A mile above Oz, the Witch balanced on the wind’s forward edge, as if she were a green fleck of the land itself, flung up and sent wheeling away by the turbulent air.
That is the opening sentence of the novel Wicked: The Life And Times Of The Wicked Witch Of The West. That sentence already makes me extremely happy that I bought this book today, prompted by a Hoydenizen mentioning in email that she’s planning to take a trip to Melbourne shortly to see the musical.
From that sentence I can already tell that the author (Gregory Maguire) loves playing with and savouring the words that he uses, that he likes to allude to things that the reader probably already knows without sledgehammering them, and that his descriptions are vivid and concise. Win, Win, Win.
This book has such a strong reputation, I’m fairly sure that I won’t feel that the subsequent narrative lets down that opening sentence. I’m very much looking forward to getting to know Elphaba.
What other books have Hoydenizens read that grabbed them from the opening sentence and held on right to the end?
