Andrej Is Still Working On It

Wicked Review, or Finding Joy

I teach a Reading and Writing class in which I tell my EFL students that it's important for them to have contact with the written word as much as possible in as pleasurable a way as possible, and I make them read a graded reader every two weeks or so.

But I haven't read books for pleasure in years, not since I was doing a Book Club back in the USA, 12 years ago. And I haven't read anything substantial in my second languages, Japanese and Spanish, in that time, either.

I decided it would be nice to practice what I preach, at least in my native English, and so around my birthday I asked for a book. We'd just seen Wicked (part 1) and... liked it, I think? So I suggested the book as a present for myself.

That was in March, and I didn't pick it up for months. But last month I did. I started reading it, liked it, kept at it, finished it and decided I didn't love it.

At least I was reading again. And I loved reading again. I chucked my copy of Wicked into the free books shelf at work and picked up I Am a Cat by Soseki and it's such a joy to be in the hands of a nicely-translated satirist. But anyway, I liked Wicked enough to think it's a nice try, but I just can't really love it.

Wicked the Book

I was actually working in a bookstore when Wicked the book was a hot item. And I always thought, there's a nice twist, giving the Wicked Witch a voice, a perspective, subverting subversively the universe of Oz. At that point in time I didn't even remember that a decade ago I had devoured the extended Oz books, including the Patchwork Girl of Oz and Ozma of Oz and all the weird lore in that series. I didn't actually imagine that Wicked had tried to fuse all of that into its universe.

That part is amazing. And though it's hard to read sometimes, with lore-heavy passages, people, cultures, words, I really respected that about the writer.

The thing I can't let go is, well, I wanted to like the Witch.

And I just couldn't. She was never made to be liked. She was made to be an anti-Ozite.

It's sometimes fun to listen to her, and watch her fight the power, but ultimately she was always just a pawn. And that is pleasingly meta, Mr. Maguire. I liked meeting the author in the tik-tok drama at the end. But when a character is so incredibly meta, so obviously a pawn, I cannot see her as a character. I didn't get to know her.

Joys of Characters

I tried to pin it down. Why can't I love Elphaba? And I think it's not just the way she is just a cog, ultimately, in the play of the book. It's that I don't know her.

That could be powerful if played right. An unknowable character can be entrancing. But the book's purpose is to make her knowable. To reverse the movie's obfuscation of the Witch. And so the book draws me close to her, but still... I don't know her. I know she'll say anything contrary. And she loves animals? Why is unclear.

In my mind, I just don't know what brings her joy.

I knew what gave Glinda joy, in the beginning. Society functions and dresses and so on. Elphaba said that there was more to Glinda than that, and I believed it. But at least I knew what would make her smile. When she got magicked by Morrible and became a sorceress I was less sure I understood her, but the first impression was lasting, and so I liked her way more as a character than the Witch. And that sucks!

So I have a theory. In order to make your audience relate to a character, they should know what makes them smile.

Is that not true in the real world? People who like frogs get frogs as presents. It's easier to think you know someone when you know what they like. I don't think any of the people at work really know what makes me smile, and that keeps me at a distance from them. And from people online.

So here is a list of things that make me smile, in case you wanted to like my character a bit more:

It's actually difficult for me to come up with things.

This is also something I have been working on. Maybe you could call it inner child work. I have gone without attention to these things for perhaps too long. And like an author who is careless with his characters, I am guilty of being careless with mine.

"Writing" should be on there. That is why I'm doing this blog. I just want to indulge some needs I've neglected. I feel maybe this blog is a bit unserious and a bit too serious at the same time. Still, it's worth doing. I hope I can continue, and I hope it will bring me joy. For now, I think it does.

#books