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Free-Response Friday
Pony of the day
As part of their "On Our Radar" posts, Bitch Media asks their readers to share what they're reading and thinking, and over at Resist Racism they have "Lurker Wednesdays." (For those unfamiliar with the term, to "lurk" is to frequent a blog or forum without posting comments or replies.)
In the same spirit, I had the idea to start "Free-Response Fridays" to invite anybody who happens to read the student blog to interact with it.
So, today, the novel Wicked is on my mind. Over on Feministing, I wrote a post about how the book features powerful, fully-realized women and portrays non-straight characters without fixating on their sexuality. And of course the author, Gregory Maguire, has been a professor in and co-director of the Simmons College Center for the Study of Children's Literature.
In a little over a week, the fourth and final book in The Wicked Years, the series that started with Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, will be released. For me, my attachment to Wicked hinges exclusively on my affinity for the titular protagonist/anti-heroine, Elphaba Thropp. If Elphaba makes absolutely no appearance in the fourth book, I won't be able to enjoy it. If she is somehow resurrected, I will hate it. In my very strong opinion, the only ways to satisfactorily handle Elphaba's presence in the book would be through some kind of dream-sequence akin to how Dumbledore appeared in The Deathly Hallows, or through a very strong flashback sequence akin to how Snape was laid to rest.
For anyone who happens to read this blog, whether you are a prospective student, a current student, or a faculty or staff member:
Have you read Wicked? What is your relationship to the book? What did you think of it? How does it compare to the musical adaptation? To the original Oz series by L. Frank Baum? To other works of literature and media? What are your thoughts, hopes, predictions, and misgivings about the fourth book, Out of Oz?
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