Elphaba Lives!

The God of the Book Nerds smiled upon me, and an advance copy of Son of a Witch was placed in my hands. It is the sequel to Wicked by Gregory Maguire, and it focuses on Liir as he grows up. I almost wet myself with excitement. Neglected my life a bit because it was so very good and I couldn’t put it down, but finished it in three days. Unfortunate, but it tends to happen with the great books: I devour them too quickly. But now I am full of piss and vinegar to talk about it, and who can I talk to? Nobody, dangit!

Maguire is such a brilliant writer. Often in his books, a sentence will jump out at you because it is just so beautifully crafted and so very insightful. You have to take it in a few times, and let it roll around in your brain to appreciate it. I might just have to write to him and thank him for Son of a Witch. Yeah, it’s that good. Of course, you have to be ripe for a book. Lordy, am I ever ripe. Someone else might read it and think it is absolute shite. They are most likely a moron, a simpleton, or a Republican, but perhaps they are simply not ripe for that book at that moment. It’s just a theory.

The lovely thing about this series is the subtle and no-so-subtle social commentary. You can ignore it and enjoy the story, or you can appreciate it at that political level that is very apropos to our time and to the human condition in general, and the story gets even richer.

I wanna graffiti “Elphaba Lives!” all over town. And no, I am not giving away some juicy bit of plot line. It’s a metaphor, I assure you. A very green, sharp-toothed little metaphor.

Long live the good book!