I don’t need Wicked tickets.  I read the book years ago and really enjoyed it.  I don’t need singing actresses and dance numbers to ruin the story for me.  It reminded me a lot of a book called ‘Grendel’ by John Gardner.  Grendel was the monster that Beowulf fought and tore the arm off of in his own myth.  Gardner’s book detailed Grendel’s life up until his death at Beowulf’s hands and how he wasn’t actually a monster because of what he was but became one because of how he came to think.  It’s not even a long book.  Every chapter uses a different form of philosophy as a model.  The book version of Wicked isn’t that deep and I doubt there are many novels being written nowadays that are.  Still, it tells a similar story in that the wicked witch of the west didn’t start out as evil or even a witch.  In fact, throughout the novel, I never once thought of her as evil, merely misunderstood.  She’s not a villain at all throughout and the novel implies she’s the victim of a conspiracy conceived by the Wizard of Oz himself.  It’s all fascinating stuff, but I don’t want songs and dance to ruin what is a tragic story to me.