Ryk E. Spoor's Blog, page 45

Under the Influence: Rinkitink in Oz

 

With the tenth book of the Oz series, we reach one of the most important books to my writing of Polychrome, and also one of my favorite books in the series. Thus, rather than a mere On My Shelves, this book gets an Under the Influence all to itself It is worth noting that. Rinkitink began existence as another of Baum's non-Oz fantasies, but Baum repurposed it as an Oz novel and that is how it has become known.

 

On the idyllic tropical island of Pingaree in the Nonestic Ocean (the ocean that surrounds the lands of Faerie) lives young prince Inga, son of the wise and kindly King Kitticut and his wife, Queen Garee. Their small island country is wealthy due to the vast number of high-quality pearls that can be fished from its reefs, and the mild climate and fertile land make it self-sufficient and a very pleasant place to live. The only real fear of the people is invasion; years ago, the warrior nations of Regos and Coregos invaded Pingaree, and were only driven out by some mysterious force.

 

One day, King Kitticut decides it is time that Inga know the secret that protected the island, and reveals that Pingaree's rulers were given three magical Pearls of Power by the Sea Fairies. It was none other than Kitticut himself, wielding the Pearls' mystical powers, who drove out the invaders. The Blue Pearl provides superhuman strength upon the bearer; the Pink Pearl provides invulnerability; and the White Pearl can speak and provides tremendous wisdom and advice to the bearer. Kitticut shows his son where the Pearls are hidden and how to access them in case of emergency.

 

A brief moment of alarm at an approaching ship turns out to be an occasion for celebration; the old, jolly, fat King Rinkitink, of the eponymous country, has come to pay a visit to Pingaree and see the land from which come the pearls that Rinkitink and his people value so highly. Rinkitink, accompanied by his grouchy but startlingly strong goat Bilbil, remains on the island for a long time, admitting candidly that he'd really rather avoid returning to the duties of kingship as long as possible.

 

Without warning, just after a dense fog has lifted, the warriors of Regos and Coregos invade again; but this time they manage to capture the King before he can reach the Pearls. Inga, who was spending the night in a small treehouse, escapes the notice of the invaders, who otherwise capture apparently everyone else on the island, loot every building, and then destroy the buildings, even the palace, until scarcely one stone stands atop another.

 

This is one of the most powerful sequences Baum has written; we feel Inga's fear and isolation as he realizes his home has been invaded and there is nothing he can do, and his shock and loneliness when, descending from his treehouse, he finds nothing but devastation and silence everywhere.

 

By good fortune, however, there are two other survivors of the attack: Bilbil the Goat, who wasn't considered worth taking by the invaders, and King Rinkitink, who fell down a well in an attempt to escape and by great fortune didn't break his neck in the mishap. With some difficulty they manage to get Rinkitink out of the well and gather as much food as they can find.

 

Inga realizes that his father must never have gotten the Pearls, and – after getting Bilbil and Rinkitink to help move a massive fallen block of stone that lies atop their hiding place – retrieves the precious gems secretly. The White Pearl advises him to wait and watch a particular location, and – sure enough – a mysterious and magical boat shortly appears, a boat more than able to carry all three of them.

 

Rinkitink thinks they should go to his country for refuge, but Inga is determined to rescue his people, including of course his parents, and believes he can do so with the power of the Pearls. After demonstrating that he can row even this large boat with great ease and speed (using the power of the Blue Pearl of Strength) while Rinkitink can barely make it move at all, Rinkitink concedes that Inga has the right to decide their course.

 

So a young boy on the edge of manhood, a fat old King, and a goat set out to conquer two warlike nations and liberate their oppressed peoples…

 

Rinkitink in Oz is one of the best of the Oz novels. This is a straightforward, powerful adventure story, with one of the few male main characters in Oz novels and possibly the only one who really remains an active force throughout his adventures. Prince Inga is nowhere near fearless, but he is courageous, determined, and wise enough to know when he doesn't know enough to understand his problems; this means that he consults others, including Rinkitink and Bilbil as well as the White Pearl, when needed. This stands him in good stead throughout his adventures.

