2008-06-25 Pretentious nonsense...and boring to boot!

I have so many criticisms of this book: Firstly, none of the characters have any charm or interest value. Despite being written about at length, there is no-one I gave a damn about. Secondly, nothing interesting happens throughout the whole book (or rather big, interesting events do happen but they are captured in such a boring way). Thirdly, the book takes itself far too seriously. There is no humour in the book of any description. How many fiction books do not raise a titter throughout 500 pages? I can't think of any. This lack of humour added to the feeling of dryness and boredom I felt throughout reading. Fourthly, there is lots of waffle around big themes: Religion; Consciousness; Adultery; Good vs Evil; Politics. However, it is just filler. The author does not draw these themes together. There is no conclusion. I was expecting - hoping! - that the author was waffling on with these themes for a reason. Perhaps, I thought to myself, he's going to show Oz to be an allegory for our own world. Alas, no. It was just pretentious twaddle that goes nowhere. Another problem is that the idea of the "Wicked" Witch actually being "Good" just doesn't work. The part of the book where Dorothy is present in Oz does not correlate to what we know from the film. I think Maguire thought of "the twist" (i.e. wicked witch isn't wicked) and then he tried to force it to work when it plainly doesn't. Perhaps the book would have been more fun if the Wicked Witch had just been plain wicked throughout the story? If this review stops just 1 person from wasting their time, I have done a "good" thing.