No Place Like Oz

Some of the original characters
 from"The Wizard of Oz"

In this article, Sophie Harrison recalls the several attempts by Gregory Maguire to modernise The Wizard of Oz to build a fairyland out of an American classic. Harrison calls “Wicked” a “hefty prequel” that is deemed for adults due to its dark undertone. Like many other individuals, Harrison comments on the feminism portrayed in “Wicked” as well as Elphaba’s coping methods with being an outsider. Gregory Maguire’s vast array of influences from various classic tales seem to be a continuous trend depicted in his writing. Harrison even said that the original author may have “discovered Oz rather than invented it”. She calls Maguire a “confident interpreter” of his work due to the multiple trilogies he has written for “Wicked”.  However, Sophie Harrision commented on Gregory Maguire’s confidence when inventing new material and difficulty using scenarios from “The Wizard of Oz”. She recalls that some of the characters felt like they “belonged in someone else’s fairy-tale”. Harrison believes that the author needs to believe in its own accuracy and choose to involve key features of the character because there is not much room for satire without causing an awkward reading experience. The case of Elphaba was different because Maguire was writing about the influences in her life that made her the villainous character we know today. Harrison believed that Maguire’s novel showed an obsessive allegiance to classic retellings but manages to reveal an inventive side. Gregory Harrison believes that Maguire is full of creativity but lacks in the skill of formal language due to the extensive amount of childish slang used. Maguire’s “Wicked” is a meticulous retelling that demonstrates an unusual complexity that was not grasped in the original.

Source Citation

Harrison, Sophie. "No Place Like Oz." The New York Times Book Review 9 Oct. 2005: 17(L). Literature Resource Center. Web. 19 Oct. 2011.

Document URL
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