 

Given that this is a children's book, and an Oz novel, we know that Inga will succeed in rescuing his people and his parents, but his journey is a long and dangerous one, in which even the powers of the Pearls are none too much. It is true that with all three Pearls, Inga is very nearly an unstoppable force, but he is also a very young man and can be tricked, or make mistakes. But the Wisdom of the Pearl apparently takes such things into account, or can at the least adjust its advice accordingly; even when he temporarily loses the two other Pearls, Inga relies on the advice of the White Pearl to show him the way to eventual triumph.

 

The character of Zella, a woodcutter's daughter who happens to end up with the Pearls, is also an important one; she only shows up in a relatively few chapters of the book, but she has her own adventures and assists Inga at crucial junctures. The way in which their interactions were written also made me – even as a very young man – wonder if eventually Zella and Inga would be an item – probably my first encounter with what is now called "shipping" characters. In Polychrome I assumed that they did, in fact, marry.

 

Even after defeating Regos and Coregos, however, Inga's quest is not done; King Gos of Regos and Queen Cor of Coregos have already fled, taking the King and Queen of Pingaree with them as hostages, whom they place in the custody of Kaliko, the current Nome King. Inga tracks them down, but Kaliko has promised Gos and Cor that he will keep the King and Queen of Pingaree prisoner, and he keeps his promises. Inga finds that Kaliko is a man of honor… and a deadly foe, who has a truly diabolical trap set for the young prince…

 

Multiple elements from Rinkitink in Oz are important in Polychrome. The Three Pearls are the obvious goal that Erik Medon seeks in his trip to Pingaree, and even though he does not – technically – take one, they remain tremendously important to the plot. King Rinkitink, with the slight name change of Rin Ki-Tin, is present, and Inga and Zella's daughter Zenga becomes Erik's companion as he sets out on the middle portion of his quest. Kaliko, too, is well characterized in this Oz book, and his portrayal and behavior here were strongly influential in my design of Kaliko as seen in Polychrome.

 

One area in which my interpretation differed drastically from what I suspect Baum envisioned, and certainly what John R. Neill drew, was that I saw Pingaree and its people as being dark-skinned Polynesians. This fit with what I knew about the world, and in particular with the image of Pingaree itself, which, aside from the Palace, was described in terms that brought to mind Hikueru from Call It Courage. Thus, my vision of Pingaree actually clashed somewhat with the pictures in the book. Additionally, there is one short sequence which shows Baum's completely unself-conscious racism, when it has been discovered that (rot-13 for spoiler protection) Ovyovy vf npghnyyl gur genafsbezrq Cevapr Obob bs Obobynaq, naq va beqre gb haqb gur genafsbezngvba ur vf onfvpnyyl punatrq frdhragvnyyl vagb qvssrerag sbezf gung ner "pybfre" gb uhzna, vapyhqvat "gbggraubg" qrfpevorq nf "n yrffre sbez bs zna". Fortunately this is only one paragraph in the whole book.

 

As I have already said, this is one of the best of the Oz novels; if you have any interest in Oz at all, this is one of the three or four you should read!

 

 

On My Shelves: The Scarecrow of Oz

Baum wrote many other stories, although none of them reached the popularity of the Oz novels. He wrote two books, titled The Sea Fairies and Sky Island, featuring a diminuitive girl nicknamed Trot and her guardian, the old seaman called Cap'n Bill, as the two went on strange faerie adventures under water and into the sky.

 

In the second volume, the pair encounter two familiar faces from the Oz novels, the eternal lost boy Button-Bright (who is slightly older, and considerably less stupid, than he was in his appearance in The Road to Oz) and Polychrome herself, who is shown to be a far more powerful and dynamic figure than previously seen. Polychrome's presence and role in Sky Island is, in fact, a major influence in my interpretation of her in Polychrome.

