Reading: The Princes in the Tower

Moving: walked 2.7 miles and 30' on the NT: 3.15 miles

Listening: The Castle. Which is hysterically funny. I think the Coen brothers should film it.

Watching: "Galaxy Quest." Yeah, shut up. I'm not a Trekkie by any stretch, but ye gods and little fishes, I know the type; and it's loud and stupid, which means excellent workout fodder.

Cooking: Nothing. I I did manage to burn chocolate chips in the microwave though.

19 November 2001: Gregory Maguire

Wasn't it a month ago I saw him? So I'm more on time than I was with Europe. No, Tracy Chevalier was the 19th and Maguire the 22nd.

Anyway. So. Of course I alerted Jenn--just look at her url. But she blew me off, something about being in Ohio, which is a long way to go just to avoid me. Sniff. This at least meant she didn't hear me say "Elphaba," which, goddamn it, is how I've always pronounced it. Maguire (who I guess would know best) says "Elphaba." Whatever. Whatever. See? Completely different meaning, based on stress.

So. The Tattered Cover's newsletter alleged that Lost was "in the tradition of Possession," which, OMFB, I might have mentioned in passing, is a favorite book of mine? And Jenn said it's one of Kevin's favorites too. So I was stoked for that. And I really liked Wicked. Just having read Girl with a Pearl Earring reminded me of Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister because of the period and the painter. So it was all very auspicious.

I carried a purse (I would have liked to see Hadden, but I'm glad to avoid witnesses when I do a thing like that). I had learned my lesson with Nicholas Bantock and had a pen with me this time. So I took notes:

• This book vs. Possession
• Elphaba as a sympathetic character
• Books retold from secondary POVs
• Billie Burke in "Bill of Divorcement." [I hadn't seen "Christopher Strong" yet.]
• Stress on Elphaba
• Confessions vs. Girl with a PE
• Cat in the Mirror's Erin hates Alice
• And Quiet Flows the Vodka [this was a title on the history shelves behind the podium]
• I want that badger
• Tracy Chevalier doesn't do an English accent either
• Hampstead again
• Oz books?
• Red Windmill!
• In Oz, no animals. In Wicked, that becomes a subplot
• Cf The Wind Done Gone

So I had a lot of questions once he was finished.

He read a passage I now forget that mentions Alice in Wonderland, and one thing I really liked in Lost was the main character's knowing London through children's books. He also read the last paragraph--vowing it gave away nothing--because now, as in post 11 September, it struck him as prescient--flying toward the skyline (of Boston) with the skies bright with disillusion. He'd also said that if we asked nicely, he'd read a passage from Wicked. We did, and he did, a passage that mentioned Red Windmill as a town name. Aha, the moulin rouge. Talk about prescient.

Also he mentioned how the talking animals came to be--he finished writing one day with Glinda on the train and an old goat dozing in the opposite corner of the carriage. When he woke the next day, he realized that the old goat wasn't a metaphor but a goat.

During questions and answers, he

• called himself a slow thinker. In London at the beginning of Desert Shield and Storm, learning of the murder of the toddler by two ten-year-olds, experiencing a falling-out with a psycho friend, he wondered about the roots of evil, how early are they detected? First person who came to his mind was Hitler, but he doesn't speak German and is vegetarian so couldn't eat wursts; second person was the wicked Witch of the West. Just like Vermeer: everyone recognizes painting and WWW but no one knows their origin.
• said that his first choice to play Elphaba would be k.d. lang and second Winona Ryder!
• talked about fiction in a post-Sept. 11 world.

I let myself put my hand up only twice during Q&A. I asked him about Possession, and of course he couldn't say as much as he might without giving stuff away. After having read Lost, I kinda see what the TC meant, but to claim Lost is in the tradition of Possession is spurious. There's a mystery, there're literary allusions (like to Alice), and there's the past intermingling with the present, but Possession? No.

