Last week while on the road, I finished reading Son of a Witch, by Gregory Maguire. This is the sequel to Wicked, his re-take on The Wizard of Oz as viewed from the perspective of Elphaba Thropp, aka the Wicked Witch of the West (and a sympathetic character at that).
This book focuses on the apparent son of the Wicked Witch, Liir -- though no one, including Liir himself, is quite sure whether there really is a biological relationship between the two. Liir's skin isn't green, and the circumstances of his birth, while the Witch was in a persistent coma while being cared for in a convent, left the real information in the hands of a precious few nuns.
The book picks up where the first one ended: shortly after the death of Elphaba at the hands of Dorothy. Liir, a young boy, realizes that there is nothing left for him there and heads back to the Emerald City with Dorothy and gang. Upon arrival they go their separate ways, Liir living on the street and Dorothy and the Wizard soon disappearing and leaving behind an Oz in political upheaval. We get to watch Liir over the next ten to fifteen years as he wanders trying to understand what purpose his life serves and what causes, if any, he should fight for.
This is a strange book and even after reading it I'm not exactly sure what it's "about." Probbaly more than anything it's about politics and power. There's a bit of a whodunit thrown in for good measure, and several mysterious characters, some of whom we get to know and others we don't. There isn't a lot of depth in any of the characters, even Liir. Even toward the end, I didn't get a strong sense for what he stood for, and couldn't easily make judgments about whether any particular decision he made was consistent with his character. The story moves along at a good pace, but I'm never really sure where its going - and I'm not sure if it knows either.
I can't really give a strong recommendation to this book. I loved Wicked, which in some ways was the exact opposite of this book: you know with great certainty exactly what will happen in the end but the author weaves a tapestry of context and events that meet his one main goal -- to make you feel sympathy for Elphaba. In this book, I never know who I'm supposed to like or dislike, and I have no idea what might or might not get resolved in the end.
And in the end,there's one thing that gets conclusively resolved, a few things that become clearer, and many, many loose ends that just get left there. Perhaps that's intentional, and Maguire intends to write a third book. I sincerely hope not, because this one was less than satisfying.
8:54:46 AM 
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