 

The two books did not sell nearly as well as the Oz books – though it is somewhat amusing to me to note that if I could sell as many copies of my books as Baum did of The Sky Fairies in its first year of release – 11,750 – I'd be earning out every one of my books in the first year and getting significant royalties besides. And these sales were in hardcover, note, not in paperback!

 

Despite the lukewarm (for him) sales of the books, Baum received letters from fans who did very much like Trot and Cap'n Bill… and wanted them to visit Oz. Since he had previously acquiesced to the fact that Oz was with him to stay, this was an excellent way for him to make use of previous material, tell an adventure in strange new lands, and yet (hopefully) get the sales that an Oz book could expect.

 

Trot and Cap'n Bill go for a row across the bay for a little picnic, but on the way back encounter yet another of Baum's devices to transfer his heroes to out of the way places: a great whirlpool which captures the rowboat and drags it – and its passengers – down into the depths. Fortunately, Trot's prior adventures and, possibly, the time and place of her birth have made her blessed by the Sea Fairies, and rather than be crushed and drowned, both she and Cap'n Bill are tossed up into an underwater cavern.

 

Shortly thereafter, another strange castaway appears from the water: a bizarre creature called an Ork, who was caught in the downdraft of the air current that helped form the whirlpool. The Ork is something like a four-footed ostrich with a parrot's beak, a brilliant crest of scarlet feathers on the head, four circular wings (described as being something like a cross between a drumhead and a salad bowl), and a propeller-shaped tail. The three explore the cave and find that it has a rear passage that leads deeper into the earth.

 

Baum's description of their subsequent passage through the earth is heavily atmospheric, conveying the oppressive sense of being trapped under the earth along with the majesty of vast black spaces beneath the ground. Eventually, however, the adventurers reach the end of the passage, at the bottom of some deep hole or well; they can glimpse the sunlight above but cannot climb to it.

 

The Ork, however, is a very powerful flyer, and his propeller-like tail can generate astonishing amounts of thrust. He manages to fly all three of them out of the narrow well.

 

Their relief at being finally above ground is tempered with the discovery that they are on an apparently deserted island – one with magical berries. One of these berries shrinks the poor Ork to the size of a bumblebee, depriving them of his impressive capabilities.

 

The lone inhabitant of the island, Pessim the Observer, is a sour-tempered man but nonetheless gives them one piece of useful advice – how to tell the berries that shrink from the berries that make the eater grow. Trot and Cap'n Bill then make clever use of this knowledge by first returning the Ork to full size, and then shrinking themselves so as to allow the Ork to be able to carry them as far as they wish, also bringing with them several of the growing berries to reverse the change.

 

They reach a new land, the land of Mo, where they encounter an old friend, Button-Bright. Discovering that the Land of Oz lies not too far away across the Deadly Desert, they enlist the aid of several birds, who Cap'n Bill causes to grow to immense size with the growth berries, to fly them across.

 

Unfortunately, they have landed in a section of Oz called Jinxland, which is almost completely cut off from the rest of Oz, and is in fact a relic of the Bad Old Days – complete with a very nasty king and a genuine, powerful, extremely wicked witch…

 

The Scarecrow of Oz is in many ways one of the strongest of the Oz books. We are introduced to a (to readers of Oz) new pair of main characters whose prior backstory makes them feel far more solid and alive than ones invented solely for a new book. Trot and Cap'n Bill are strong characters, their personalities already well defined and quite distinct from those of some of our prior friends. Bill himself is an unusual character from the point of view of the Oz books; unassuming, competent, quiet, and resourceful, Bill is one of the closest approaches to a father figure that Baum ever gives us, while little Trot combines some of Dorothy's can-do spirit with a gentleness that is different from that of our previous main heroine.

 

The Ork himself is another of Baum's strongest creations. He is not only physically unique, but also quick of mind and quite willing and able to learn. The Ork grows as a character, perhaps more than the humans do, and in the end he shows vast forethought by returning unexpectedly with a large number of his fellow Orks, just in time to save the Scarecrow from a very gruesome fate indeed.

