PDF Ebook Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Wicked Years), by Gregory Maguire
This is a few of the advantages to take when being the participant and obtain guide Wicked: The Life And Times Of The Wicked Witch Of The West (Wicked Years), By Gregory Maguire right here. Still ask exactly what's different of the other website? We provide the hundreds titles that are produced by advised authors as well as publishers, around the world. The link to buy and also download and install Wicked: The Life And Times Of The Wicked Witch Of The West (Wicked Years), By Gregory Maguire is likewise very easy. You could not discover the difficult site that order to do even more. So, the method for you to get this Wicked: The Life And Times Of The Wicked Witch Of The West (Wicked Years), By Gregory Maguire will be so simple, won't you?
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Wicked Years), by Gregory Maguire
PDF Ebook Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Wicked Years), by Gregory Maguire
Make use of the sophisticated technology that human develops this day to find guide Wicked: The Life And Times Of The Wicked Witch Of The West (Wicked Years), By Gregory Maguire quickly. But first, we will certainly ask you, just how much do you enjoy to read a book Wicked: The Life And Times Of The Wicked Witch Of The West (Wicked Years), By Gregory Maguire Does it consistently till surface? For what does that book check out? Well, if you actually enjoy reading, attempt to read the Wicked: The Life And Times Of The Wicked Witch Of The West (Wicked Years), By Gregory Maguire as one of your reading compilation. If you only reviewed guide based upon requirement at the time and incomplete, you need to try to like reading Wicked: The Life And Times Of The Wicked Witch Of The West (Wicked Years), By Gregory Maguire initially.
Do you ever before recognize guide Wicked: The Life And Times Of The Wicked Witch Of The West (Wicked Years), By Gregory Maguire Yeah, this is a quite interesting e-book to check out. As we told previously, reading is not sort of commitment task to do when we need to obligate. Reviewing need to be a behavior, a great behavior. By reading Wicked: The Life And Times Of The Wicked Witch Of The West (Wicked Years), By Gregory Maguire, you can open the new globe and also obtain the power from the globe. Everything could be gained through guide Wicked: The Life And Times Of The Wicked Witch Of The West (Wicked Years), By Gregory Maguire Well briefly, e-book is quite effective. As exactly what we supply you right below, this Wicked: The Life And Times Of The Wicked Witch Of The West (Wicked Years), By Gregory Maguire is as one of reviewing book for you.
By reading this publication Wicked: The Life And Times Of The Wicked Witch Of The West (Wicked Years), By Gregory Maguire, you will certainly get the ideal thing to acquire. The new point that you don't have to spend over money to reach is by doing it on your own. So, exactly what should you do now? See the link page and also download and install guide Wicked: The Life And Times Of The Wicked Witch Of The West (Wicked Years), By Gregory Maguire You can get this Wicked: The Life And Times Of The Wicked Witch Of The West (Wicked Years), By Gregory Maguire by online. It's so easy, isn't really it? Nowadays, modern technology actually sustains you activities, this on the internet e-book Wicked: The Life And Times Of The Wicked Witch Of The West (Wicked Years), By Gregory Maguire, is also.
Be the first to download this e-book Wicked: The Life And Times Of The Wicked Witch Of The West (Wicked Years), By Gregory Maguire and allow reviewed by surface. It is extremely simple to review this publication Wicked: The Life And Times Of The Wicked Witch Of The West (Wicked Years), By Gregory Maguire due to the fact that you don't require to bring this published Wicked: The Life And Times Of The Wicked Witch Of The West (Wicked Years), By Gregory Maguire everywhere. Your soft data e-book could be in our gadget or computer system so you could delight in checking out all over and also every single time if needed. This is why lots numbers of individuals likewise review guides Wicked: The Life And Times Of The Wicked Witch Of The West (Wicked Years), By Gregory Maguire in soft fie by downloading guide. So, be just one of them that take all advantages of reading guide Wicked: The Life And Times Of The Wicked Witch Of The West (Wicked Years), By Gregory Maguire by online or on your soft file system.
