Lost, by Gregory Maguire
Gregory Maguire has found an interesting niche. He takes fairytales we all know – stories like The Wizard of Oz and Cinderella, and tells them from another point of view. The first, Wicked, was very very clever, told from the point of view of the Wicked Witch of the West, who turns out to have been a freedom-fighter, but got a lot of bad press. LLOOLLL. Like, what is not to like about an author who turns “reality” upside-down?
His second book, Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, did the same for the Cinderella legend – told it from another point of view, and Cinderella comes out looking not-so-saintly at all.
Both of these books became best sellers, and Wicked even went on to become a long-running Broadway play.
I picked up Lost because of the cover and because I wondered what another take on Alice in Wonderland would look like.
It took me forever to start reading it, and once I started, it did not engage me. We meet a woman, an author, and she is behaving very strangely. As we continue to read, she continues to behave strangely, inexplicably, and as the book proceeds, we begin to get a more complete picture. At no point did I see a clear parallel between this plot and Alice in Wonderland, although the main character’s experiences were equally chaotic and full of non-meanings. The book was opaque, and frustrating – to me. You may have a totally different take on it.
The main character, a successful author, seems to be divorced, and decides to travel to London to see her cousin. When she arrives, he is not at home, his kitchen is being destroyed and renovated, and she moves right in anyway. There are apparent hauntings. When I got to the end of the book, I knew a little more about the character than I knew before – and I didn’t care.
I think maybe the fairy-tales-told-from-another-point-of-view thing has gotten old, maybe a little stretched at this point. He’s now done a couple more Wizard of Oz retellings, and I don’t think I will bother with them.
I DO recommend Wicked, if you haven’t read it. It is fresh, and delightful.
Not Your Kuwait Book Store
Killing time waiting for Adventure Man to arrive. I always save Barnes and Noble for a special treat. If I go too soon, my bag is full of books, and no room for anything else. B&N is my incentive to get all my business taken care of – my special reward.
I love the bestseller, new hardcover and new paperback sections, where I can get a quick overview of what is hot.
Gregory Maguire’s Wicked is out in a new paperback format; while it first came out about ten years ago, it is as delightful now as it was then. It is the Wizard of Oz story, retold from the point of view of the Wicked Witch of the West, a radical reformer who got bad press. It was also made into a Broadway musical that ran for years. Well worth bringing out for a new generation of readers.
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