 

The story itself is stronger because as with the prior book it avoids being merely a travelogue, but unlike Tik-Tok of Oz it has far less of the "mood-whiplash", being a more serious story throughout (though still with much of the whimsical "Ozzy" touch that made Baum's work a success). The eponymous Scarecrow doesn't show up until much of the book is already past, as an emissary sent by Glinda to assist the unfortunate visitors to Jinxland (and, incidentally, to bring the rule of Ozma directly to Jinxland, including the elimination of the abuse of magic).

 

The Scarecrow, in keeping with his prior characterization, is shown to be clever but sometimes overconfident, and too dependent upon the partial invulnerability that being a living straw man confers upon him. He requires help from the main characters – again making this a stronger book. The Scarecrow is not a deus-ex-machina and while he has the means to solve their problems, the methods and actual application of those means requires more than just his own resources.

 

With respect to the development of Polychrome, this novel didn't contribute a great deal. Perhaps the only noticeable bit comes during Ugu's furious rant at Mombi for overstepping her bounds, where he lists off his various viceroys and specifically mentions the Wicked Witch of Jinxland (originally called "Blinkie" for a missing eye – I modified the name to "Blinkara"). The spirit and energy of The Scarecrow of Oz, however, was strongly in mind as I wrote.

 

I highly recommend this, the ninth of the Oz novels!

Tik-Tok of Oz

This, the eighth of the Oz novels, takes us into the second half of the fourteen Oz books that Baum wrote, and also is the first book to prominently feature characters or menaces from "isolated, little-known" areas of Oz, something which Baum himself made something of a necessity by his more general pronouncement of how Ozma had made Oz a near-paradise.

Queen Ann Soforth of the tiny, isolated sliver of a Kingdom called Oogaboo is weary of being a sort of play-Queen ruling over the same eighteen men, twenty-seven women, and forty-four children for eternity (here, Baum remembers and addresses to some extent the fact that being unaging means things like that ratio remain unchanging – and to some, quite boring). Being a young woman of much ambition and very limited experience (after all, she's never been out of Oogaboo!), Ann decides to take the men of her country, form an Army, and conquer Oz; she does know that Princess Ozma's army consists entirely of officers and has no weapons, so she imagines that conquering the country will be a trivial effort.

Glinda, noting this foolish project in her Book of Records, decides that even though the army would obviously fail in its object there is no reason to even allow any armed insurrection within Oz. She magically bends the path the Army of Oogaboo follows until it leads them entirely outside Oz and leaves them there to seek out whatever fortune they may find.

Ann's Army is naturally puzzled to find themselves in a rather bleak wilderness rather than the lush land of Oz, but as they have no way back, press on; they encounter a fierce and monstrous creature called a Rak, which surrounds itself with a dark cloud, but before it can attack the one fighting man of the group, Private Jo Files, fires at the only part of it that can be seen – a glowing red eye – and injures it severely enough that they can escape.

At the same time, a little girl named Betsy Bobbin is washed overboard a ship, in the company of her mule Hank. Unlike Dorothy's similar experience, this turns out to be good fortune rather than bad, as the ship she was on explodes (bad boiler?) only moments after she plunges into the waves. The two manage to climb on board some floating wreckage and are eventually washed ashore near a beautiful rose garden filled with intelligent roses. (These roses echo, both in beauty and in their rather cold demeanor, the flowers seen in Alice Through the Looking-Glass). As she is confronted by the Royal Gardener, who intends to drive her back to the sea, (no humans other than the Gardener are allowed in the Kingdom), the Shaggy Man himself plummets through the greenhouse ceiling into the midst of the confrontation.

In another scene that echoes an earlier one in another Oz book, Shaggy and Betsy decide to pick the Rose Princess who appears to be ripe in the Royal Garden, and have her command her subjects to leave the two of them alone. Unfortunately, the female roses don't want to be ruled by a woman, only a man, and the Rose Princess – a distant relative of Ozma's, whose name is Ozga – is driven out with the others.