I also asked about how much I might have missed not knowing all the Oz books. Would I understand the geography or characters of Wicked better if I knew about the Patchwork girl or the TikTok folk, or if I even liked The (Wonderful) Wizard of Oz, which I didn't?

He gave a really interesting perspective about copyright, which is what made me think of The Wind Done Gone. In Wicked, he never names the color of the slippers. In the book the shoes are silver; in the movie they're ruby. In Wicked, the shoes reflect a rainbow of colors. The book came out of copyright the year Wicked was published, but he didn't know that and scrupulously omitted obvious infringement. And at most he skimmed the subsequent books, so if there's a mention of a character or a landscape, it's only to give the idea of great familiarity. The movie is still in copyright, and he didn't write "Surrender Dorothy" or any other snippet of dialogue from the movie.

Afterward, I hung back from the signing line until the very end, because I wanted to ask more questions without boring stiff anyone but him. I saw a woman from Dot Org who had never heard of him but who bought Wicked for her sister for Christmas, since "Wizard" is her favorite movie. This is one of my dilemmas: exposing my actual self to someone who's supposed to see only my squashed repressed work personna. Whatever: she was there so she'd have to deal. I plied Maguire with further questions.

I asked him about The Wind Done Gone, which he does think plagiarizes Gone with the Wind. He makes Elphaba her own character and Elphaba has a plot and theme independent of Oz, which he doesn't think The Wind Done Gone does. He thinks it's not a satire and, as not-a-satire, violates copyright. Not having read it (yet), I don't assume so: the author did at least change names. It as well as Wicked has a theme independent of its original work. Maguire was invited onto a talk show (that he didn't name) to discuss The Wind Done Gone, and he turned it down and afterward was glad because the author participated and he wouldn't've wanted to accuse her of plagiarism to her face (on the radio). Yet the talk show person must have had reason to think of Maguire alongside Wind Done Gone. I love books that retell familiar stories from other points of view and in so doing turn them on their heads and inside out, like Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane Fairfax and Automated Alice. One reason Wuthering Heights, Emma, and Alice in Wonderland can be undone is that they're old enough to be readily recognized icons; there are younger books (like Gone with the Wind) just as worthy of this treatment and youth alone shouldn't spare them: if they're well known enough to be spoofed, spoofing won't harm their reputation.

I said I was sure he was familiar with the author Tracey Chevalier and asked if he knew she had been there that Friday. Both books mention Hampstead Heath (such a coincidence, but forgive my still being blown away by my first visit to Europe). I said that even if she hadn't just been there I would have drawn parallels because of the artist in Confessions, and that I liked how he and she both took a familiar-but-unknown and gave it a past. At the end I thanked him for freeing me of a fear I'd carted around for my first 30 years, a devout fear of the Wicked Witch of the West.

He was really nice.

---

This was the evening I met Pantalaimon. I also liked an okapi, but I have my priorities. I gladly would upholster my house in stuffed animals, but they would be lonely if I didn't imbue them with character and I can do that with only so many. I don't know anything about okapis.

On "Malcom in the Middle" this past Sunday, a mother complains that she is the lone woman in a houseful of boys. I was standing at the ironing board set up behind the couch and coughed significantly. Blake was pacing the length of the couch, irritated that I wasn't decently sitting and petting his head, and RDC couldn't pet his head because he was working, surrounded by paper and laptop. At Lois's line I coughed significantly. I don't mind my being in the minority, because RDC was brought up right (he puts the seat down) and Blake doesn't mess with the seat (or the toilet at all, unfortunately). Nevertheless I griped that I'm surrounded by boys, because even all of my stuffed animals except Banzai are male. Even Pantalaimon, because I'm not one of the few whose dæmon is their same sex. Maybe, though, I suggested to RDC, Monty is female? Monty has a tag sewn into a back seam that says "Laying Moose." I assumed this was just bad grammar describing the moose's posture or that it was an Easter Moose. Captain Kangaroo's companion was Mr. Moose, but there's no reason Monty can't be Ms. Manuel Murphy Montgomery Moose.

Which brings the ratio to a whopping 11:3.