Much Madness is Divinest Sense

I finished Gregory Maguire’s Lost last night.  It’s a weird book.  I can’t really say that I liked it, because I found the ending flat and unsatisfying.  There were parts of it that I did like, but ultimately I found it somewhat confusing and convoluted.  It was not as good as Wicked, and it’s sad, because there was the germ of a great idea behind this book.

Winnie Rudge is descended from Ozias Rudge, who believed himself to be the model for Charles Dickens’ Ebenezer Scrooge.  Rudge regaled youngsters with tales of being haunted by a specter, and he later surmises one of them must have been young Master Dickens, who is known to have been in Hampstead during his youth.

The book opens with a jarring car accident Winnie witnesses while on her way to a Forever Families adoption group meeting.  For much of the book, Winnie’s purpose in going is completely unclear.  She books a flight to England to visit her cousin and friend, John Comester, who lives in Rudge House, the ancestral home of the Rudges, and who is missing when she arrives to find workmen at Rudge House.

Don’t read further if you plan to read the book.

John is actually being a jerk and avoiding Winnie.  Winnie is weird, no doubt, but I still can’t figure out why most of the people she encounters in the book treat her so shabbily.

The book slows way down around the middle, and it was hard for me to finish, but dammit, when I dedicate so much time to a book, I feel bad putting it down.  So I slogged through it.

I think Maguire has had some really good ideas for stories, and I enjoyed Wicked very much.  Steer clear of this one.  In the words of an Amazon review I found by Terry Mesnard (and can’t figure out how to link directly to):

The bookstore was out of Wicked but they did have Lost. I almost wish they didn’t. Not just because I didn’t like the book but because it made me almost not want to read Wicked.

The problem for me was that Maguire seemed to gloss over everything. He keeps the reader distanced from the characters. Not once did I feel like I got to know Winnie. On one hand this was partially intentional as Winnie herself is a very distanced character who retreats into her writing when faced with a situation she doesn’t want to acknowledge. Ironically enough, the one area that Winnie was a bit too revealing involves a “plot twist” I guess. I hate to call it so because it is the ONLY thing that was concretely and blatantly obvious.

The end result to me was such a wishy-washy mess that when all of the story threads “came together” I didn’t care. The last third of the novel I read to have a conclusion and get it over with, not because I genuinely cared. It’s hard to care about a character you don’t ever get to know. The end result is that I should have listened to the reviews here instead of the critical praises saying “A brilliant, perceptive, and deeply moving fable about loss…”. I’d recommend you do the same. Here’s hoping Wicked is much better.

Terry, Wicked was much better, and I hope you still checked it out.

Gregory Maguire has done something really different with his series of “twisted” fairy tales, hasn’t he? Wicked is my first foray into Maguire’s writing. I really enjoyed it.

Was the Wicked Witch of the West really ever wicked at all? This question is central to the novel. Elphaba, the name Maguire gives to Dorothy’s nemesis, wonders herself. Early in the novel in a conversation with her college roommate Galinda, who later became Glinda the “Good” Witch of the North, Elphaba wonders, “Do you think evil really exists?” Near the end of the novel, Elphaba’s friend Boq asserts, “You’re not wicked.” She replies, “How do you know?” Boq theorizes that “it’s people who claim that they’re good, or anyway better than the rest of us, that you have to be wary of.” I found this to be the most important passage in the novel — it a manner, it is an answer to Elphaba’s question to Glinda. Yes, there is evil — in the form of people who refuse to admit that they are, well, evil.

Let me explain.

I think this book can be read on many levels, but one thing I took away from it was a sort of moral or political message. There are multiple points of view, and depending on yours, you see others as good or evil. However, it is that group of people that seek to impose their definition of good upon others that are dangerous — the extremists on the left and right.

I also found it interesting that Elphaba felt herself to be a failure, that she fell into her role as the Wicked Witch of the West, and that she had spent so much of her life seeking absolution that she would never receive.

I will admit to being confused at times. I had to re-read passages. There are portions of the book that I found difficult to follow. However, I have to highly recommend it to anyone who enjoyed The Wizard of Oz. This revisionist version of the story will cause you to question what’s real. It was enjoyable fantasy — different from anything I think I’ve ever read before.