Wicked

I saw Wicked the musical for my birthday. For years, my friends have raved about this musical. I’ve heard “Defying Gravity” many, many times, heard of how great the music was and been warned of the twist at the end, alluded to slyly but always kept a secret for me; so I couldn’t wait to see it for myself.

It was incredible. Just incredible. Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, was a powerful singer who blew me away. She stood out from all the rest with her incredible voice- almost better than Idina Menzel, the originator of the role (saying that is practically Broadway heresay!). The story itself was equally as good. It’s so cool to look at a favorite childhood story from a completely different angle, and to actually like the scary green witch from my worst childhood nightmares. Wicked tells of Elphaba’s whole life, from being born green in Munchkinland, to her days at Shiz Academy, where she rooms with Glinda (then Galinda) the Good Witch, to her eventual spiral into becoming the Wicked Witch of the West. I was completely fascinated by the friendship between Elphaba and Glinda, and I loved how cleverly everything was explained from the original Wizard of Oz, how favorite characters were woven into the story. I emerged from the theatre glowing with excitement, promptly borrowed the soundtrack from my friend, and stowed the book in my bag for beach reading: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, by Gregory Maguire.

I was expecting similar magical storytelling, interaction of the characters, and an even better and in depth look into Glinda and Elphaba's unlikely friendship. I wanted more behind-the-scenes secrets of the land of Oz. Instead, I got copious political commentary, ungraceful storytelling, and jaded characters, none of whom were likeable. The plot of Maguire's book barely resembles that of the musical, and to be honest, the musical plot is much easier to follow, relates more to The Wizard of Oz, and is more absolute. It was frustrating to know that there was such a wonderful potential for a story that was utterly ruined by the author's overriding political agenda and crude writing.

Wicked begins with an unnecessarily long section characterizing Elphaba's mother as a selfish, shallow girl and her father as a self-righteous and prejudiced missionary to the Munchkinlanders. Elphaba's birth seems a side-note to the vigorous ridicule of her father's religious beliefs and narrow-mindedness. After this painful section ends, we find Elphaba at Shiz Academy, meeting Galinda, who is shallow and preoccupied with her social status. Through a series of muddled events, Elphaba becomes involved in an experiment with her goat-teacher, Doctor Dillamond, that is never fully explained and yet referred to throughout the novel, while Galinda continues with her socialite lifestyle. Boq, a young Munchkinlander, falls in love with Galinda and enlists Elphaba's help in getting to know her, which eventually leads to Galinda and Elphaba's "friendship," though it never appears genuine. It is around this time that Nessarose, Elphaba's disabled younger sister, attends Shiz as well. Nessarose, like her father, is equally ridiculed as clinging blindly to her faith in a negative way. She's cranky and self-righteous. The adventures of Elphaba, Galinda, Boq, Fiyero (a handsome boy from the Vinkus lands), Nessarose, and others are documented, again at great length and without any seeming point except, at times, to be crude. Through even more complicated events, Elphaba meets the Wizard and then goes into reclusion for twenty years, supposedly involved in secret resistance.

Thus far, the musical and book match up enough, though the play thankfully simplifies things (for example, Elphaba's parents have only a couple measures in the opening). But after this, Elphaba has an affair with Fiyero, who suddenly crops up, and he is killed through her resistance work. She embarks on a long journey to visit Fiyero's family in the Vinkus, now with a child in tow. There she stays (mostly) until her death. Again, there are hundreds of pages wasted on uninteresting background, plots that seem to go nowhere, and that don't relate to the Wizard of Oz at all. At this point I was skimming through, wanting to get to the end. Which, thankfully, was what I had been looking for in the book: a neat tie-in to the original story, involving Dorothy and Toto. But certainly, slogging through the whole book was NOT worth that little tiny bit at the end.

The book was hindered by the author's political ideals, and relentless ridiculing of the Christian religion, thinly veiled as a different religion in the book. When a child's story so beloved as this one is simply used as the wheels for an author's opinions on the real world today, he is better off in journalism. Let us have our fairy-tales unsullied by an obnoxious narrator.

