Book Review - A Lion Among Men

A Lion Among Men: Volume Three in the Wicked Years

Gregory Maguire

336 Pages

A Lion Among Men is the third installment in Maguire’s “Wicked” series which includes the very popular Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West and Son of a Witch. The series started out by telling the story of the infamous “Wicked Witch of the West” made popular in Wizard of Oz but shows her as a misunderstood soul actually doing good. He introduces us to Elphaba & Glinda and the story of their friendship. He uses these characters to symbolize society’s inability to accept “different” and willingness to accept leaders on blind faith. The story continues to show Elphaba’s life exiled in the shadows. During this he begins to lay seed for the next book, Son of a Witch, which follows the story of the rumored son of Elphaba, Liir. And then for the third, the story of the Cowardly Lion, Brr, in A Lion Among Men.

From Maguire’s introduction:

“A Lion Among Men follows the peripatetic career of the Cowardly Lion. First seen in Wicked as a lion cub culled from his pride for the purpose of laboratory experimentation, the Lion (known as Brrr) makes his name in that little Matter of Dorothy about which all of Oz is still talking. But one doesn’t necessarily become lion-hearted by going after public approval, by racking up those medals and titles and golden statuettes at award ceremonies.

Tarnished with scandal of every stripe, Brrr is loathed by the Animals who believe he betrayed them in helping Dorothy do in the Witch. He fares no better trying to live as a lion among men. When civil war breaks out in Oz, Brrr is caught in the line of fire as he interviews the mysterious old oracle, Yackle, about the sources of Elphaba’s power. He must choose how much approval he can live without. A bit player all his life, he may yet be the linchpin on which the prosecution of the war rests.“

I really enjoyed Wicked when I first read it. I had recently delved back into my musical theater passion and it happened to fall during the “Wicked: The Musical” explosion. I listened to the music and enjoyed the story, so decided, as I often do, to read the source material. It was a bit long winded and sub textually very complicated, but overall a great read. It is not to be mistaken for the more bubble gum story played out on stage, rather very dark, political, and adult. I enjoyed the fact that similar to Tolkien and The Lord of the Rings series, Maguire creates an entire world for his stories - races, kingdoms, languages, etc. Son of a Witch visits a lot of the same places and characters that were introduced in the first, and the same with “Lion”. So it is not a series that you can really just pick up any random book to start. But as an avid “series” reader, I love to come across a name or place or event that happened in books prior. So far in these three books, on occasion you revisit the same event but have now seen it from several different perspectives.

It was harder to get through this particular book than the others. The Lion’s story is less engaging then the previous characters and he becomes annoying at points. My interest laid more in Yackle’s point of view as she had been a player in all of the books and it was nice to give her more of a fleshed out character. The ending did pick up but then just stopped flat out of no where. It will be interesting to see where he decides to take this in the fourth installment.

I really enjoy Maguire’s writing. Away from this particular series he has also written Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Lost and Mirror Mirror. I have not read Lost yet but did read the other two. They are an adult spin on Cinderella and Snow White. The premise seemed sketchy at first but I really enjoyed where he went with it, especially in Stepsister. I never was a fan of either princess before but humanizing them and making them not the “damsel in distress” helped keep my interest. As stated before, these are not books for kids. Profanity is used, sex is described – sometimes rather graphically and disturbingly depending on the subjects and well, it just isn’t the happy go lucky story one might think. But if you are in the mood for some entertaining reading and interesting takes on known stories, than I would highly suggest picking up a Maguire novel.