

During our first marking period together, you will use Blogger as a way to write about the books you are reading.  I am new to Blogger, as I'm sure many of you are, so I am really excited about exploring this new communication tool together.

Please click on the "Assignment" link in the upper right for details about the blog project.