About the time I moved to DC I Gregory Maguire's book "Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West". Now it's a popular Broadway musical. It's a good book, too. You recognize all the characters immediately and see a long, rich story, which Dorothy is dropped in the middle of and acts as a Deus Ex Machina to solve much of Oz's problems.
Gregory Maguire put out another book with the same idea of telling another classic from the villain's point of view. This time he tackles Cinderella. Since Oz had so much source material to pull from than Cinderella this book isn't as familiar or engaging until near the end.
The story starts with a mother and her two daughters arriving in Holland after fleeing England from accusations of witchcraft. But their relatives in Holland are dead. The mother gets a job cleaning house for a painter, eventually moving up to housekeeper for a wealthy businessman. When the wealthy businessman's wife dies she marries him.
The businessman's beautiful daughter is spoiled and has never had to do any work other than look pretty. Her new stepmother and stepsisters actually makes her do menial labor like stirring pots, waving flys away from food, and other chores. By her perspective this is hard labor and she hates it.
The fairy godmother is reduced to a tale she tells the stepmother after the stepdaughters help her get to the ball to meet the prince.
It's not a bad book, but if I were to recommend one of this authors works it wouldn't be this one.
No comments:
Post a Comment