Month: April 2019

After bidding a sudden farewell to Dorothy and the gang at the end of the previous Oz novel, the magical land was clearly still preying on L. Frank Baum’s mind (or bank balance), so here he decided to revisit it, but initially centering his story on a whole new set of characters. (Though, there is a magician we’ve heard of before, the one who came up with the powder that brought Jack Pumpkinhead and the Sawhorse to life.)

Scraps, the titular patchwork girl, is brought to life by that magician as a maid for his wife — they explain to Scraps that she is a servant, aka “One who serves, a sort of slave”, which is not quite right, but okay — but she tires of this life and is soon off on an adventure with Ojo the Unlucky, a poor Munchkin boy on the brink of starvation as the book starts (dark!), to try to save his uncle, who has been turned into a marble statue.

Of course, they make new friends and various well-known Oz denizens are encountered on the journey, and it all ends happily enough, if a little too quickly. Baum is very fond of a deus ex machina, after all.

But the best of the book is Scraps herself, bad poetry and all; most especially, her meeting with a soon-smitten Scarecrow. I am shipping Scraps and Scarecrow hard now. It’s weird as hell, I know, but hey, that’s who I am.

Oh, and here’s a fun Oz fact! In 1914, Baum’s film company brought out a silent picture version of this book, the first Oz film ever on screen. It runs about an hour long, and it has the production values of a kindergarten play, and it’s so hard to follow — even when you’ve read the book — that it’s very easy to see how it lost money (as did all the Oz Film Manufacturing Company feature productions, of which there were… four. Two of which were not even set in Oz).

Still, check this out! It’s unintentionally hilarious, which is often the best kind of hilarious, isn’t it?

 

TBR DAY 119: The Patchwork Girl of Oz (Oz #7) by L. Frank Baum
GENRE: Children’s Fiction, Classics
PUBLISHED: 1913
TIME ON THE TBR: 3 years.  
PURCHASED FROM: Amazon.
KEEP: Yep!

I’ve liked the last couple of Oz books, of course, but with this one Baum is back in the realm of genius. It’s actually my favourite one yet; pretty impressive for the sixth book in any series, let alone a kids’ one, where you’d think most of the wonder comes from the initial ideas and the world being laid out before us.

One of the reasons Baum keeps on surprising is that he continues to broaden the world of Oz, giving us more and more civilizations of more and more interesting people. From the baked goods-based people of Bunbury to the living utensils of Utensia to the assorted members of the Nome King’s evil coalition, determined to invade Oz and destroy the unwonted happiness of its citizens, his inventiveness knows no bounds, nor — often — does his wit.

Also, after struggling financially and finding their farm in danger of repossession, Dorothy’s Uncle Henry and Aunty Em find themselves whisked off to Oz in this one, the family to now settle there permanently, and there is a lovely little moral about work ethic thrown in, because they do not easily adjust to their lives of luxury and need something to keep them occupied.

But more than anything, the attempted invasion of Oz takes centre stage in this book, and it is so much fun!

Woggle-Bug Report: Yes! He is here, and is now a Professor at the College of Art and Athletic Perfection, which he founded. One of his innovations was to introduce school pills to the curriculum, which allow students to literally swallow knowledge — Maths, English, History and the like — in order to spend more time on their artistic and physical education.

It’s basically a cyberpunk concept, but from 1910. Amazing!  

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TBR DAY 118: The Emerald City of Oz (Oz #6) by L. Frank Baum
GENRE: Children’s Fiction, Classics
PUBLISHED: 1910
TIME ON THE TBR: 3 years.  
PURCHASED FROM: Amazon.
KEEP: Yep!

Dorothy is back on the Kansas farm but gets lost again, because of course she does, as she attempts to lead a seeming vagrant to a nearby town and instead finds herself once more in Oz, because of course she does.

There are a few things to note about this vagrant:

One, a grown man asking a kid for directions should inspire cries of “Stranger danger!” and a possible call to the authorities, but it was a simpler time, and how sad that reading this passage just made me fear for Dorothy’s safety rather than commend her for her kindness. (Although, calling the poor man “stupid” was kind of harsh there, Dot.) 

Two, he is referred to only as “the shaggy man” and never named, though Dorothy dubs him “Shaggy Man”, in capital letters, and introduces him as such, when the occasion arises. That is just some weirdness right there. Maybe someone should call the authorities. Dude doesn’t have a name.

And three, it is eventually revealed that the shaggy man is the proud possessor of a “love magnet”, some kind of talisman that makes everyone he meets immediately adore him and want to do his bidding, hence Dorothy deciding to show him the way to Butterfield because he couldn’t understand her directions (and he also gets them out of quite a bit of strife as a result of this creepy bit of mind-fuckery, as the adventure proceeds, as you can imagine).