This is the book that started it all! The basis for the smash hit Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, Gregory Maguire's breathtaking New York Times bestseller Wicked views the land of Oz, its inhabitants, its Wizard, and the Emerald City, through a darker and greener (not rosier) lens. Brilliantly inventive, Wicked offers us a radical new evaluation of one of the most feared and hated characters in all of literature: the much maligned Wicked Witch of the West who, as Maguire tells us, wasn’t nearly as Wicked as we imagined.
- Sales Rank: #9929 in Books
- Brand: Harper
- Published on: 2007-09-25
- Released on: 2007-09-25
- Format: Print
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 6.75" h x 1.12" w x 4.19" l, .61 pounds
- Binding: Mass Market Paperback
- 560 pages
- Great product!
From Publishers Weekly
Born with green skin and huge teeth, like a dragon, the free-spirited Elphaba grows up to be an anti-totalitarian agitator, an animal-rights activist, a nun, then a nurse who tends the dying?and, ultimately, the headstrong Wicked Witch of the West in the land of Oz. Maguire's strange and imaginative postmodernist fable uses L. Frank Baum's Wonderful Wizard of Oz as a springboard to create a tense realm inhabited by humans, talking animals (a rhino librarian, a goat physician), Munchkinlanders, dwarves and various tribes. The Wizard of Oz, emperor of this dystopian dictatorship, promotes Industrial Modern architecture and restricts animals' right to freedom of travel; his holy book is an ancient manuscript of magic that was clairvoyantly located by Madam Blavatsky 40 years earlier. Much of the narrative concerns Elphaba's troubled youth (she is raised by a giddy alcoholic mother and a hermitlike minister father who transmits to her his habits of loathing and self-hatred) and with her student years. Dorothy appears only near novel's end, as her house crash-lands on Elphaba's sister, the Wicked Witch of the East, in an accident that sets Elphaba on the trail of the girl from Kansas?as well as the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodsman and the Lion?and her fabulous new shoes. Maguire combines puckish humor and bracing pessimism in this fantastical meditation on good and evil, God and free will, which should, despite being far removed in spirit from the Baum books, captivate devotees of fantasy. 50,000 first printing; $75,000 ad/promo; first serial to Word; author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
YA?Elphaba, the future Wicked Witch of the West, has gotten a bum rap. Her mother is embarrassed and repulsed by her bright-green baby with shark's teeth and an aversion to water. At college, the coed experiences disapproval and rejection by her roommate, Glinda, a silly girl interested only in clothes, money, and popularity. Elphaba is a serious and inquisitive student. When she learns that the Wizard of Oz is politically corrupt and causing economic ruin, Elphaba finds a sense of purpose to her life?to stop him and to restore harmony and prosperity to the land. A Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, Scarecrow, and an unknown species called a "Dorothy" appear in very small roles... The story presents Elphaba in a sympathetic and empathetic manner-readers will want her to triumph! The conclusion, however, is the same as L. Frank Baum's. The book has both idealism and cynicism in its discussion of social, religious, educational, and political issues present in Oz, and, more pointedly, present in our day and time. The idealism is whimsical and engaging; the cynicism is biting. Sometimes the earthy language seems appropriate and adds to the sense of place; sometimes the four-letter words and sexual explicitness distract from the charm of the tale. The multiple threads to the plot proceed unevenly, so that the pace of the story jumps rather than moves steadily forward. Wicked is not an easy rereading of The Wizard of Oz. It is for good readers who like satire, and love exceedingly imaginative and clever fantasy.?Judy Sokoll, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
'Gregory Maguire's Wicked falls into a fascinating sub-genre of novels that revisit well-known stories as much in the spirit of criticism as homage. Maguire...makes sense of Baum's whims, creating a credible Oz for grown-ups, with religion, politics, racial tensions, an economy, mythology, humour and sex... As moving and tragic as it is refreshing and scurrilous... This outstanding novel.' The Independent
Most helpful customer reviews
894 of 991 people found the following review helpful.
