britty books

This will be the last Bullying Prevention contribution book review for a little while as I’m moving back to my hometown of Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada.  I’m come to realize that it takes a trained eye to recognize the beauty of a desolate prairie landscape and my eye has been already trained.  In the meantime, please note other Bullying Prevention book reviews here on the site, or take some time to sign up for my good friend, J. Richard Knapp’s Bullying Prevention International Newsletter that comes delivered straight to your inbox at the top of each month.  We’ll see you soon in the Land of the Living Skies!

A Bully with a Background:  Gregory Maguire’s Take in
Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West

To the grim poor there need be no pour quoi tale about where evil arises; it just arises; it always is.  One never learns about how the witch became wicked, or whether that was the right choice for her – is it ever the right choice?  Does the devil ever struggle to be good again, or if si is he not a devil?  It is at the very least a question of definitions. ~page 298, Wicked

Some people may be familiar with this book because of the Tony award-winning musical, Wicked, featuring Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth.  The musical’s storyline follows the general premise of the book:  we, the reader, discover the background history of green-skinned Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West who lives in the land of Oz made famous by Frank L. Baum.

Elphie, as her friends know her, is born to a minister and his promiscuous wife.  It is implied that neither she nor her sister, NessaRose the eventual eastern menace, are blood children of their father.  Elphie doesn’t speak she is nearly five, whereupon her first word is ‘horrors.’  She is shunned from her mother, who can’t get past her odd manner and her green skin.  Her father is primarily absent.  Some respite comes when Nanny takes it upon herself to social Elphie with the other children, who promptly take to throwing rocks at her.

Skip to twelve years later and Elphie meets her roommate, Galinda, at boarding school.  You may have guessed already, but this Galinda eventually drops the ‘a’ and becomes Glinda, the person we know as the Good Witch of the North.  Of course, things get off to a rocky start as Galinda cares more about the social set than her moody, scholarly roomie, but as time goes by the two become good, if not great, friends.  Elphaba encourages Galinda to use her brain more instead of acting stupid to impress people.  Galinda drops the ‘a’ when she joins Elphie’s cause to discover why the talking Animals are disappearing from Oz (non-speaking animals are not represented with the formal ‘Animal’ term).  Political pressure reigns down from the top dog in the land, the Wizard of Oz.

Another five years pass and a chum from the boys’ school, Fiyero, finds Elphaba in hiding as she is a member of an underground movement to save the Animals.  Fiyero and Elphie start an affair, which leaves Elphie pregnant with a son, Liir.  More is written about him in Macguire’s sequel, Son of a Witch. After a botched attempt by the authorities trying to capture Elphaba, it is believed Fiyero is dead.  Elphaba travels to his homeland to make penance with his wife and discovers Chistery, who later becomes the leader of her flying monkey squadron.  Life continues to go downhill for Elphie from here…and Dorothy hasn’t even appeared yet!

Maguire’s view is both dark and unique as a peek behind the curtain at the person before she became the Witch.  He poses a good question:  are bad people born or made?  Are bullies only a result of their environment?  Is it the responsibility of everyone to maintain a social normal, or do we encourage out-of-the-box ideas and seek to understand them?

The Wicked Witch certainly is a sympathetic character in Macguire’s point of view.  Socially awkward, she only tries to improve the destiny of those she sees as oppressed by the system using radical measures.  In return, the system makes her an outcast.  Glinda, on the other hand, falls into conformity, married well and is sainted.

If being bullied, it is difficult to want to stop and examine why the bully is acting the way they do but it may be worth it.  A bully’s background may provide a key to why they act the way they do and, given this key, you may discover a way to reverse or correct their past.  Asking questions of a bully in calmer moments may lead to common understanding and deeper insight.  Maybe your bully only wants a sympathetic ear or someone to pay attention to them.  Maybe they want someone to take seriously what they have to say.  Given the circumstances, it is most likely your bully doesn’t have the tools to communicate properly and is given to bullying as a method of being.  Pick your moment and try being a try friendship as a viable option.  Your may be pleasantly surprised!

One last note on Wicked, the book: as opposed to the musical, this is a book intended for an adult audience and includes dark and sexual themes.  It is not recommended reading for children or teens.

Don't let the fact that this is an Oprah BookClub selection deter you from reading it .

