Crossing the Lion

[vovat]

I finished reading Gregory Maguire's third book in the Wicked series, A Lion Among Men. I think it might well have been my favorite of the three. (If you missed my reviews of the first two, you can check them out here and here.) I found Maguire's take on the Cowardly Lion interesting. While the one in the books and the MGM movie was scared of everything but always did what he felt was right, Sir Brrr rationalized immoral decisions that would get him out of trouble. And while the original Wicked dragged a bit, Lion was engaging all the way through, and wrapped up some mysteries that had been introduced in the first two books. I seem to recall seeing mentions of Maguire planning a four-book series, so maybe the origins of the Time Dragon and the Grimmerie will be addressed in the final volume.

As with the other books, there were some mostly clever references to the Baum books and the MGM movie. This time, a glass cat shows up, although it isn't much like Bungle. There's also a brief reference to Jack Pumpkinhead, and I wonder if the Eminent Pastor whom the Animal ex-professors refer to as "Mumbly" and "Mammly" might be Mombi (who made a bit appearance in Son of a Witch, but was never named). For that matter, the Boar professor himself might be an offhand reference to Baum's own Professor Grunter Swyne, but that's a bit of a stretch.

Comments

[jenhime.livejournal.com]

I just got A Lion Among Men this morning. I haven't started reading it yet though. I'm glad to hear it's good!

[kevenn.livejournal.com]

I still haven't been able to read my copy yet, but this review makes me very excited to do so! :D

[suegypt.livejournal.com]

Did this just come out? I must have missed it. I'll have to read it soon.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it came out pretty recently, but I'm not sure when the actual release date was. I checked it out from the one library where I work.

[dragonxbait.livejournal.com]

Ahhh....I haven't read this book yet! I guess your post wasn't too spoily :-P Did I tell you that Gregory McGuire's youngest kid goes to school with a kid I sit for? He and his partner live in Concord, down the road from us. Random, I know.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I thought about making a more spoiler-filled post and doing a cut, but I decided against it. I don't think anything in my review is too specific, is it?

Did I tell you that Gregory McGuire's youngest kid goes to school with a kid I sit for?

I think you did, actually. That's pretty weird.

[dragonxbait.livejournal.com]

Nope, not too spoily. I didn't even know that book was out. I think I might need to read the first two again, though. It's been a while.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Well, this one reviews most of the important details, and isn't too hard to follow if you don't remember the other two so well (which I really didn't either).

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

I still haven't gotten to the second book yet. *sigh* Can't wait, though; Maguire certainly has done his research on the originals, and crafted a fully realized universe of his own from it.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it sometimes bothers me how Maguire combines elements from the books and the movie without really being consistent with either, but I think his stories work if you consider them to be in an alternate version of Oz. It does, however, annoy me when people act like Maguire was the first to really flesh out Oz, when Baum did quite a bit of that himself.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Exactly, as an alternate version it's great ... I'd certainly never try to fit it into canon in any way. As for people thinking Maguire was the fire, I feel the same way about that as I do about people who think the Garland movie is the be-all end-all.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Well, I would imagine that many of them don't even realize there ARE any books other than the first (if that). I know I've seen people who HAVE read the book mention it as a case where the movie is superior, which I don't agree with, but I also don't think Wizard is one of Baum's best.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

The movie is such a different animal from the book, I don't see how they can really compare. I loved the movie, but that doesn't lessen my insistance that the books (as a group, anyway) are better. Of course, some are better than others!

I've always wondered if Baum had any kind of training at all in fiction writing, formal or informal. Seems like there's no hope of even trying to get published these days without a whole bookshelf full of books on writing and/or a college worth of classes.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I get the feeling that Baum's only real training consisted of reading a lot. Really, I think there's a good deal of luck involved in becoming a successful writer. You never know what's going to resonate with what Baum called "the queer, strange public."

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

That's my feeling, too. It was easier to get published back then without training than it is these days -- but these days, it's more training in how to format and submit stories than the actual writing itself, it seems.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm not sure how people submitted stories to publishers back then. It kind of seems like it was easier for unknowns back in the day, but maybe that's just because we only hear about the success stories. No one really remembers the writers who COULDN'T get published, either today or in the past.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

That's true. There had to be a slush pile back in Baum's day, just like there is today. I know they accepted handwritten submissions back then, but they probably had some requirement that you at least had to be legible.