First I couldn't quite get into the book. Not like I had immediately gone into Pride and Prejudice. This one started a bit slower, and more clumsily perhaps. Reading it first only 55 pages, I really couldn't decide whether or not even finish the thing, but then I just picked it back up and continued a few day later. This time I couldn't even put it down before I had finished.
In all Austen's other book I've read, the characters are caricatures of people. Sometimes too much so, in my taste. But in Persuasion all the people, nice or not, are real people, with their good sides and bad sides.
The only one I didn't actually like was the main character Anne Elliot. And it was perhaps because I could see some of myself in her. It was how she "settled for what she got" and really didn't that really annoyed me, but I could also understand it very well - I have done it, too.
Although the characters were superb (Wentworth is definitely my favourite Austen-guy), the writing itself was very incoherent in places; it wasn't at all as refined as I would've expected from Austen. I got me thinking if this had been one of her first novels or one of the last, so I had to check it up. It was one of her last - actually published after her death.
Okay, so maybe it wasn't quite finished? A very good book, anyway. As good as any of her other books.
Thursday, 17 February 2011
Gregory Maguire - Wicked (1995)
Saw the musical Wicked in January, so naturally I had to get my hands on the book, too. I've always thought that the original story of Oz had some huge holes in it, and this one really hit home with me.
So, it's about the Wicked Witch of the West - from here on just WWW. Her youth and how she became what she is in the original story.
It has been a while when I've last read a book that resonated with me in a certain way, but this one really did it. At first, at least.
The book had some about difficult relationships, about growing up being different, about ways of ruling a country... A bit about almost everything that can be difficult to a certain kind of individual. I'm not complaining, really, but I think it had too much of everything and didn't really concentrate properly on anything.
My favourite aspect was perhaps her rebellion against the government, that finally made her Wicked. It was all good propaganda, really, 'cause she really didn't do anything particularly nasty in my opinion. Propaganda and the fact that she was so visibly different - she had green skin etc. This story made a point about how wickedness is a point of view and I very much liked that.
I have always thought this, so it was really refreshing to read something that was written so according to my own views about life. I've sympathized with the Witch the whole time I've known about Oz, because in a way she is just wronged; her sister's shoes are given to a complete stranger, whose house killed her, no less. Then the Wizard tells the same strange girl to kill her, just for being wicked. It has always been difficult for to understand that. Really.
Anyway, all in all I think Wicked was a good read. A bit disjointed in parts, maybe, but always interesting.
So, it's about the Wicked Witch of the West - from here on just WWW. Her youth and how she became what she is in the original story.
It has been a while when I've last read a book that resonated with me in a certain way, but this one really did it. At first, at least.
The book had some about difficult relationships, about growing up being different, about ways of ruling a country... A bit about almost everything that can be difficult to a certain kind of individual. I'm not complaining, really, but I think it had too much of everything and didn't really concentrate properly on anything.
My favourite aspect was perhaps her rebellion against the government, that finally made her Wicked. It was all good propaganda, really, 'cause she really didn't do anything particularly nasty in my opinion. Propaganda and the fact that she was so visibly different - she had green skin etc. This story made a point about how wickedness is a point of view and I very much liked that.
I have always thought this, so it was really refreshing to read something that was written so according to my own views about life. I've sympathized with the Witch the whole time I've known about Oz, because in a way she is just wronged; her sister's shoes are given to a complete stranger, whose house killed her, no less. Then the Wizard tells the same strange girl to kill her, just for being wicked. It has always been difficult for to understand that. Really.
Anyway, all in all I think Wicked was a good read. A bit disjointed in parts, maybe, but always interesting.
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