A Lion Among Men by Gregory Maguire

A Lion Among Men

by

Gregory Maguire

The third book in Gregory Maguire's Wicked series is A Lion Among Men and is the story of the Cowardly Lion.  I reviewed the first book Wicked HERE and the second book Son Of A Witch HERE.  And as I mentioned before, while fantasy is not my normal genre, I have really been enjoying this series.  The theme of this third book varies a bit off the good and evil theme as it deals with relationships.  All the books have dealt with relationships but due to the lions failures in life and failures in relationships this third book seems to focus on them even more than the first two.  For example on page 79 the following is observed about the lion:

He hadn't yet had enough experience with humans to know that the thing they hold dearest to their hearts,  the last thing they relinquish when all else is fading, is the consoling belief in the inferiority of others

To me this says a lot about how we often interact with others by viewing them down the length of our noses.  Because it is clear that we often like to think we are a little bit smarter, a little bit more educated,  a little bit richer,  and a little bit better looking than the next person.  

Through out the book the lion's loneliness is significant.  He fails at relationship after relationship.  So the book has a sadness to it.   It is a biographical work about the cowardly lion's life but it also clears up questions and details from the other two books.  Especially about Yackle.  Things are explained about Nor and about Elphaba's cat too.  Another main theme is the impending war between the Emerald City and Munchkinland over a source of fresh water.  Yackle says the following:

The smallest indivisible part of a nation worth defending is not a field, a lake, a city, an industry, but a child. 

As you can easily see by these quotes,  the third book in the Wicked series continues to be full of underlying meaning.   Religion,  politics and relationships continue to be explored though out the novels.  I have already downloaded the fourth and final book onto my kindle and am anxious to get started on it.  I highly recommend this series.  It is very different but worth the effort to get into the world of OZ and experience many of the issues in our world in a different reality.  

Please follow the links above to more information and enjoy the video that follows.