Of all the magical items in Oz, this love magnet is without doubt the ickiest, and I’m including here the cap that can make the winged monkeys your genie-style slaves.   

Dorothy’s other new friends include Button-Bright, a simple little lad who is likewise lost and answers most questions with “Don’t know”, and Polychrome, a beautiful daughter of the rainbow who… is beautiful, and together they visit a great many lands in Oz — it encompasses far more than the four direction-based states we have so far become familiar with — the rulers of which all eager to be present at Princess Ozma’s forthcoming birthday party. 

Without too much difficulty, Dorothy and (new) friends arrive in Oz in time to celebrate this event in style, and all her old friends arrive to share the fun, too. In many ways, this feels like it could easily be not the road to but the end of for Oz, as it has a kind of series finale, the-gang’s-all-here vibe about it, but of course there are still 9 Baum-penned books to go in this series (whew!) and so that can’t be it. Mostly, this was probably just a fan-pleasing attempt to bring back all the old favourites, and I kind of wish every author of a long-running series would do that once in a while. It’s… very nice.

Also very nice is the socialist utopia of Emerald City, which isn’t quite as easy a life as the one depicted in the film (“We get up at twelve and start to work at one; take an hour for lunch and then at two we’re done”), but is still pretty sweet. To wit:

“Don’t they work at all?” asked the shaggy man.

“To be sure they work,” replied the Tin Woodman; “this fair city could not be built or cared for without labor, nor could the fruit and vegetables and other food be provided for the inhabitants to eat. But no one works more than half his time, and the people of Oz enjoy their labors as much as they do their play.”

Theirs is also a post-currency economy:

“Fortunately money is not known in the Land of Oz at all. We have no rich, and no poor; for what one wishes the others all try to give him, in order to make him happy, and no one in all Oz cares to have more than he can use.”

Yeah, this isn’t really true of Oz (no more is it true of anywhere), but it’s a lovely dream, isn’t it?

In all, this is a largely uneventful but very enjoyable roam throughout this ever-expanding fairy land, and it is a testament to the writerly skill, especially with regard to character, that every party guest is not only memorable from their earlier appearances, but is also very welcome in the story.

Oh, and Toto! Toto’s here, you guys! Hi, Toto!

Wait… All the other animals from our world enter Oz (or similar) and can immediately speak. Why is Toto still barking his way through these tales? Billina the chicken and Jim the horse could have a chat. Why not Toto? WHY NOT TOTO?

I may be way too invested in this story now. Still, I’m on a roll. Book 6 is up next.

Woggle-Bug Report: YES! He’s here, where he performs a poem of his own composition for Ozma’s birthday: “Ode to Ozma.” It’s very good. 

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TBR DAY 117: The Road to Oz (Oz #5) by L. Frank Baum
GENRE: Children’s Fiction, Classics
PUBLISHED: 1909
TIME ON THE TBR: 3 years.  
PURCHASED FROM: Amazon.
KEEP: Yep!

I’m extra glad I didn’t read this Oz book as a kid, because this one is all-out scary, with Dorothy in mortal danger pretty much all the time. I also kind of wish I had read it back then, also, because perhaps then I would not have noticed the plot inconsistency that acts as a major deus ex machina here, in a series already more than replete with same.

It begins with an earthquake — I’m assuming the fabled 1906 Big One in San Francisco had some bearing on that — that sees a Dorothy visiting her California relatives and getting sucked into the fairy land below ground, in company with her rightfully befuddled cousin Zeb, her cat Eureka (where even are you, Toto? He wasn’t in the last one, either…), and Zeb’s horse Jim. Now in a magical realm, Eureka and Jim can talk, and soon become characters in their own right, which is unfortunate when all four are sentenced to death by the Mangaboos, a race of vegetable people, for causing the roof to fall in. Happily, the once and future Wizard of Oz drops in, still aboard his hot air balloon, just in time to save them with some snazzy sleight of hand, and the little band escape no less than seven attempts on their lives, both intentional and inadvertent, across the succeeding pages.

My nitpicky continuity problem is with the final escape, as they are rescued by Ozma of Oz. Ozma, you see, owns a magic picture that acts rather like the mirror in The Beauty and the Beast, allowing her to see whomever she wants just by asking to. At the end of the last book, when Dorothy reluctantly but dutifully returned to her sad Uncle Henry, Ozma promised that she would look for Dorothy in the magic picture every Saturday morning, and all Dorothy would have to do was wave and she’d be instantly transported thence. (Nice that Oz keeps the same days of the week as do we.) But here, it is apparently every day at 4 pm that Ozma searches out Dorothy (nice that Oz keeps the same time as we do), and that is how our plucky band are ultimately saved.

