In his fourth adult novel, “Mirror Mirror,” Gregory Maguire seems to have lost his lust for imagination and captivating his audience.
Gregory Maguire, an accomplished writer, has worked on several adult novels, including “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West.” Along with these novels, he has written over 12 children’s novels, including a book series called “The Hamlet Chronicles.” Currently residing in Boston, Mass., he earned his PhD in English at Tufts University.
Maguire likens writing to finding a radio signal.
“Most often the signal is weak (often it blanks out entirely); writing then involves making sense of what you can hear and know, and filling in the blanks,” he said on his website, www.gregorymaguire.com.
In his most recent adult novel, “Mirror Mirror,” Maguire chronicles the life of Snow White before, during and after her poisoned-apple ordeal. Maguire takes creative liberties with the classic fairy tale, changing characters, locations and even how the story takes place. The Snow White character, Bianca De Nevada, daughter of Don Vicente, is shown in a childish and impish light — similar to the Snow White character of Disney’s imaginings.
Her father does not remarry, as is crucial in the classic version of the tale. Instead, the Borgia family (an actual family that lived in 16th-century Italy) visits him, seeking his help. Ceseare Borgia, a noble warrior prince, enlists Don Vincente to get a branch from the Tree of Life (a la Adam and Eve). Bianca is left behind in the care of Lucrezia Borgia, Ceseare’s brother — later Lucrezia is described as a woman — who then sends Bianca into the woods to be killed by a hunter.
The story follows the path of Bianca’s childhood, Don Vicente’s journey and the dwarves. What is interesting about this novel is that Maguire incorporates some historical fact, the lucidity of Lucrezia from the Borgia family, Ceaseare’s rival Prince Dchem who told him the story of the Tree of Life and Italy during the 16th century. What is also fascinating is that while the reader is not officially introduced to the dwarves until about two-thirds of the way into the novel, they tell a portion of the story throughout the novel.
While Maguire has the ability to write well, this novel does not show it. In “Wicked,” Maguire is able to take a story and show the other side, the side of the Wicked Witch of the West, before she was deemed as wicked. With “Mirror, Mirror,” however, Maguire just retells a story with changes and a few new twists, such as the dwarves looking like stones before slowly morphing into indistinct human-like figures.
The story is clouded with unnecessary historical information, about wars that Ceseare fought or the political situation in Italy at the time, that doesn’t relate to the story’s plot. What’s worse is that the story of Bianca finding the dwarves and living there doesn’t occur until the last half of the book. Maguire seems to think that spending a majority of the book on Bianca’s childhood and Lucrezia’s frustration at multiple marriages and miscarriages makes the book better than earlier versions. The only redeeming part of the book was the lurid stories of Lucrezia sleeping with her father, the pope, and several other men along the way. Overall, the book was dull and propels the Disney movie into an impressive, higher realm and proves its artistic greatness.
Grade: C