Raises disturbing questions about nature of evil
By Growllingbear
If you can find a better bang for the buck than Wicked, please let me know. I picked up Wicked, knowing nothing except that its subject matter was the Wicked Witch of the West, to be drawn immediately into Maguire's splendidly imagined world of sentient animals, multiple societies, and unique physical laws. Wicked is an enthralling, great read, hugely entertaining. On top of all this, Maguire has Bradbury's gift for creating atmosphere. The pages are heavy with dark, mysterious magic; its moral laws are ultimately incomprehensible.
Apparently doomed at conception, Elphaba is a truly terrifying infant. Razor-toothed and preternaturally intelligent, she is shunned from birth as a freak and a curse. She is nonetheless the tale's most complex, human, and compelling character, possessed of high moral sense and great courage. But neither of these qualities enables a single one of her brave, ethical actions to succeed. What are we to conclude from this?
How is it that Dorothy, the sturdy little nobody from nowhere who committed manslaughter as she landed in Oz, skips down the Yellow Brick Road impervious to danger while Elphaba strives and plots to reap only negative results?
Why is one protected while the other is doomed? Read Wicked and you will learn how the witch's monkeys became winged, where the rubies for those slippers came from, and, indeed, why the witch's skin was green. But you will wrestle, long afterward, with Maguire's moral pessimism and the snarl of grace and doom that underlies this novel. I know I will.
166 of 197 people found the following review helpful.
A richly detailed story that only gets better.
By A Customer
I must start this review by saying that it is certainly not a book you can take lightly. It takes some serious effort to stick with it, particularly once you get about half way through and the more light-hearted experiences of Elphaba, the wicked witch, at Shiz fade into her darker, secretive experiences at the Emerald City. After two failed attempts to tackle to book, fascinated by the subject matter both times, I finally got through it, inspired to read it because of the Broadway musical based on the book that I found myself mesmerized by (go see it, despite how different it is).
The book is a richly textured account of the life of the Wicked Witch of the West, here given an actual name, Elphaba, as she moves from student at Shiz University, an outcast and roommate to G(a)linda, to secretive activist in the Emerald City, to maunt (nun), to Auntie Witch, later to become The Wicked Witch of the West.
Throughout, the detailed religion, culture, and government of Oz supplement the narrative beautifully, adding depth to what could have been simply an unfounded story of what could happen to some flatly portrayed green girl from Oz. This story really makes you care for the witch and understand that even the most evil of people could simply be the victims of chance.
I thought the book began and ended very strongly, but the narrative sagged a bit in the middle, particularly as Elphaba becomes a nun and travels rather boringly across the desert to the Winkie stronghold of Kiamo Ko. The story stays rather low-key for a while, but picks up when some more familiar characters, such as Nessarose, Elphaba's sister, Elphaba's father, Frexspar, and Glinda, reenter the novel. From this point out, the novel receives its well-deserved finale, in which it goes out with a bold glory rarely seen in novels.
Of course, no life is without its dull moments, and even these are not completely flat. The prose is witty and never becomes to boorish. What really mesmerized me was fitting together the story in this novel into the context of the original Oz book and movie of the same (revised) name.
I would reccomend this to someone who has quite a bit of undistracted time. It's important not to take very long breaks in reading this novel, as the details become more important toward the end, when the witch begins looking back upon her life. The novel should be a very interesting read for anyone familiar with The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum or the movie from MGM. Its richly detailed characters and interesting plot choices make for a wonderful read that you're surely not soon to forget. Tough it out through the middle so you can finish this great book.
291 of 350 people found the following review helpful.
Wicked Sucks
By Omeed Dariani
Sorry for the inelegant title. I sat here for a little while... trying to come up with something clever, but nothing captured the scope of my feelings about this book quite as well as that.
I found Wicked to be one of the weakest novels I have ever read and would strongly discourage you from picking it up. I'm not actually in the business of reviewing literature, but I have been astounded by the critical acclaim for this book, despite its incredible lack of depth and character.
Wicked starts from a safe premise: take a well-loved story and write a story within it. Tom Stoppard has made a career out of this, with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead being a prime example. However, Maguire fumbles this by diverging from the source material at almost every contact point. His vision of Oz is pallid and mostly uninteresting. The development of Oz's religions, local customs, and such are limited in scope and generally not fresh. Unlike the world of Harry Potter, where the little touches make you curious for more, I felt very much that Maguire was crassly trying to flesh out the world of Oz simply to create storytelling space for future stories.
