Last Saturday I finished reading Mirror, Mirror by Gregory Maguire. Maguire is the author of Wicked and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, reinterpretations of classic tales (The Wizard of Oz and Cinderella, respectively).
Mirror, Mirror is of course in the same genre, a reinterpretation of Snow White.
Maguire's riffs on classic tales have a depth and complexity that go far beyond the often two-dimensional caricatures n the originals. He accomplishes this first by providing the context of a much richer setting (Wicked described the political complexities of the Land of Oz; Mirror, Mirror takes place in 16th-century Italy with all the requisite intrigue of corrupt Popes and warring royal families). But he also chooses a new protagonist, often the villain of the orginal story, and recasts that person as a sympathetic character. Or at least the most interesting character.
In this case, by far the character with the most depth and complexity is Lucrezia Borgia, the "wicked queen" (though not exactly a queen) who through circumstances take on guardianship for Bianca de Nevada (literally "the white of the snowy mountains") when Lucrezia's brother Cesare sends Bianca's father off on a quest for an ancient religious relic.
We get to see how Lucrezia learns to resent Bianca and eventually despise her enough to want to kill her. That is by far the most interesting part of the story.
This book is somewhat differnet fromt he predecessors in that it doesn't stay with Lucrezia's point of view; instead is switches quickly between Lucrezia, Bianca, her father, and the dwarves. I found that a bit overwhelming, and in the end I think Maguire had difficulty bringing any of the characters to closure. I found the end to be unsatisfying, but as a whole the book was still a fun and entertaining read -- if not quite up to the standard set by the first two of the genre.
1:00:57 AM  ; ;
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