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Trent Steel Reviews
Posted by trentsteel on February 26, 2008
Hark, are those the quiet footfalls and musty, whiskey soaked, odor of Trent Steel that is assaulting your senses? You bet your sweet ass it is, baby!
I’ve managed to drag myself kicking and screaming into the 1990s and have purchased a home computer. Well, in all fairness it’s a laptop, so I guess it doesn’t necessarily need to be used in “the home”. But neither here nor there, I have a computer now. What does that mean for you my loyal reader?
Just like if I went on a three-month cake eating binge, more of me to love!
Anyway, in the time that has spanned since my last gentle musing I have managed to jam several new books into my head (among other things) and while they have not all been worthy of me taking up keyboard time, several are worth mentioning. So without further adieu…
Wicked – The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire
I originally picked up this book for two reasons
- It contains the same tagline that I use.
- Our gay designer mentioned it to me under the guise that I may enjoy it based on my aberrant reading habits.
So one fateful day I’m traipsing through Borders and, lo and behold, there it is staring me in the face. I couldn’t resist.
Much as the title suggests Wicked is the complete life story of the Wicked Witch of the West (if I have to explain who the WWotW is to you please go stick your head in an oven): her whole life story, from birth until death. Maguire takes great lengths to make this an original story, using the plot from The Wizard Of Oz only as a guideline to direct the going’s on in Wicked, and actually changes a few things from the original story to make his book more interesting.
First and foremost, the witch is named Elphaba (pronounced “elf-aba”) and not just “the witch”. Elphaba is born in Munchkinland to a father who is a preacher of the unnamed God and an aristocrat mother who ran away from the good life to live in the shit-hole that is Munchkinland, she is born green. The cause of this color is a semi-big part of the beginning of the book: her father was away a lot while preaching and her mother became a drugged-out whore who slept with the strange men who happened to stop by. They don’t really explain the whole situation until the end of the book, though, and honestly give it about a three- quarters-ass explanation.
The middle part of the book focuses on Elphaba’s life in college with her roommate Galinda (yes, that Galinda, who later changes her name to Glinda), and then moves on to Elphaba becoming an Animal activist and terrorist in Emerald City. Elphie (my personal favorite of the many variations of her name used during the book) has an affair with a Vinkus prince, bad shit happens, and she ends up being a kind of nun in a convent caring for the sick. After several years, she goes west to Vinkus to meet with the (now-dead) prince’s wife and explain (for lack of a better term) “stuff” to her. Along the way, she picks up a monkey (Chistery, who would eventually lead to those awesome flying monkeys from The Wizard Of Oz), a dog, a swarm of bees, and the realization she has magical powers to some degree. The Vinkus princess lives in this big-ass old fort which eventually becomes the witch’s castle, and so on and so forth.
The ending of the book is almost entirely about Elphaba, her armless sister Nessarose (the Wicked Witch of the East) and those damned Ruby Slippers. Nessarose is the de facto leader of Muchkinland because of some old family ties and leads a revolt against the Wizard. Everything is good for a while until the Munchkinlanders, being a fickle small folk, get all bent out of shape because Nessarose is obviously a witch (and nutty as a shithouse rat). Long story short, Nessarose has a house fall on her during a speech; Elphie goes after the slippers and hilarity does not ensue.
So, what is my opinion of the book? Freakin’ awesome. I would highly recommend it to anyone who can read above the 27th grade level.
Why the 27th grade you may ask?
Because someone bought Maguire a fucking thesaurus for his birthday every year of his goddamn life. I’m serious. I don’t mean to sound “sanguine”, but I know a lot of words. Maguire would have me in a vocabulary-off any day of the week. As long as you have access to a dictionary and the ability to sound out/make sense of the words he just makes up (names specifically) you should highly enjoy this book.
out of 5
-T.S.
