The Grimmerie
The Grimmerie is a mysterious and ancient book of magic, a tome of uncertain origin whose very text seems to resist stable interpretation. It is a powerful and dangerous object, sought after by the Wizard of Oz and used by Elphaba in her experiments and spells, and its nature and origins are tied to the novel's deepest mysteries about magic, other worlds, and the nature of evil itself. The book's shifting, illegible script and its connection to a world beyond Oz make it a central, enigmatic artifact in the story, a symbol of forbidden knowledge and the corrupting allure of absolute power.
Appearance and Nature
The Grimmerie is a massive, beautiful volume, described as having purple pages and silver ink, with a cover ornamented with golden hasps and pins and tooled with silver leaf. Its most striking feature is its text, which appears to be alive: the letters float and rearrange themselves on the page, as if enlivened, clumping together in a big black snarl like a mound of ants. This makes the book nearly impossible to read consistently; meaning may emerge on a page that a day earlier had been illegible chicken scratches, and meaning sometimes disappears as one stares. Elphaba, who possesses the book for years, can only make out a line here or there, and her ability to read it is fleeting and unreliable. The book's very nature seems to resist being pinned down, a quality that aligns it with the novel's themes of uncertain knowledge and the elusiveness of truth.
Origin and History
The Grimmerie's origin is one of the novel's central mysteries. It is said to come from another world, brought to Oz by a wizard more capable than the current Wizard of Oz. This earlier wizard, an elderly man who spoke with an accent, gave the book to Sarima, the Dowager Princess of the Arjikis, at Kiamo Ko. He claimed the book was too powerful to be destroyed but too threatening to its own world to be preserved there, so he hid it in Oz. The current Wizard of Oz, who himself came to Oz from another world forty years prior, confirms this story. He states that the Grimmerie is an ancient manuscript of magic generated in a world far away from Oz, and that he came to Oz specifically to find it and return it to its own world. The book's history is thus intertwined with the Wizard's own origins and his quest for ultimate power.
Use and Power
The Grimmerie is a repository of immense magical knowledge, containing spells for a vast range of purposes. Elphaba uses it to perform experiments, such as stitching wings onto snow monkeys, a procedure she perfected by combining the book's spells with her own knowledge from life sciences. The book contains spells for unleashing the hidden energies of matter, tampering with the orderly flow of time, and breeding a more docile population, as well as diagrams of weapons of torture. It also holds a spell for the Administration of Dragons. The Wizard, upon seeing a page from the book, muses that one might learn how to subjugate a dragon to one's own purposes. The book's power is so great that the Wizard is willing to bargain for it, and Elphaba considers using it to destroy him, though she ultimately decides to hide it instead.
The Grimmerie and the Wizard
The Wizard of Oz is obsessed with obtaining the Grimmerie. He reveals that he came to Oz from his own world forty years prior, having located the book through a crystal ball, and made the appropriate sacrifices and arrangements to travel to Oz to find it. He had not intended to rule a country but to find the document and return it to its own world. When he meets Elphaba at Colwen Grounds after Nessarose's death, he demands to know where the book is, offering to trade information about the fate of Fiyero's family in exchange. Elphaba refuses, instead offering to give him the book in exchange for the release of Nor, Fiyero's daughter, whom the Wizard holds as a political prisoner. The Wizard refuses to bargain, but the book remains a central point of contention between them, a symbol of the Wizard's desire for ultimate control and Elphaba's resistance.
The Grimmerie and Elphaba
For Elphaba, the Grimmerie is a tool of both creation and destruction, a source of power she is never fully able to master. She uses it to give the snow monkeys wings, a project that connects her to Doctor Dillamond's work on the nature of life. She also uses it to try to find a way to overthrow the Wizard, but finds nothing useful. The book's shifting text and her own inability to read it consistently frustrate her, and she comes to see it as a dangerous and unreliable instrument. In the end, she decides to hide the Grimmerie deep in the mountains, rather than let it fall into the Wizard's hands. The book's ultimate fate is left uncertain; after Elphaba's death, Dorothy, who has come to Kiamo Ko, finds the book too cumbersome to carry and leaves it behind. The Grimmerie thus remains a potent, unresolved force in the world of Oz, a testament to the enduring mystery and danger of magic.
The novel's reception was largely positive, with Publishers Weekly praising it as a "fantastical meditation on good and evil, God and free will" that combined "puckish humor and bracing pessimism." Kirkus Reviews called it "a captivating, funny, and perceptive look at destiny, personal responsibility, and the not-always-clashing beliefs of faith and magic," while Library Journal recommended it to readers who enjoy satire and imaginative fantasy. The Los Angeles Times compared it favorably to other "fantasy novels of ideas" such as Gormenghast and Dune. However, The New York Times offered a notable dissenting view, with critic Michiko Kakutani arguing that Maguire "shows little respect for Baum's original story" and turns Oz into "a lugubrious allegorical realm" burdened with topical labels. Despite this criticism, the book achieved significant commercial success: in 2005, ten years after its initial publication, it spent 26 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and has since sold over five million copies worldwide.
