22. brrr its cold in here
there must be some cowardly lions in the atmosphere
The Wicked reread continues with the third book, 2008’s A Lion Among Men. Who is this for? Who asked for this? Who said we need to know the real story of the Cowardly Lion aka Brrr? Surely not fans of the musical, where he’s a puppet onstage for five minutes? But hey, if Maguire feels like there is a story to tell here, let him prove it!
Or not! Not only is A Lion Among Men a cash-grab threequel, it follows the grooves of Son of a Witch so closely that my most generous read is that Maguire thought he could pull off his laziness as a throughline. The main thing going for it is to finally have the perspective of an Animal, the class of sentient beasts that are second-class citizens in Oz. But like Elphaba and Leer, Brrr has an abnormally isolated childhood, making this another tabula rasa bildungsroman instead of exploring that class from someone truly belonging to it. There are some nice story beats here about family and purpose. They’re just hard to enjoy with such boring shit around them. There’s even more disturbing sex scenes- now with cats! The most intrigue comes from the chapters narrated by a returned, alive Nor. If I could give Gregory some notes, I would have recommended chopping a lot from Son of a Witch and Lion Among Men then weaving them into one epic book with alternating POV’s, expanding on Nor and Candle’s stories as well. Then the parallel structures would feel less repetitive, in my humble opinion, and remind me of the latter two A Song of Ice and Fire novels where the minor characters get promoted to main arcs and that becomes a motif in itself. If I hadn’t read ASOIAF, honestly, I don’t think I would be able to appreciate these books even a little because it gives me an idea of who Maguire’s genre contemporaries were when the first book was published.
Now, let's dive into our latest Wicked movie news. Brrr actually appears in the new trailer. Maybe he’ll have a bigger role in Part 2, if they give Dorothy’s story more of a presence. Maybe Mandy Patinkin could play an older him? But who's going to play Dorothy? Rachel Zegler, stay in line!
We also got new character posters, including one of Bowen Yang’s newly added character, Pfannee. Brown's presence is one of the most exciting things about the movie for me, even if the character’s only trait seems to be Gay. I’m wondering, if the book influence really comes in, if he’s going to be one of the actual gay characters in Elphaba’s Shiz friend group. There’s two boys who are dating as a sort of open secret, until one of them, Tibbett, participates in a sex show that causes him to go insane (also involving a Cat!). We find out later he ends up a patient at Elphaba’s nunnery, and she tends to him as he dies. She helps pull him out of his madness a little, and their reconnection helps heal Elphaba’s catatonic depression after Fiyero’s death. The sex show is a bonkers chapter, but I found the passage about him dying touching. I bet Bowen has the dramatic chops for it!
good reads (sorry ⅔ of these are profiles done in long island)
The Cut | The First Great Memoir of the Trump Years by Emily Gould
Risk avoidance and wellness culture are a morality of our time, but it’s all about consumer choices rather than larger society. And then the pandemic happened, and it turned out that when the real shit hits the fan, our little micronutrient obsession is total bullshit. A million people died.
The New Yorker | Ina Garten and the Age of Abundance by Molly Fischer
It is a life she has constructed to her exact specifications, and it represents an emphatic response to an upbringing in which she felt that few of her wishes or tastes were satisfied. “I think I was starving my whole childhood,” Garten told me.
Curbed | In the Shack With Robert Caro by Christopher Bonanos
That Caro’s work is still done on paper, with no digital backup to speak of, marks him as one of the last of his kind. (He had never seen a Google doc until I offered to show him one. He was mildly startled to discover that, in a shared document, the person on the other end can be seen typing in real time: “That’s amazing. What’s it called? A doc?”)
SEEN/READ
09/13 THE GREAT
09/14 “Oh, Mary!”
09/15
09/16 THE GREAT, The Black Jacobins, Not Another Love Song*
09/17 The Black Jacobins, THE GREAT
09/18 Not Another Love Song
09/19 Not Another Love Song
*Sorry, I loved this book even though it’s definitely Reylo fanfiction.