The Shaggy Man is searching for his brother, who he believes is in the hands of the Nome King, also called the Metal Monarch and now named Ruggedo (since he forgot his original name, Roquat, in The Emerald City of Oz). Interestingly, we never learn any other name for his brother; he is always referred to as "Brother", or "Shaggy Man's Brother" or – by the Nomes – "The Ugly One".

Shortly after leaving the Rose Kingdom, the party encounters Polychrome, Daughter of the Rainbow, who's once more danced to Earth and stayed too long to get back onto the rainbow.

In a rather jarring sequence, it's obvious that Baum – and thus Shaggy Man – has forgotten that Polychrome, in her first appearance, met up with the Shaggy Man and travelled a long way with him, Button-Bright, and Dorothy in The Road to Oz. This is one of the most obvious and painful inconsistencies in the books, as there is no possible way that either Polychrome or Shaggy Man could have forgotten each other; both are far too distinctive to ever forget.

Still, Polychrome joins the group, and seems rather amused that this motley crew intends to confront Ruggedo. In this, she is very much correct; while Polychrome herself is a powerful fairy (and demonstrates it on occasion), the others are nowhere near a match for the power of the Nome King.

As they camp near a well at a crossroads, Hank the Mule notices something at the bottom of a nearby well; after some effort, the Shaggy Man pulls to the surface a massive copper man – Tik-Tok himself, who was sent by Glinda to assist Shaggy, but who had the bad fortune to encounter Ruggedo alone; the Nome King knew or suspected why Tik-Tok was there, and tossed the metal man down the well to dispose of him.

At this point, the Army of Oogaboo marches into the crossroads. At first the Army – directed by Ann – attempts to capture the group as prisoners, but the Shaggy Man exhibits the Love Magnet (which he was allowed to bring with him on his quest) to them and they are instantly converted to loyal friends. (Again, this device is one of the most insidiously creepy magical artifacts in Oz).

With the inspiration of Private Files (who falls instantly for the Rose Princess), the Princess appeals to the roadside wildflowers for help, and they indicate the direction to the Nome King's domain.

However, passing above the Nome King's domain is sufficient to alert the Nome King that there are approaching intruders, and after his spies report who the intruders are and what they are after, he orders them sent down "The Hollow Tube", despite the advice of Kaliko, his Chamberlain, who reminds him that "Tititi-Hoochoo" had warned Ruggedo of dire consequences the last time he used the Tube to dispose of intruders (as the tube apparently ends within this Tititi-Hoochoo's domain.

The path having been directed to the entrance to this Tube and the entrance made invisible, the entire party find themselves plummeting down a huge, metal-coated tube through the very center of the Earth…

Tik-Tok of Oz is certainly one of the more plot-driven of the Oz novels. While there are visits to strange locations, such visits happen as part of a greater journey focused on achieving various goals, all of which are ultimately rather personal; the Shaggy Man seeks his only living relative, Betsy and Hank need somewhere to call home, Polychrome needs to find another Rainbow (and along the way wants to help her friends), the Rose Princess needs a home as well, and the Oogaboo natives want either riches or to find their way home (or perhaps both). Against all of them is the Nome King and his armies, and the heroes eventually find themselves caught between the Nome King and the emissary of Tititi-Hoochoo (aka The Private Citizen, the Great Jinjin).

Polychrome shows herself a formidable force in this book, perhaps most clearly in the Nome King's throne room when he attempts to capture her and finds that neither he, nor any other in his realm, can so much as touch her without her allowing it. She can move at such speed that she literally cannot be followed by eye. She is the wisest and most level-headed of the main party, and it is she who knows how formidable Ruggedo is and calls for help when the others are trapped.

The "help" is something of a deus-ex-machina, but it is true that Ruggedo brought it upon himself, and the punishment of the Nome King by his distant adversary is simple; to exile above ground, driven there by the eggs he fears so much.

