The story on the whole is really fucking weird and imbued with a weird sexual energy that reminds me of Ron Howard’s live action adaptation of The Grinch.
That being said, Gregory Maguire succeeds in making the Wizard of Oz this ever-present, suffocating force that hangs over almost the entire story, with the exception of the beginning at least, and transforms him from a bumbling fool into a figure of real menace and power.
It’s never fully revealed to the audience how or why the wizard came to Oz. In spits and spatters here and there we come to learn that it was via magic in an ancient tome that he somehow gained possession of. We learn some really terrible things about him too but in those brief glimpses Maguire shows just how much ambition and ruthlessness the Wizard had to have in order to even cross over to Oz let alone begin the process of taking it over.
by nowlan101