Son of a Witch: A Novel (Wicked Years)
by Gregory Maguire
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Book Reviews of Son of a Witch: A Novel (Wicked Years)
Book Review: Good continuation of Wicked's story, technically clever, but weighed down by insultingly obvious political allegory.
Summary: 3 Stars
Continuing the brilliant tale that was Maguire's first novel, Son of a Witch both exceeds and falls short of Wicked. As in Wicked, the dialogue waxes unrealistically and unnecessarily philosophical at moments, but not enough to really spoil the progress of the story. Maguire clearly picked up a few new words and literary techniques during the intervening decade, and particularly his descriptions of places and emotions are clever and precise beyond our expectations of even the more accomplished novelists of our day. The narrative is disjointed and often seemingly inexplicably so, but I think that Maguire meant to require a bit of thought from his audience. The real story underlying the various adventures and struggles of Liir is his life-defining search for an identity, and Maguire handles this very well. It demands a some extension of empathy and thought from the reader, and therefore rewards us with a story that is deeper and fuller than the words on the pages seem. In contrast, Maguire's allegorical criticism of modern American conservatism is painfully obtuse. I am certainly no fundie, but Maguire's political commentary at times becomes so obvious as to insult one's intelligence. Nonetheless, I thoroughly enjoyed the story and look forward to the third book in this series, which promises to garner the sort of mainstream respect for the fantasy genre that authors like Terry Pratchett have been seeking for decades. 7/10.Book Review: from the Italian translator
Summary: 1 Stars
Check out my review of Wicked (which I also translated) to find out what I thought about it. Well, this is even worse: either Maguire totally lacks the narrative skills to capture the reader's attention, or he doesn't believe it his duty to do so. This deadly bore of a sequel has even less action than the first book, and reads like its author takes it for granted that the public will worship him no matter what. An increasingly uninteresting sequence of petty events, here and there interrupted - just like in Wicked - by the usual aimless and self-complacent blabber, all set in a fictional universe that Maguire doesn't seem to feel the need to develop in any depth. Not to mention his pathetic puns (Liir/leer, "which nation"/"witch nation", "leaf and limb, laugh and lamb, loaf and loam", the title of the book itself) and his unbelievable pretentiousness: someone should definitely tell him that writing "he riposted" instead of "he replied", "succor" instead of "help", "dale" instead of "valley", or "lave" instead of "wash", doesn't make you a great novelist.
As a side note, I know of people who read Wicked in Italian and loved it: best for them. I made it clear to the publisher that I'd rather stop working for them altogether than translate the dreaded third novel, or anything else by Maguire.
Book Review: an insult to Baum and readers
Summary: 1 Stars
Liir, presumed son of the Wicked Witch (Elphaba), is on a quest to find his identity and his (maybe) half-sister. And nothing happens. As a fan of Baum's quirky and lovely original books, I can't quite get on board with Maguire. He sucks the magic and mystery out of Oz by soaking it in political and religious rhetoric and endless boring discussions on those matters. It is as if he doesn't trust readers of fantasy to be able to understand allegory. Baum did, and he was writing for children. Maguire's story is bogged down with these aspects, taking away from the characters and the magic, and boring his readers to tears. The novel rambles and seems to lack any point at all. His language is as silly as it is pointless, particularly is constant similes/metaphors, for instance, comparing the Cowardly Lion in the rain to "a stone lion in a fountain". He uses obscure vocabulary that breaks the flow of the reading. And, as a fan of the original works, I can't understand why he even bothers to place his work in Oz except as an excuse to cash in on another's work and shock the readers by making something so fluffy and light as Oz into a dark and political world. It's pretentious. I won't be reading anything else by this author, and I chucked out all his other books. Grade: FBook Review: Actually very good.
Summary: 4 Stars
I do my best to steer clear of these "revisionist" works of fiction ever since someone gave me "The Wind Done Gone" as a birthday present. I'm aware that Wicked was produced as a Broadway musical but I have never read it but I will have to now because I enjoyed "Son of a Witch" so much. The characters are very real and funny even if the plot is somewhat schizophrenic.
Don't let a viewing of the Wizard of Oz fool you this environment that has been created is far from a fun happy place it is dark harsh and militaristic with various factions seeking to find advantage over the other in the power vacuum left by the departing Wizard of Oz. Into this world we are introduced to the son of the Witch of the West who had a very lonely childhood; the only magic he seems capable of is to fit seamlessly into whatever environment he finds himself. If doesn't matter if that role is as a travling companion to dorthy or as a solider. The author pants a good picture of a guy who has no idea who he is just trying to do the right thing.
Overall-I should probably enjoy Wicked a lot more then this because everyone else seems to be having such a "middle of the road" reaction to it but I'm convinced sign me on for the next book.
Book Review: Not a musical 1 Stars
Maguire is far from a good writer and after reading Wicked, which was better than this, you only need read the first page to have an idea of what to exspect.A few short decades ago the character of Billy Bigalow from the musical CAROUSEL committed suicide in the stage version. It was so objectionable that in the movie his death was changed to an accident and the spouse abuse, although minimal and explained, generated a new ending where Billy, comes down from heaven to whispers words of hope to his daughter and speaks of his love for his wife in both the stage version and the movie. I had no problem with the changes to the end. After all the play LILIOM, which was the basis of the musical was very morose, but the compromise on the suicide seemed needless even for Hollywood as it was allowed in the stage version. You may wonder where I am going with this. Considering SON OF A WITCH as a possible musical, which is being considered, is more than I care to contemplate. This strange, tedious and and extremely gruesome tale is not something I ever want to hear lyrics and music put to, and if WICKED was recommended for 8 years up (still too young in my opinion) a musical version of this would have to be 18 and older.