pat loughery

A couple of weeks ago I was hanging out at my local pub & eatery, reading a few things and finishing up sermon prep for the next weekend’s discussion. I got into a conversation with my waitress and she steered the talk towards themes of good and evil in Lord of the Rings among other topics.

At the end of my meal, she came up to me with a book recommendation.

The book’s titled _Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West_, by Gregory Maguire. It’s a good read, and I think it’s a great tool for discussing larger themes.

Here’s the first paragraph of the description on the rear book jacket:

“When Dorothy triumphed over the Wicked Witch of the West in L. Frank Baum’s classic tale, we heard only her side of the story. But what about her arch-nemesis, the mysterious Witch? Where did she come from? How did she become so wicked? And what is the true nature of evil?”

The author writes something of a “pre-history” of the Wizard of Oz, from the perspective of the woman who would become the Wicked Witch of the West. He spends a lot of time fleshing out the characters of the two wicked witches (of the west and east, and their relationship as sisters), and the good witch Glinda (who, it turns out, was Wicked:West’s freshman college roommate, of course). He also fleshes out the political, social and economic times in the land of Oz; why Oz was in revolt against Wicked:East, why they were so overjoyed that a house landed on her head; why Animals like the lion could talk, etc.

But a recurring theme throughout is about the nature of evil. The book functions well as a framework for discussion, and various characters in the story take various sides in the philosophical debate (most interestingly, at a social dinner with too much wine flowing). Is evil the absense of good? Is it moral? Is it accidental? Is it personal? Temporal? Eternal?

Thumbs-up, even if the issue of faith and spirituality is treated in a very cartoonish fashion, and as usual the woes of the world are blamed on the raging, absentee, escapist father – who is, of course, a minister.