It's been decades since we've last read The Wizard Of Oz, and even then it was an abridged copy. So the gist of what we remembered about the story is that Dorothy and her dog Toto gets blown off in a cyclone from Kansas into the Land of Oz, heads to find the Wizard Of Oz to seek help getting back home, makes friends with a Scarecrow, a Tin Woodman and a Cowardly Lion on the way, destroys the Wicked Witch Of The West, everyone gets what they want in the end.
Of course there's a fair bit of how that goes, but to know more go read the book.
Well, we were reading Wicked, and the start of the book proved a bit shocking at first. Probably because sex was mentioned all over the place, and our mindset was still on a children's fairytale. Once we'd set our mind on it being more adult (heck we still aren't sure when kids should start reading Arabian Nights then), we took it for canon.
But the starting was rather promising, and the content quite rich, and things got better when the Wicked Witch, Elphaba, started attending Shiz University. After that, the story gets...messy. We had no idea where the story was going. And near the end bit when Dorothy came into the picture Elphaba seemed a bit off her rockers already.
Once we finished Wicked, we decided we had to reread The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz soon to refresh our memory of how the story went. And what better opportunity to read it then when we happened to be at MidValley for lunch alone and forgot to bring a book along. So we hopped into Borders and picked up a copy - the version published by Signet Classics with original illustration by W. W. Denslow. We thought it would be nice to read it with pictures.
Oh what a horrible mistake. It may have been that our perspective of the story had been skewed after reading Wicked. And we didn't like the pictures, so somehow the following images popped up whenever we think of the characters:The Tin Woodman was a Steel Golem from Heroes Of Might And Magic II.
The Scarecrow was from Batman Begins.
Aslan became the Cowardly Lion. :S
When the Scarecrow was given brains by the Wizard of Oz, he looked even scarier as the Pinhead from Hellraiser!
Not only were the picturing of the characters already skewed, but we certainly have trouble rooting for Dorothy now. Nor can we easily accept that there are wicked witches and good witches. Oh, long gone is our innocence for this classic tale. We wonder just how many others stories may fall prey to parallels like Wicked....Still, while we won't be ever watching the Judy Garland version of The Wizard Of Oz, we'll still consider watching the musical of Wicked, if only to add to the confusion of differing storylines.
12 comments:
is that the real scarecrow from batman? wa.. he look like gunny sack head man~ -.- haha =p
I liked that book very much. Can't help but to love Elphaba. She does really try to be good but somehow it doesn't work out at all. It really gets you thinking about the perception of good and evil in the world. And yeah, waiting for the musical to hit Malaysia.
horrorrr... now i shall never want to watch those movies again. :P
Oh my ex watched the musical. He says its awesome stuff!
found the book tooo dark. though it did cast an interesting perspective. these days, i notice even disney has stories told from the perspective of the villain.... i know this cors i have 4 kids la, lest you wondering why i perusing disney books.
the one from snow white's evil queen stepmother was hilarious. something about her blardy husband dying, and leaving her to take care of his daughter, and how whiney she is, so she (the queen) thought some housework and aerobic exercise would whip her (snow white) into shape, etc etc. and what does she do? flirt with men when she should be doing her chores.
Everybody needs their 'Happily Ever After' moment...
Elpahaba!!! oh my ELPHIE~
hahahaha
That book still lies unread on my desk. Golden Compass is dragging me down...
It's really a complicated story. No one can blame Elphie for going bonkers. She has an illegitimate son with her married lover, her father (Wizard of Oz) wants to kill her, her married lover dies, the lover's wife dies and her Wicked Witch of the East half-sister dies. Then she melts to her death. How sad...
still prefer the stage production. Much more....delicious
hmm. interesting. i myself only just finished reading the book last night. having seen the musical down in london a couple of months back.
in my opinion. which i'm sure is worth less than two pence. i initially thought the musical was better because it made more sense. i thought the book did poorly on developing the relationships between characters (e.g. between G(a)linda and Elphie etc).
however. after giving it some thought. i actually think the book is quite good. it is well thought out. s a whole. the land of oz has more depth with its political, historical n cultural descriptions.
the main theme still goes unanswered, no? "r people born wicked? or do they have wickedness cast upon them?"
Aaronng88: Gunny Sack Head Man - yet another fiend for Batman! Hahaha!
Zyklon22: That was why the first half of the book went so well - because she had some idealisms as well as her quirky humour (when Boq met Galinda), even if things didn't always go well.
Ah-Bong: Don't want to watch Batman Begins and Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe again?
QR: Must watch to know!
FatBoyBakes: Ohourgoodness! XD Really? Will look up these books one fine day!
Ted: Except the Wicked Witch Of The West..."Look out - here I go!"
Daniel Henry: You likes her!? :P
William: Gasp! How can Golden Compass drag you down?
Little Dove: And that it was never really justified how she got the nickname 'The Wicked Witch Of The West' except that it was pure propaganda. And somehow we never understood the importance of the shoes to her as a political item.
Henry Yeo: Musicals always have that charm. :)
K: The book is very well thought out, and brings more to life indeed. But from what we read of the musical - it's much more approachable and can be taken in far more quickly compared to the book, even if there are rather drastic changes.
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