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2007年1月24日 在美国审核
In Maguire's Wicked the reader is transported to the magical land of Oz, in the time before the Witch was born. In the first section, "Munchkinlanders," the story jumps through time from before The Witch is born to about the time she goes off to school. It takes a few chapters to get into the story because of the jumping through time. But by the time you reach the second section, "Gillikin," you will be surely caught up in the story.
Maguire has done an impressive job of creating histories for every aspect of the Oz, The Witch of the West, Glinda, the Wizard, and other characters from Frank L. Baum's Oz series. He even moves through time to explain how the ruby slippers, the Witch's broom, and other inanimate objects came to be. More impressive than the histories themselves is how he artfully weaves these back stories into one comprehensive plot.
Maguire has an astounding vocabulary, one that more than once prompted me to look up a word in the dictionary. I would have looked up many more if I could have gotten myself into the habit of keeping the dictionary side by side with this book, because too often once I settled in to a good read, I wouldn't get up for the dictionary even though I wanted to look up a word or five.
However, there are also a lot of imagined political, religious, and social groups in the Oz of Wicked, with lots of words that go along with them. The vocabulary become overwhelming and even annoying when I couldn't identify if I was reading a real English word that I wasn't familiar with, or a word from Oz. At times I felt like I needed not only an English dictionary by my side, but an Ozian one as well.
Many aspects of the magical world remind me other fantasy tales. Especially because so much of the story takes place at the magical boarding school "Shiz," the story often recalls such other books at the Harry Potter series or His Dark Materials Trilogy. After the students leave the school, though, the story becomes much more grown up and addresses grown up themes as well, including sexual content.
There are many more thought provoking themes as well. Wicked brings up many political and social topics, like racism (and speciesism) and also immigration, tyranny, and nationalism. The question of good and evil, where they come from and how they are to be dealt with is addressed throughout the book. Questioning of political and religious authority is also rampant, though no clear conclusion is ever drawn. This open-endedness allows (or forces) the reader to come to her own conclusions, or at the very least to continue contemplating the questions well after the plot is finished. The only thing in this regard that the characters seem to agree on is that a "holier than thou" attitude is one to beware.
Maguire has done an impressive job of creating histories for every aspect of the Oz, The Witch of the West, Glinda, the Wizard, and other characters from Frank L. Baum's Oz series. He even moves through time to explain how the ruby slippers, the Witch's broom, and other inanimate objects came to be. More impressive than the histories themselves is how he artfully weaves these back stories into one comprehensive plot.
Maguire has an astounding vocabulary, one that more than once prompted me to look up a word in the dictionary. I would have looked up many more if I could have gotten myself into the habit of keeping the dictionary side by side with this book, because too often once I settled in to a good read, I wouldn't get up for the dictionary even though I wanted to look up a word or five.
However, there are also a lot of imagined political, religious, and social groups in the Oz of Wicked, with lots of words that go along with them. The vocabulary become overwhelming and even annoying when I couldn't identify if I was reading a real English word that I wasn't familiar with, or a word from Oz. At times I felt like I needed not only an English dictionary by my side, but an Ozian one as well.
Many aspects of the magical world remind me other fantasy tales. Especially because so much of the story takes place at the magical boarding school "Shiz," the story often recalls such other books at the Harry Potter series or His Dark Materials Trilogy. After the students leave the school, though, the story becomes much more grown up and addresses grown up themes as well, including sexual content.
There are many more thought provoking themes as well. Wicked brings up many political and social topics, like racism (and speciesism) and also immigration, tyranny, and nationalism. The question of good and evil, where they come from and how they are to be dealt with is addressed throughout the book. Questioning of political and religious authority is also rampant, though no clear conclusion is ever drawn. This open-endedness allows (or forces) the reader to come to her own conclusions, or at the very least to continue contemplating the questions well after the plot is finished. The only thing in this regard that the characters seem to agree on is that a "holier than thou" attitude is one to beware.