In the end, Ruggedo's misfortunes work a change on him; he has lived with the knowledge that all hate and despise him, but he has seen more pity and weariness than anything else from those who conquered him. He again attempts to circumvent his punishment – this time by getting a seamstress to sew him as many pockets as possible into his clothes, so that the command that he could "fill his pockets" with wealth would allow him to take a fortune, and this too backfires on him, weighing him down with so much that the pockets drag at his motions and, eventually, begin to burst.

In weariness and isolation, Ruggedo actually comes to recognize and regret his actions, and accepts his demotion; he even assists in finding a way to undo the curse of ugliness he placed on the Shaggy Man's brother.

A particularly interesting event, from the point of view of a science-fiction author, comes when the various heroes, having been victorious, must be returned to their homes. Ozma, watching through the Magic Picture, has the people of Oogaboo (plus the Rose Princess, who is clearly attached to Files) sent back home. Realizing what must have caused the disappearance of his friends, the Shaggy Man:

"… drew from his pocket a tiny instrument which he placed against his ear. Ozma… at once caught up a similar instrument from a table beside her and held it to her own ear. The two instruments recorded the same delicate vibrations of sound and formed a wireless telephone, an invention of the Wizard…"

This may be one of the first mentions of a wireless telephone – predecessor of our cell phones – in fiction, as it comes from a book published in 1914. In addition, unlike many other early depictions, this wireless telephone is explicitly described as tiny, something that one carries in a pocket with ease. It's also one of the early examples of technology crossing over with magic, something which for a while became quite rare in fiction.

For the purposes of Polychrome, this is quite an important book, as it not only features Poly herself in a strong appearance, but also shows us how Ruggedo came to be exiled (although as we will see, the way I approached this event differs especially from Baum's later work).

Overall, this is a fairly strong work, although it has some considerable "mood whiplash" at times, and it once more ends with the major problem being solved by outside powerful forces than by the specific actions of the main characters; in gaming terms, Baum has his favorite NPCs do the heavy lifting and makes the player characters stand by to admire how awesome they are.

Still, it's a reasonably good book, a strong second-tier contender, and well worth reading for a number of excellent scenes and concepts.

 

On My Shelves: The Patchwork Girl of Oz

 

After The Emerald City of Oz, Baum originally intended to end the series. But both his tendency to spend money, and insistent legions of fans, showed this to be as futile an attempt as that of Conan Doyle to kill off Sherlock Holmes.

As he had deliberately had Oz sealed away from contact with the outside world, Baum showed one of his whimsical attempts at maintaining consistency in the introduction of The Patchwork Girl of Oz, stating that he had managed to establish a wireless (radio) link with Oz (with the Wizard and Shaggy Man providing the technological capability on the other end) so that he could continue to provide them with accounts of the adventures in that land.

Ojo, nicknamed "The Unlucky", is a young Munchkin boy who lives with his extremely laconic and elderly uncle "Unc Nunkie", also called "The Silent One", in a very remote corner of the Munchkin country. When their farm is failing, the two finally resolve to leave and seek another place where they can live.

On the way, the two stop by the only other living people within a considerable distance: the Crooked Magician, Dr. Pipt, and his wife Margolotte. The Crooked Magician is the inventor of a number of powerful magical charms, including the Liquid of Petrifaction and the awesome Powder of Life (from this we also can deduce that Pipt was the magician that old Mombi visited, way back in The Marvelous Land of Oz).

Dr. Pipt is engaged in making a new batch of the Powder of Life (which takes him six years of nigh-constant work), for the purpose of being able to animate a servant for his wife, so she doesn't have to keep doing all the work around the house. Margolotte has meanwhile been making the servant's body from a patchwork quilt, effectively making a full-sized cotton-stuffed figure of brilliant patchwork in the shape of a girl in a dress.

Pipt completes the Powder, and the next day uses it to bring the Patchwork Girl to life; but she moves suddenly, startling both Margolotte and Unc Nunkie into jumping back, upsetting the Liquid of Petrifaction onto both of them. With horror, Ojo sees that his uncle has been turned to pure marble, along with Dr. Pipt's wife. Moreover, the remaining Powder of Life was wasted, knocked aside in the same accident, and it cannot be used to bring the petrified people back to life.

