Son of a Witch

I went into this one with high hopes, excited to see what Maguire would do when he doesn't have to tie into the end of The Wizard of Oz and has free range to explore the version of Oz he'd created with a fresh character in Liir. Unfortunately, while I think there are some good ideas in this book, I can't say that it lives up to Wicked.

Son of a Witch plays as a bit of a reversal of Wicked, catching up with Liir as he grows up from a homeless boy after the events of Wicked into a man unable to make choices and preferring to be pulled along by higher powers of one sort or another as he grapples with his own relation to Elphaba and how large a shadow she casts over his life and Oz, even after dying.

Liir's desire to avoid making bad decisions and to offload responsibility for his life comes into conflict with a deeper moral sensibility he refuses to recognize, which always eventually breaks through. Maguire plays a lot with ideas about the weight of choice, and of course the ever present themes of what truly is good and evil (an interesting observation Liir makes is that, to someone like Dorothy, offering help comes easy because every issue she confronts has an easy fix. She's able to be good partially because she hasn't had to solve anything long-term).

Maguire also toys the idea of spectacle again. While in Wicked Elphaba takes the position of the pointlessness and hollowness of spectacle, represented in the book by magic, Liir ends up taking the opposite position by the end of the book and ends up instigating a large scale act of defiance against the new emperor of the Emerald City. Liir admits to it being mostly show, but one that might bring hope to the downtrodden and subjugated of Oz and perhaps motivate more people to act.

Liir is an interesting protagonist, but my main problem with the book is that it feels very disconnected and without a strong through-line. Not to keep going back to comparing this book to the last, but Wicked had the strength of Elphaba being a motivated and driven protagonist with a clear goal and predesignated endpoint. In contrast, Liir is purposefully the opposite, constantly being moved by others, unable to commit or devote himself to any agenda. This is the point, but it leaves the book rudderless. While there are interesting points (the escape of the Scarecrow, Southstairs, Liir's time in the military, etc.) and we get more of Maguire's interesting concepts (in particular I love the idea of a religious vow of indulgence being to take care of people or work as a teacher, things that put you in contact with others rather than religious musing), overall the book doesn't cohere into much by the end.

The structure of the book is also a bit odd. The first part has Liir being pulled through his memories interspersed by event's going on in the present. That's dropped for the second part which basically just catches us up to the modern day in one long section going over his military career, then we get Liir in the present finally acting and making decisions. The flashback structure also gives most of the book the feeling of simply summarizing things. We can't really sit with anything long term like in the first book because for a large chunk of the book we're trying to catch up with where we are in the present of the book.

Overall I didn't hate the book, and I blew through it in only a few sittings, but I can't say that I really liked it.

Gregory Maguire has done a fantastic job of carrying on the legend of Oz, in Son of a Witch the main players that you know so well are gone. Instead we get to enjoy the story of the witch's son and the impact he has on the land of Oz.

The book is well written and if you can adapt to the new characters then you will be able to enjoy this book.

Drat!
I did not realise this was a sequel. No wonder I'm not really getting into it. Got to find a copy of "Wicked" and give that a try.

I only read this because I'm a sucker for sequels. Maguire does a nice job creating an interesting world, but I just didn't care about the characters or plot. I won't follow this series any further.

I really loved this book. My experience with the book preceding it, Wicked, was more complicated: I found its prose to be dense and lush yet often off-putting, plot points at times inscrutable, and ultimately left the completed book with mixed emotions. I knew I'd read something vital, lively, intelligent, but oh so gloomy and needlessly convoluted. Much of that carries over to its sequel, but oddly relieved of much of the baggage of Wicked, Maguire is able here to tell a story about a new character, one unfamiliar to those of us with Oz experience, and somehow that makes all the difference. Yes, the book is still dense, gloomy, and often needlessly convoluted. But I found this one to pack quite an emotional wallop. Its final pages had me weeping, a rarity. Those who loved Wicked may or may not feel the same about its sequel, but for me it is the better book hands-down.