One of the perks of being retired is that I can, whenever I want to, indulge in my favorite obsessions: writing, reading, playing tennis—both really and virtually, either on the courts or on my Wii—talking FrankieB for long, leisurely walks, and, the past few weeks, catching up on back episodes of my favorite television series, which are downloaded to my e-reader, laptop, or television. The past few weeks, between Frankie walks, and when I am not reading, writing, or posting to this blog, I am watching such great fare as Glee; Star Trek: The Next Generation; Upstairs, Downstairs; Philly; Lost; All Creatures Great and Small; Damages; and The Grand; not to mention the first season of Lillyhammer, starring Stephen van Zandt—my most favorite actor from The Sopranos. I can't wait for the second season to start!

Besides being obsessed with watching downloaded videos., I have also become fixated upon the writings of Gregory Macguire, who is on my top ten list of best authors, which currently also includes Esmeralda Santiago, William Kennedy, Lewis Carroll, Cressida Cowell, A. R. Brimmar, Richard Paul Evans, J.R.R. Tolkien, A. A. Milne, Lisa Scottoline, and Amos Oz. Okay, if you add in Macguire, that's actually eleven. Hey, when it comes to great reads by great authors, who's counting?

Those of you who knew me back then will recall my passionate obsession with the first book of his Wicked Years series: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West and the resulting wondrously fabulous and famous musical, Wicked , which opened at the Gershwin Theatre on Broadway on October 30, 2003 and has been a smash hit ever since¹. You will recall my clandestine trips to the Big Apple and the sporting of a now well-worn souvenir Wicked baseball cap with "Defy Gravity" embroidered on the back—I am wearing it now as I write—not to mention the many refrigerator magnets, the frayed tee-shirt; and the full-page ads from the Arts and Leisure section of the Sunday New York Times tacked up in my basement office. For many reasons, both obvious and subtle, the musical as well as the novel it was based upon, spoke to and, at times, with me.

I was so enamored of the show and its powerful messages of friendship as it poses and answers the question, "Is anyone really born wicked or is wickedness thrust upon them?" that for years, on Halloween, I splotched green makeup on my face and hands, donned a black cape and an "official" pointed witch hat, and carried my well-worn copy of Wicked: The Grimmerie², a complete compendium about the musical production—including the original script by Wendy Holzman and lyrics (as well as music) by Stephen Schwartz. I claimed, as I passed out candy to the kiddies, that I, among all the neighborhood witches that came out that night, was the "original" Elphaba—disparate height, weight, and age notwithstanding.

As the years passed, though, I outgrew my obsession. No, not true. It just went into remission, but not before I nearly wore out my CD of the original cast recording and read and re-read each of Macguire's first three Wicked books at least twice, maybe three times: Wicked, Son of a Witch, and A Lion Among Men. The ending of each was primed for a sequel  and I impatiently waited, for a while, for the fourth one. Finally, I pushed the stories of Oz and Elphaba into the dark recesses of my mind. But what absolute glee resurrected my passion last November when I discovered Out of Oz: The Final Volume in the Wicked Series³ listed for just one, sole week on the New York Times Book Review as a best-selling hard cover.

For years, The Wizard of Oz, and many of the subsequent sequels, by Frank L Baum, were staples on the hallway secretary book shelf of my childhood. My father often read out loud to me at bedtime from between its faded and frayed green-clothed cover, the colorful paper book jacket having been badly shredded and thrown out years before. I am not sure if it was one of the few he had from my Dad’s childhood, but the copy, by the time I was well into my teens, was literally falling apart, so well-read and well-loved it was by us. We also made it a point each year to watch together the television broadcasts of the classic 1939 movie, starring Judy Garland. Those times together were "wonderful" and I courageously carry within my heart and my mind (brain) these fondest memories. Often thinking about them are, for me, a trip “over the rainbow” into the timelessness of my own Oz of childhood.

However, as my father read the stories to me, I often wondered what really happened in Oz before and after Dorothy came via a tornado and left with the clicking of the ruby shoes⁴. Gregory Macquire, as is evident from his Wicked series, wondered the same thing. What did happened in Oz, as the musical's catch phrase asks, "before Dorothy dropped in"? His four-volume Wicked series tells all, not only from the before times, but through to the after-Dorothy times: from the birth of Elphaba, through her life to her supposed demise at the hands of the young girl from Kansas; the life and times of her son, Liir; the adventures of Brrr, known to us as the Cowardly Lion, who really is more courageous than we thought; the eventual rise to power of Glinda the Good; and what happens to her and the inhabitants of Munchkinland when Shell, Elphaba's younger brother, takes over as the Wizard. There are plots and sub-plots, each with twists and turnings as dramatic and as startling as the original wind storm that first brought Dorothy Gale into our literary lives.

And with this latest and last offering in the series, we come, at last, full circle in our obsessive Ozmania. We find Elphaba's granddaughter, Rain, in the household of the disposed Glinda, whose Mockbeggar Hall is commandeered by General Cherrystone for the siege of Munchkinland by the armies of the Emerald City. Enter the Clock of the Time Dragon, pulled by Brrr and accompanied by a theatrical troupe headed by Mr. Boss, a dwarf. We are once again journeying through the country sides of Oz via the wondrous imaginings of Macquire only to discover that Dorothy, through yet another—pun—twist(er) of fate, returns. Full circle, indeed. Here is the long-waited dramatic, suspenseful, and dryly humorous conclusion of the four tales. Did I mention surprising?

I had almost forgotten how Macguire lyrically constructs his phrases, using just the right—and often archaic—word to describe the aura and atmosphere of Oz as well as express the demeanor and actions of his protagonists. It's like a movie with true-to-love characters being graphically projected onto my mind's eye, or the magical, mystical unfolding of the meaningful plot of the original musical on the live stage. His text is laced with political commentaries, juiced with real-to-love characters, sprinkled with modern aphorisms that are not so seemingly out of place in the Land of Oz, and is replete with puns and pundits that keep the reader mesmerized and enthralled well into the wee hours of the morning.

A word of caution, though. Macguire's books are not quick reads. They, like the original musical, are to be savored—like a very fine wine or a well-aged single malt—requiring careful scrutiny, consideration, and thought to garner the more subtle nuances of plot and character interrelationships. It took me two performances—and soon to be a third—to realize that Wicked is a musical not about a woman being wicked, but about friendship and how others, with their personal desires, ambitions, and actions, affect our lives (“Because of you, I’ve been changed for the good.”). Like its predecessors, Out of Oz is a novel of just as deep questioning of the basic tenets of life as the musical. Even more so. And like the first three books before it, it is taking me a second reading to reap the full benefits of Macquire's masterful talents and his powerful messages,, written on many interlaced levels. The second time around, by the way, like all of his books, is just as wonderfully enjoyable and thought-provoking as the first time.

Reading Macguire is actually like being over the rainbow, with time obsessively suspended, listening, to my father once again relating the stories of Oz.
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¹Although, in my opinion, indeed, the best performances were given by the original cast headlined by Idina Menzel (Elphaba Thropp), Kristin Chenoweth (Glinda the Good). and Joel Grey as the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
² ©2005 Wicked LLC, text by David Cole. Published by Hyperion, New York, NY.
³ To access the books in the Wicked Series, as well as the Grimmerie, please click the links on the left pane of this Web site under "Picks of the Week".
⁴ They were originally silver slippers in the Baum tale. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer changed them to ruby shoes in the 1939 movie, "The Wizard of Oz".