Monday, August 14, 2006
book report: Son of a Witch
Son of a Witch
by Gregory Maguire
I wrote about the predecessor to this book, Wicked, a while ago. And at that time I happily noted that there was a sequel. And here it is!
The focus of this book is, obviously, Elphaba's son Liir. After Dorothy inadvertantly kills Elphaba and her whole party troops back to see the Wizard to get their heart's desires granted, Liir is left aimlessly wandering in the Emerald City. He decides he wants to find Noor, his (maybe) half-sister who was taken away by the army before Elphaba's death. This tentative goal leads Liir into all kinds of odd circumstances, eventually landing him badly injured and unconscious on the plains of the Vinkus. He is found by a travel guide and handed over to the nuns at the same nunnery where Elphaba took refuge during her pregnancy. The nuns tend him, giving most of the responsibility for his care to a mute girl named Candle, who tends to him and plays music to draw him back to consciousness.
I didn't like this sequel as much as I liked Wicked. Liir is not as compelling a character as Elphaba was, partly because he is practically an empty vessel, and partly because I didn't have a mental image of him already in place because he wasn't in the Wizard of Oz movie. Perhaps a failure of imagination on my part, I don't know. Anyway, I was intrigued by Liir's story and the experiences that he had, and I especially liked the very last paragraph of the book - but I just wasn't as riveted by Son of a Witch as I was by Wicked.
by Gregory Maguire
I wrote about the predecessor to this book, Wicked, a while ago. And at that time I happily noted that there was a sequel. And here it is!
The focus of this book is, obviously, Elphaba's son Liir. After Dorothy inadvertantly kills Elphaba and her whole party troops back to see the Wizard to get their heart's desires granted, Liir is left aimlessly wandering in the Emerald City. He decides he wants to find Noor, his (maybe) half-sister who was taken away by the army before Elphaba's death. This tentative goal leads Liir into all kinds of odd circumstances, eventually landing him badly injured and unconscious on the plains of the Vinkus. He is found by a travel guide and handed over to the nuns at the same nunnery where Elphaba took refuge during her pregnancy. The nuns tend him, giving most of the responsibility for his care to a mute girl named Candle, who tends to him and plays music to draw him back to consciousness.
I didn't like this sequel as much as I liked Wicked. Liir is not as compelling a character as Elphaba was, partly because he is practically an empty vessel, and partly because I didn't have a mental image of him already in place because he wasn't in the Wizard of Oz movie. Perhaps a failure of imagination on my part, I don't know. Anyway, I was intrigued by Liir's story and the experiences that he had, and I especially liked the very last paragraph of the book - but I just wasn't as riveted by Son of a Witch as I was by Wicked.
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