I want to get quickly to the Gist of the Story because this summary will be long (I shall try and be briefer, though, than Franzen).  Please stay tuned for my reader’s notes near the end of the article on “What Oprah Viewers Should Have Asked Jonathan Franzen…and Didn’t.”  Quickly now,

Gist of the Story (Spoilers Ahead)

This story is told from different viewpoints: the wife Patty Berglund, the husband Walter Berglund, the son Joey Berglund and the former roommate/rocker/family friend Richard Katz.  While the story is told in third person point of view, there are chapters where Patty writes an autobiography and writes of herself in the third person.  Sounds complicated?  Hey, we’ve only just opened the nearly 600 page book.

The story spans nearly thirty years and is generally chronological.  Patty, a competitive basketball star, has many shortcomings in large ways.  She doesn’t seem to be able to make friends, although she is very friendly.  She is raped while in high school and the incident is all but cleared away by her mother with political and social aspirations.  She has other dysfunctional relationships, including a horrible one with her roommate named Eliza, who seems to idolize Patty.  She then meets Walter, her future husband, and falls for his slutty roommate, Richard Katz.  Love triangle?  Yes, big basis for the next twenty years being set-up right before your eyes.

After trying to run away with Richard, Patty realizes that Walter will give her the love and idolizing she desires, much like, but not as creepy as, Eliza.  They marry and are “nice” to one another for many years.  Things start to fall apart when the object of her lavish affection, her son Joey, decides to move in with his girlfriend and her family next door.

Patty ends up sleeping with Richard and then never seeing him again (not of her choosing).  Richard goes on to record a popular album called Nameless Lake named for the lake where they did the deed.  He masks this by claiming his love for his former lead singer who offed herself with sleeping pills and even Patty buys it.  Mostly.

The betrayal doesn’t come out into the open for awhile and in that while something is going rotten in Patty and Walter’s relationship.  A festering perhaps.  They move from Minnesota to Washington, D.C. and Walter gets involved with a foundation to create environmental spaces for the bird pictured on the cover: the Cerulean Blue Warbler.  Somehow his modelesque assistant has taken up residence in his home upstairs and Patty is not liking it one bit.  Of course, his assistant is young and only has eyes for Walter.

Walter tries to be a good husband, but when Richard passes along the autobiography Patty has written including their brief affair and her longer torch she’s carried for Richard, Walter goes berserk, throws Patty out and immediately sleeps with his assistant, Lalitha.

Things go bad for Walter, he loses his job, Lalitha accidentally drives off a cliff, Walter becomes a hermit at Nameless Lake and starts taking his vengeance on cats.

Patty comes by and refuses to leave until Walter speaks with her, nearly freezes to death and is revived by Walter.  They get back together.  Happily ever after?

The Questions Oprah Didn’t Ask

What are the questions you wanted to ask the author?

So, the interview with Franzen was today, Monday, December 6th, 2010.  Oprah did nothing on her show with Franzen but berate him for talking smack about being chosen for her book club for his other novel The Corrections nearly nine years ago (read this, too!).  Tune in after the show online to see the viewers ask more questions.  Here’s that interview, about 31 minutes long and very good.

While there were some great questions asked – and some not answered – I would like to ask these questions:

1. Why did the mistress get the last word in the book with the dedication of Nameless Lake property to her memory?
2. Why was the Joey character important to much more of anything after the first chapter?
3. Were all the women symbolic of birds?
4. Why do Joey and Walter make obscene amounts of money?  Were they ultimately selling themselves out?
5. What is the deal with religion or lack thereof?

I felt like I had a lot more questions, but the interview was good in sorting out which ones are important to ask.  Franzen, at one point, asked the audience if they would like him to tell them authoritatively on why one part of the story happened as it did or would they like to interpret it their own way.  Good stuff, Franzen.  My opinion is, once the book is published, the writer becomes only another reader (but perhaps one more intimate with the story).

First Lines, Last Words

The news about Walter Berglund wasn’t picked up locally – he and Patty had moved away to Washington two years earlier and meant nothing to St. Paul now – but the urban gentry of Ramsey Hill were not so loyal to their city as not to read the New York Times.

To this day, free access to the preserve is granted only to birds and to residents of Canterbridge Estates, through a gate whose lock combination is known to them, beneath a small ceramic sign with a picture of the pretty young dark-skinned girl after whom the preserve is named.

Quotable

I hate sunshine!

Book Rating

Cerulean Blue Warbler: the little bird that causes all the big trouble. Overall Book Rating 5/5

Beside the Bed, Sleepless for the Story, Regifting this Read all 5.0!  I don’t think there is a better book you could find this year.  Go get one today.