Mockingjay

Ever since I finished Catching Fire, book two in Suzanne Collins' magnificent series The Hunger Games, I have been dreaming up endings for the series, having the book culminate in a Harry Potter-esque final battle, losing a few favored characters. I pictured myself shedding a few tears, but being content after the revelation about the goodness of mankind and the continuation of the main characters in their happy lives.

How wrong my ending turned out to be.

Mockingjay is the third book in a trilogy by Suzanne Collins, about a futuristic world divided into 12 Districts, all under the control of the Capitol. Every year, to remind the people of what it was like before the Capitol took over, the Capitol hosts The Hunger Games, in which each district sends 2 tributes, a boy and a girl, to fight to the death in an arena. Katniss Everdeen, from the poorest District, 12, chooses to replace her little sister as the tribute. Throughout the series, her actions launch a rebellion against the Capitol.

Mockingjay came out while I was at the beach with three of my best friends. On that Tuesday, Lucy and I raced to the tiny bookstore on the island and immediately purchased our copies, excited to find out what happened to Katniss- especially as regards Peeta, who we all know is her soulmate! We both wrapped up the books we were reading then, and the next day dove straight into Mockingjay.

Right off the bat, it wasn't what I expected. After the cliffhanger ending of Catching Fire, I had pictured District 13 as a welcoming, thriving rebel base, eager to praise Katniss. Instead, I was met with the cold machine of District 13 under President Coin. And such was the case for the rest of the book: where I expected cuddly and comforting, I got cold and harsh. Where I expected neatly wrapped and tied up, I got messy and confusing. Where I expected love, I got hate. Suffice it to say that Mockingjay was a very depressing book to read for one with expectations as fairy-tale as mine. It wasn't that the plot threw twists and turns at every opportunity, but rather that to my well-read mind, I thought I knew the general flavor of this book. Isn't every dramatic conclusion to a series filled with danger, but also a confidence in winning the battle? Isn't there a certainty that your main character won't die? Isn't there an epilogue showing everything right in the world after a climactic battle? Think again, Abby. Suzanne Collins follows no pattern.

As I became more and more entrenched in the book, things got worse. Nothing went according to plan, and hope of my surviving the overthrow of the Capitol seemed grim. As things built towards a final battle and people began dying, I fell deeper into a depressed mindset. How could Suzanne Collins allow these things to happen? How did this work towards a happy ending?

It was then I realized that it didn't. Collins, unlike me, doesn't believe in fairy-tale endings. She believes in realistic endings. This became all the more clear as I read to the very end. Finishing the book curled up in my bed, I just lay there, thinking it over, reliving the vivid battle scenes, feeling numb. Numb because I didn't want things to end this way. Numb because so many people I loved died. Numb because the cruelty of some people astonished me. And numb because Katniss is numb. What Collins does in the ending shows a masterful understanding of the human psyche, something that has intrigued me after finishing this book. Collins truly understands the effects of being put into an arena to fight to the death (twice). She understands the hatred and harshness that develops in you because of it, and that is why in one particular scene it seems as though all the work of the rebels resulted only in falling back into the same patterns of the Games. She understands that the bond of Katniss and Peeta runs so deep because of their experiences together in the arena. And so, while it isn't a happy ending, it is a realistic ending. Where Hunger Games was a sci-fi, action book, and Catching Fire a love triangle, Mockingjay is simply hard truths, hard decisions, hard hearts. Excellent, yes, the right end to the series. But a hard book to read.

As an aspiring author and an unabashed romantic, it's so hard for me to have anything but a fairy-tale ending for my characters. I so badly want everything to turn out right, everything to fix itself. It comes from my love of Disney movies and Elsie Dinsmore books and Taylor Swift songs and Jane Austen novels, which I've loved from an early age. It's resulted in my expectations of real life to be just like a fairy-tale, which it isn't. Time and time again, I've been disappointed that life didn't turn out the way I expected: when I didn't get my Hogwarts letter, when Peter Pan didn't appear in my window one night, when I started high school and wasn't accosted by cute boys, when I got a ticket within the first few months of getting my license and had to go to court. I'm trying to learn the difference between fiction, fairy-tales, and real life. Because for a dreamer like me, it's hard to live in the real world when your world is a fairy-tale.