I’d worry that this complaint is also a spoiler, except that it’s all pretty obvious what is going to happen, almost from the outset, unlike in other Oz outings. Sadly.

Oh, there is a lot that is adorable in this book, and some sparks of that jaunty, pointed Baum humour, as well. But it feels a little phoned in, I have to say, and lacks the joy of the previous efforts. 

Still, I have to see what happens in this wacky world next. Book #5, here I come.   

Woggle-Bug Report: Why, hello there (ever so briefly), Mr. H. M. Woggle-Bug, T. E! Congratulations on your elevation to Dean of the Royal College of Athletic Science!

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TBR DAY 116: Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz (Oz #4) by L. Frank Baum
GENRE: Children’s Fiction, Classics
PUBLISHED: 1908
TIME ON THE TBR: 3 years.  
PURCHASED FROM: Amazon.
KEEP: Yep!

Here is the original subtitle to this book: A Record of Her Adventures with Dorothy Gale of Kansas, Billina the Yellow Hen, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, Tik-Tok, the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger; Besides Other Good People Too Numerous to Mention Faithfully Recorded Herein

So, that pretty much sums it up.

As the absence of Dorothy was felt so keenly in the last book, here we find her sailing to Australia and swept overboard during a storm — the poor child is constantly beset by storms! — eventually washing up on the shores of the Land of Ev. Ev, it turns out, is a neighbour to Oz, and Dorothy soon learns that its rulers have been enslaved by the dreaded King of the Nomes and sets out to free them. She is imprisoned but eventually saved by her old friends, fortuitously in Ev on the same errand, as well as making the acquaintance of Ozma, the new Princess of Oz. (Why she isn’t the Queen of Oz, when Scarecrow was the King of Oz, is not explained.) 

There is a lot to like in this book, especially Dorothy’s new animal companion, a spirited chicken named Bill (but whom Dorothy rechristens “Billina”, because Bill isn’t a girl’s name — boo, Dorothy!) who gains the power of speech in fairy land, and also the realization for me that, yeah, these are indeed fairy lands, that makes sense to me now. The fact that the action of this book takes place outside of Oz is pretty nifty, too — we always knew that our regular world was “across the Deadly Desert”, but by visiting new magical places that have things like lunchbox trees and mechanical men (hello, Tik-Tok, also from the terrifying Return to Oz, as is much of this plot, actually), it really opens up the possibilities of these absurdist delights.

What I definitely did not love is that the fierce General Jinjur — who was repeatedly referred to as “a girl” in the last installment, though we’re not sure how much time has passed in the Land of Oz; Dorothy hasn’t aged much in the real world — is now married, and also has a domestic violence subplot thrown in:

‘“I’ve married a man who owns nine cows,” said Jinjur to Ozma, “and now I am happy and contented and willing to lead a quiet life and mind my own business.”

“Where is your husband?” asked Ozma.

“He is in the house, nursing a black eye,” replied Jinjur, calmly. “The foolish man would insist upon milking the red cow when I wanted him to milk the white one; but he will know better next time, I am sure.”’

Huh.

Woggle-Bug Report: No sign of the dear fellow. But there is a return of the Cowardly Lion, and a new friend in the Hungry Tiger, who can’t bring himself to eat meat and so is always complaining of being ravenous — it’s a vegetarian metaphor, I think — as well as the aforementioned Tik-Tok, who is an Asimov robot before Asimov was even born. Baum was pretty visionary, actually, it has to be said. And these books continue to delight. 

Onward, to #4! 

SCORECARD

TBR DAY 115: Ozma of Oz (Oz #3) by L. Frank Baum
GENRE: Children’s Fiction, Classics
PUBLISHED: 1907
TIME ON THE TBR: 3 years.  
PURCHASED FROM: Amazon.
KEEP: Yep!

That grinning Jack-o-Lantern staring out of the cover gave me some serious Return to Oz trepidation about embarking on this sequel, but I am happy to report that that 1985 horror film has almost nothing to do with this book (or, near as I can discover, the remainder of the Oz series). 

Jack Pumpkinhead is in it, however, a being created by orphan Tip as a way to frighten his (literal) witch of a guardian, Mombi, and then brought to life by some magical powder she happened to have on hand. Jack and Tip flee from Mombi — the fragile Jack riding upon the Wooden Sawhorse, also newly animated, as Tip has now stolen the Powder of Life — and find themselves at the Emerald City just as it is invaded by a furious legion of girls headed by the ferocious General Jinjur, and they and the deposed Scarecrow head to the Land of the Winkies — once ruled over by the Wicked Witch of the West, now in the care of the Tin Woodman — for sanctuary. Plotting to wrest back Scarecrow’s throne, they learn that Mombi is in league with Jinjur, and Glinda shows up to help out, as she is annoyed that Mombi has dared to perform magic in this magical land, when only Glinda is supposed to, for some reason.