The characters are defiantly flat and frequently step out of their own characterizations to do things that are pointless and, often, absolutely baffling. Elfaba, a character who refused to carry out an assassination in the presence of a group of children, randomly, and spitefully, attempts to kick a well-meaning child in the back. Sarima, a widow whose husband disappeared under mysterious circumstances, is not at all interested in discovering the truth about her husband... even with the truth knocks on her door and BEGS her to listen. I found so many examples of behavior incongruous with common sense that I started second guessing my own. Would I, a green girl fatally allergic to water who has, for hundreds of pages, taken extremely detailed precautions to avoid every single drop of water, go ICE SKATING for no reason? Upon further examination, the only thing wrong with me was that I lacked the common sense to put this book down.
Wicked's plot is stilted and stumbles over itself as if it was written in one take without an editor. Maguire introduces plot threads and then does not resolve them, leaving the reader frustrated all every turn, waiting for payoffs that never come. Years at a time pass casually... key plot points are dropped in parentheticals hundreds of pages after you've forgotten their thrust. The plot meanders aimlessly for dozens of pages at a time, detailing the hide-and-seek exploits of minor characters, the sexual fantasies of a young girl, and the thoughtfully-named sisters Two through Seven.
Consistent mediocrity is the prose's hallmark. Maguire attempts to hide his lack of substance behind alternating complex and florid language. The prose is decidedly amateur and takes every opportunity to throw you off of a nice pace with its awkwardly-worded sentences, simplistic imagery, and general vulgarity. Maguire bumbles modern and antiquated phrases and concepts together in a way that makes the entire body seem anachronistic. The overall effect is slapdash and serves to jostle the reader out of the story.
Wicked does have one bright point however: the single worst plot twist I have ever seen. I think even the story editor at General Hospital would wince if you pitched him this one. Elphaba, asked if she is the mother of a dubious tagalong kid, replies to the effect of `well, it doesn't feel like I've ever had a kid... but there was that one time I was in a coma for a year. I guess I could have had him then." The coma she is talking about happened about a hundred pages before - but was not mentioned. I'm sorry... how do you NOT MENTION YOUR PROTAGONIST'S YEARLONG COMA IN A BOOK SUBTITLED "The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West"? Then, as if to demonstrate a complete contempt for the reader, about a hundred pages later, Maguire drops into a parenthetical that the boy is in fact the son of Elphaba's lover... but does not confirm her as the mother.
As for social commentary - which is a key theme of the book, according to the jacket - I found it sorely lacking. If Maguire's aim was to explain the motives and perceptions of evil, we can only conclude that he believes that evil is fueled by society's idiotic, illogical behavior. Having driven the highways of Los Angeles, I can certainly understand this sentiment, but Maguire misses just about every chance to explore the true nature evil. Nietzsche's famous phrase "gaze long into the abyss, and the abyss gazes into you" gets closer to explaining evil in eleven words than Maguire does in 400 pages.
You know how when you read most books, as you get closer to the end, you read faster? Some books, you can't even put them down. With this book, I had the opposite experience. The closer I got to the ending, as I realized there was nothing the author could do to salvage this train wreck, and there was no way for me to reclaim these precious hours of my life, I had to stop often - and could only read a page or two at a time. When I finished, I actually literally physically threw the book across the room.
I have never been this frustrated with a reading experience in my life. After a hundred pages, I decided to read on to see if the book improved. At two hundred, I plodded along out of sheer morbid curiosity. At three hundred, it was too late to turn back. At four hundred, I feel as if my brain has been violated. It may be too late for me - but it isn't too late for you! Skip this book and read something good.
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Wicked Years), by Gregory Maguire PDF
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Wicked Years), by Gregory Maguire EPub
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Wicked Years), by Gregory Maguire Doc
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Wicked Years), by Gregory Maguire iBooks
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Wicked Years), by Gregory Maguire rtf
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Wicked Years), by Gregory Maguire Mobipocket
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Wicked Years), by Gregory Maguire Kindle
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar