Son of a Witch

1899

Son of a Witch is the sequel to Wicked and was published ten years later. Maguire dedicated the novel to the cast of the musical 'Wicked', although the title character, Liir, had been written out of the musical. I found it to be a very inconsistant book. It alternated between fascinating and dull, fast-paced and slow. It never establishes itself as a continuation of Wicked or a story in it's own right. Even the style seems to alternate between mature and juvenile. It's no surprise that the growth and maturity of Liir's character is anticlimactic being that he is such an apathetic character- and never really grows out of it.

I continued on with this series because of my interest in how Oz is being handled, and Son of a Witch is a much quicker and easier read than Wicked. The first chapter of the third book, A Lion Among Men, is in of itself more entertaining than all of Son of a Witch put together. I can only really recommend the second book to committed fans of Oz and the Wicked novels.

Hunters And Gatherers.

Discussing the distinctions and discrepancies of the genders is taboo.  Seriously, just shut up about it.  Your opinion is poisonous and our society proudly wields this secret inequality as an ethical sword against the sexist moral decrepitude of less civilized cultures.  Women and men are exactly the same in every way.

For instance: women cannot be better CEO’s.  It would be sexist to say such a thing.  Their ability to value justice over victory does not position them to have an advantageous skillset over men in this regard.  It’s ridiculous to suppose that, when given the opportunity to make decisions, with the benefit of advisement resources, and the time to sit down and carefully measure and consider all facets of a pending predicament…the fairer sex has a better track record at making the successful call.  The homerun swinging male CEO’s are just as prudent.  The rash of golden parachuting corporate profiteering CEO's, that has widened the popularly publicized divide between Wall St. and Main St., have largely been greedy white dudes.  But this is just a silly coincidence.  Men handle power with poise and grace.  This is social fact.  Do not argue. 

And men cannot be more effective COO’s.  Women are just as capable of directing the assembly line minutia of the daily grind.  Quick wits and the emotional agility to recover from temporary failures do not position males to succeed in the day-to-day management of an organization.  When a rapidly changing environment requires stability and an even keeled demeanor…you can expect a woman to do just as well as a man.  What kind of mid-century pig would suggest otherwise?

Our culture dismisses the notion that women and men can and should play different roles.  And so we lie to ourselves.  Every happily married man I know, myself included, understands how to roll with this modern family prevarication.  The wife is clearly the CEO of the home; but the husband wears the title of “head of household”.  Who are we fooling?  We know that we’re all happier when we help support the direction set forth by the CEO.  But this arrangement damages our iconic masculinity.  And so we put on a show and overcompensate for this loss of control.  Maybe it’s a mild form of bravado flag flying like flatulence or fantasy football…or maybe it’s a full blown midlife crisis.  But we do not accept the role of 2^nd in charge very well.  Even if we do a pretty good job at pretending that we do.

And the husband is much better at dealing with the daily bullshit and maintenance of the family circle.  We are the COO’s.  But our wives aren’t willing/able/ready to fully give up the idea that they are still homemaker’s.  Don’t believe me?  Just take a look at what magazines are laying around the house.  Every wife secretly wants to be her grandmother and she keeps this romantic notion alive via a magazine subscription.  Women do not accept that the male management style of “not sweating the small stuff” as responsible nor thoughtful.  The guilt that they carry, for bringing home a paycheck while somebody else raises their kids, is sometimes too much to bear.  And so we all agree to pretend like women are mostly responsible for the daily details….and men pull the trigger on the big decisions.  We are the hunters.  They are the gatherers.  

Wicked

1889

Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West


Let me start off by clarifying that I have never seen the musical. My family owns and listens to the soundtrack, so I am passingly familiar with some of the songs, but never really listened to it. I read this book because of my interest in the original series by Baum, which I read as a kid.



As I read through Wicked, I occasionally asked my wife about the musical and was able to ascertain pretty quickly that there is not a ton of similarity between the two. The original novel treats the characters of Oz very seriously within the context of the fantasy world. Although much of the story is about the friendship (and sometime rivalry) between Elpheba and Glinda, most of the subplot is quite political. The corruption of the Wizard, the supression of animal rights and other adult themes contrast to Elpheba's maturation from cynical young maid into political activist and eventual hermetic "witch".

I couldn't help but compare the anti-heroism of Elpheba to another character who let young idealism twist his moral compass, however much less plausibly.

Yeah, well, we could list a whole slew of reasons why Star Wars fans are disappointed in Anakin Skywalker's transformation into Vader. Ultimately, Anakin had every reason to be a great jedi, and even though Kenobi told us how he failed as a mentor, he really wasn't that bad. Anakin is just a dumb jerk, really.

Elpheba, however, fights off misconceptions about her from day one until the end. The reader knows it will all end in a puddle on the floor, and yet we care about this chick and hope that someone will "get it" before it's all over. The fact that she is still grossly misunderstood and feared when she finally meets Dorothy is the greatest tragedy.

There is nothing in the Wicked series to pinpoint an exact time setting, and it was written as a children's format where relation to the real world is completely subjective, changing and unimportant. The original novel was published in 1900, and the stories were always written to take place in current time. Where the movie is fairly explicit in writing Oz off as a dream, every novel written treats it as an actual land, although it is inconsistant in whether it is a hidden desert with the US, sitting in a seperate continent hidden by magic, or most likely existing in another dimensional plane.

The Oz books were subject to sequels and revisions by numurous other authors, some of whom I have tracked down and read in addition to Maguire's series. I will cover them soon in this blog.

As I write this it is Thanksgiving evening and as I sit here with a filled belly, I remember childhood nights tucked into hotel beds (grew up in hotels) falling asleep watching the Wizard of Oz on TV. As I look forward to doing the same thing tonight, it seems fitting that I should whip out this blog first. 'Wicked: the Life and times of the Wicked Witch of the West' may put a very different spin on the childhood tale, but it still manages to transport us back into a land of talking animals and emerald cities of magic.

Memoirs of a Revolutionist

1842 - 1921

I take great pride in the fact that I read a lot, even if most of what I read is fluff fantasy. At least I try to keep the mind engaged, and read authors who are influenced by great literature. With my timeline agenda I have tried to incorporate original material that will a) be something I've never read (or can't remember very well at all), b) fit in or enhance the reading of other works in the same genre or otherwise directly influenced by my reading material, and/or c) be entertaining.

I have no shame in being proud when my criteria occasionally leads me to read something that may be perceived by others as lofty reading material. I may be seen carrying around a "classic", perhaps, or a tome one might expect to be read by English Lit professors. Heck, pretty much any non-fiction outside of the "Dummies Guide to..." and I swell with preconceived pride at being smart and engaged enough to be reading something more important than Harry Potter.

Memoirs of a Revolutionist is the highlight, perhaps, of my career as a wannabee-intellectual. I have to come clean and admit that this is one of the hardest books I've struggled through since I sat down to read the bible cover to cover, and I did eventually give up when the library told me I couldn't renew it any longer. I am sure I was just getting to the good part, too.

The autobiography of Peter Kropotkin, most of the book details just how miserable it was to live in Russia at the turn of the century. Many parts of the book strain believability, simply in terms of how different things were a hundred years ago, and how interesting Kropotkin's life was.

I'm really not sure why Kropotkin made it onto my reading list. Apparently he is referenced in something I read and I felt compelled to slap his name onto the timeline. Modern day activist poets remember Kropotkin less as a scientist or writer but chiefly as the "Anarchist Prince". So I'm guessing this may have been a Grant Morrison-Invisibles reference- more on that later!

Peter Kroptkin was a cool dude. He did a lot of stuff and is probably undeservedly unrecognized for a lot of it. His life was pretty interesting overall, but.... I can't recommend this book to anyone unless you are a student of anarcho-communism, or you would like something pretentious looking to walk around with and pretend to read in coffeee shops.

On my next blog entry we will travel to the land of Oz!

You Look Like Shit

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

1898

One would think that this blog is subversively dedicated to the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and in some ways I guess that's true. My posts, anyway, and my hand in creating and naming the blog.

I'm actually quite tempted to skip reviewing this comic book series altogether. Enough has been said about it in plenty of other blogs. Heck, Alan Moore probably would rather not discuss it himself. And nothing will ever, ever, ever wash away the vomit-burp taste of that movie adaptation. I could talk about how the League influenced my desire to read everything ever written in chronological order, but you can read that here.

I could use the crossover forum to talk about how I have always been a fan of friend crossover in real life. That is to say, I enjoy introducing people to each other. This helps explain why I was an early adopter of online social networking. I think I read an article on Friendster and was instantly fascinated. But in the real world I have long seen a parallel between my groups of friends and crossovers. Hear me out.

I have moved around a lot. Although in some ways I have suffered a lack of deep roots I have more than made up for it by meeting so many wonderful people all over the country and world. In some cases we have formed informal clubs or gangs, a trend I am usually spearheading. These groups are sometimes named and identified, other times we just know who we are in a more subversive and subconscious sort of way. I can trace it as far back as a Monty Python inspired middle school club called the Confused Morons. In it's current incarnation it would be PFAC, a 'Guy's Night Out' sort of group that exists in several different incarnations, or perhaps chapters would be a good way of putting it. This blog is one such sub-set. At times I realize that I have been a fringe member of other cliques, gangs, or general groups of friends.

What I really get a kick out of, though, is the rare occasions that I have been able to get a friend from one era of my life to come and "party" with another group of friends. Everyone loves to introduce old friends to new ones, stop looking at me so weird. It's just that I tend to see it more in the light of Wolverine dropping by the Justice League HQ to hang out with Batman.



And yes, I realize that this blog actually will not encourage anyone to hang out with me.

Back to the Extraordinary League of Gentlemen!!! Fans of comic books have grown quite bored with promotionalized crossovers like Marvel vs. DC, it's been quite overdone.

Alan Moore put a huge spin on things, though, when he used Victorian characters from unliscensed literature and dropped them in a steampunk world. He dusted off dudes that both we and our parents grew up with as the standard in fantasy and science-fiction, honored their true roots and origins at the same time as he revamped them to be much cooler.



Not everyone is as enraptured by crossover fiction and old English writing, but I find the depth of detail of each subsequent volume to be mind-blowing. By volume three I cease toting it's merits and simply advise lazy readers to stick the the NY Times list. Understanding the background, hints, easter eggs, characters and storylines of the ongoing series is so overwhelming that only those willing to treat the series as a homework assignment in the history of fantasy and fiction are prepared to enjoy it. Writers of comics that require annotations are to be honored... because that's AWESOME.

Unfortunately, the 1988 version of the League as assembled by "Doc" Brown is a fake.


Next Up: Memoirs of a Revolutionist.

speak in tongues in cheeks

Take a step at a time, a swing at the glass chins of the last men to find 
you where we hid our self. A carousel. Not a care in the world. 
Hot to trot, straight as an arrow: got caught with empty bones. 
Folding in and out: helical riddle.  
Coding doubt into Morse signals.  
Take out menus and take out your teeth and take out loans 
to speak in tongues in cheeks.

Life was more pleasant when the enemy wore fur.

I miss the Cold War.

When the conflict was centered around socio-economic principle and the opponent had the same healthy fear of nukes that we had. Nuclear war was a moot war. A safe war. The Rooskies weren't strapping dynamite to themselves. Which, by the way, is completely rude.

Spy versus spy. We raced to the moon. Life was more pleasant when the enemy wore fur.

Remember when the battle was for world supremacy? Power, global position and political ideology...these were romantic notions that made our conflict with Russia seem noble. The biggest mistake we ever made was walking away from the Cold War. Choosing to use our military machine to fight over finite resources in the desert....that's just asking for trouble. I blame Oliver North.