Along the way they also meet the pun-spouting Woggle-Bug, who is quite my favourite character.

I won’t mention the denouement, since it is quite the surprise and I really hope everyone will read this book some day, but it is certainly an interesting development, and somewhat ahead of its time for, well, its time, I would have thought.

Likewise ahead of its time is the Army of Revolt led by General Jinjur, not only for its suffrage message — though there is some man-hating here that might be considered as going too far; also, Jinjur wanted to eat Jack Pumpkinhead’s pumpkin head, since he wasn’t really a person, and that’s just racist — but also for its clear summation of the invisible work at home that is still,  overwhelmingly, the purview of women:

‘”… since you went away the women have been running things to suit themselves. I’m glad you have decided to come back and restore order, for doing housework and minding the children is wearing out the strength of every man in the Emerald City.”

“Hm!” said the Scarecrow, thoughtfully. ‘If it is such hard work as you say, how did the women manage it so easily?”

“I really do not know,” replied the man, with a deep sigh. “Perhaps the women are made of cast-iron.”’

I mean.

In all, another top-notch adventure through Oz, even without the presence of Dorothy, still at home in Kansas, we can assume. But there are twelve more of these books to go, I have no doubt she’ll show up again. Because that is how series work.

I just hope Mr H. M. Woggle-Bug, T. E. (Professor Highly Magnified Woggle-Bug, Thoroughly Educated) does, as well.

SCORECARD

TBR DAY 114: The Marvelous Land of Oz (Oz #2) by L. Frank Baum
GENRE: Children’s Fiction, Classics
PUBLISHED: 1904
TIME ON THE TBR: 3 years.  
PURCHASED FROM: Amazon.
KEEP: Yep!

We all know The Wizard of Oz, of course. From the Judy Garland childhood favourite to The Wiz to assorted modern day-set adaptations (Zooey Deschanel in Tin Man is a favourite), that magical land over the rainbow is even more entrenched in our collective zeitgeist than Lilliput or Fantasia or even Westeros.

A few years back, when a new box set of all L. Frank Baum’s fourteen Oz stories was released (plus one follow up by a different author, for some reason), Amazon suggested it to me as something I might like, and it occurred to me that I had never read the original stories on which this cultural touchstone was based. Amazon’s logarithms know me way better than I’d like, actually.

So I bought them, and admired them, and only now have gotten around to reading them. (That old chestnut…) This first book of the series is actually surprisingly close to the film version we all know and love so well, with Dorothy blown in her house by a tornado and landing on the Wicked Witch of the East and freeing the Munchkins from her terrible rule. Certainly, there are differences: the magic shoes are silver, not red; backstory is missing; the winged monkeys are enslaved; the Queen of the Field Mice saves Dorothy from the poppy field; and Glinda the Good shows up way later, which actually makes sense, because WHY did Glinda send Dorothy off to the Emerald City if all she had to do was click her heels together to go home? Also, the Wizard changes shape a bunch, and the rewards he gives to the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman and Cowardly Lion are different, and the people of Oz wear green glasses to make the Emerald City green (which I don’t understand), and Dorothy did not dream it all in the book version, which I like way, way better. Plus, in print she’s only nine years old. (Oh, and the witch doesn’t say “I’ll get you, my pretty! And your little dog, too!” Impressive work, then, screenwriters!)

Bus aside from all that — and really, most of it is pretty incidental — the movie adhered to the book pretty well, all things considered, and it all developed pretty much as you might expect, except that I for one did not expect the book to be so funny. Baum has a winning way with an epigram, and he makes wry observations throughout the book (especially with regard to the brains, heart and courage sought by Dorothy’s companions) that completely took me by surprise. This book is an early example of that thing Disney does now, throwing in an extra layer for the grownups that fly straight over the kiddies’ heads. I am so glad I am reading it now, when I get the jokes. They are very good jokes. 

In all, I find myself — like so very many others, across the century-plus that this book has been in print — entranced by this most magnificent creation, and I am excited to get started on the next one in the series. Like, so excited I’m going to start on it right now.

Whether this says more about this book or about me, I don’t feel qualified to say.  

SCORECARD

TBR DAY 113: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (Oz #1) by L. Frank Baum
GENRE: Children’s Fiction, Classics
PUBLISHED: 1900
TIME ON THE TBR: 3 years.  
PURCHASED FROM: Amazon.
KEEP: Yep!