i am actually feeling a little betrayed at the moment. for the past number of years, i have been hearing all the hype about the play"wicked". i even started getting hyped myself and had hoped to someday go see it. can i now say that i am SO glad i never wasted my time or money on such trash! people who's opinion i trusted, i now question.
to clarify...i had bought the book several months ago, but forgot i had it. then when we moved, i came across it. so when i needed some fun reading the other day, i took it off the shelf and started to read. i was never made to care about a single character and i was completely offended at the crudeness and vulgarity of the author. but i told myself, "there must be SOME redeeming quality to the story, because SO many people love it SO much" so i forced myself to keep reading...you know, give it a fair chance. but after 4 chapters, i was SO offended and SO disappointed, i put the book down and swore to never pick it up again! i had not found ONE redeeming quality or reason to spend precious time on one more page.
in those 4 chapters, we have drug addiction, adultry, promiscuity, vulgarity, cannibalism, to name a few.
the green baby has to have her mouth taped shut so that she doesn't eat herself or anyone else. her mother is afraid to nurse her, because she is afraid the baby will bite her "ti*s" off. the mother is a drug addict who has sex with every traveling salesman that comes along, because her husband is a soft, boring man who is "unimaginative" in bed. the mother doesn't even know for sure who the father of the green baby is, and her own nanny tells her that she noticed how many times a day she changed her "perfumed underwear" when she was a teenager to try and hide the fact that she was sleeping with all the boys in the neighborhood.
the father/husband is beat up and poops on himself and doesn't even get to clean himself until the next day. the midwives try to decide the best way to murder the newborn green baby. the mother is jealous of the green 2-year-old, because she is crawling around between the legs of a traveling salesman and that's what SHE would like to be doing...so ten minutes later, she is doing a WHOLE lot more than that! later, the green 2-year-old pees on the floor and then proceeds to bend down and smell her own urine.
phew!! should i go on, or do you get the picture? i mean, seriously...who writes this crap? and why would all my friends tell me how wonderful it is? i can honestly say that i was MORE OFFENDED by those 4 chapters, than by ANY of the R-rated movies i own!!
in fairness, maybe this garbage is left out of the play...but then what does that leave? i guess i will never know. so if you, like me, have not seen the play or read the book, at least you have been warned! i will not be the one you blame...that honor can go to someone else.
and next time i want a good book to read...nora roberts, nicholas sparks, or david gemmel, here i come! the rest of you can have gregory maguire all to yourselves. i have no use for him...