 

Dr. Pipt tells Ojo that there is only one way to break the spell of the Liquid, made from five very rare ingredients: a six-leaved clover, three hairs from the tip of a Woozy's tail, a gill (a quarter of a pint) of water from a dark well (one that remains untouched by natural light), a drop of oil from a live man's body, and the left wing of a yellow butterfly. Ojo agrees to search for these ingredients, while Pipt begins the six-year process of making more Powder of Life, in case Ojo fails.

So begins another adventure-cum-travelogue in the land of Oz, but this one with a more serious object, and some very interesting characters. Ojo is the most serious, and even at times morose, major character we have yet met in the Oz novels. He believes his sobriquet of "The Unlucky" is a deserved one, and attributes any misfortune to his presence. A large part of the book is devoted to Ojo's determination to succeed in his quest and his development of attachments to his companions.

And odd companions those are. Initially Ojo is accompanied by the Glass Cat, the original result of Dr. Pipt's experimentation with the Powder, and the Patchwork Girl, now named Scraps. The Patchwork Girl is an impulsive, boisterous force of nature, due to her magical brains having been made far more capable – and perhaps a bit mixed – by Ojo; the boy had seen that Margolotte only intended to give her characteristics such as "Obedience" and "Amiability" and felt that was unfair, so added a large number of others ranging from Cleverness and Judgment to Poesy, Self-Reliance, and Courage.

Scraps is one of the most dynamic characters in Oz, and makes a perfect contrast to Ojo; she is an indomitably cheerful and optimistic, if occasionally scatterbrained, companion who is usually smarter than everyone around her when she chooses to be, spouting random verses of doggerel that actually have meaning, and with considerable physical energy. She has a tendency to steal the show whenever she's present; I suspect this is one reason that Baum actually used her sparingly in other books.

Ojo's journey across Oz is more than travelogue, although there is a lot of that as well. In his travels, he meets with new companions, and passes through threats both physical and moral.

One of the new companions is the Woozy, a very peculiar creature that is all rectangular blocks in design – legs like skinny rectangular blocks, a massive block for a body, a square block for a head – with only three hairs at the end of its tail; these are of course needed for the cure Ojo seeks. Fortunately, the Woozy is of a cheerful and kindly disposition and willingly offers the use of the three hairs – if they can get the hairs out, something not nearly so easy as it appears, as the Woozy has incredibly tough skin and the hairs are just as tough.

The travelers are captured by beautiful but carnivorous flowers later in their travels, but fortunately they are rescued by none other than the Shaggy Man, who is quite willing to escort them to the Emerald City. Along the way, Ojo discovers through conversation that picking a six-leaved clover is currently forbidden by Princess Ozma.

When Ojo spots such a clover at the roadside, he surreptitiously picks the plant, as he is afraid that Ozma will not grant him an exception. Unfortunately for him, this action is observed from afar (through Ozma's Magic Picture) and he is arrested for violating the law upon his arrival in the City.

 

(An amusing aside: This book caused me to ask my father if there were really clovers other than three-leaved, to which he replied that I should look and see. Searching for multi-leaved clovers turned into a minor hobby of mine and I got extremely good at it; my record was 54 four-leafed clovers, four five-leaf clovers, and one six-leafed clover found in a space of 5 minutes in one large, incredibly dense patch. I did find two seven-leafed clovers over the years I looked. I still occasionally survey clover patches even today.)

Baum shows us a rather different view of prison, however; the Prisons of Oz are pleasant places, with the only negative being that you may not leave until released. These jails or prisons are designed with the philosophy that those who commit crimes didn't do so because they were inherently evil, but because something caused them to be worried, unhappy, or otherwise desperate enough to commit a crime, and it is thus the job of the prison to try to rectify this and make the prisoners as happy as possible.

Despite a quite creditable attempt to defend Ojo in court by the Patchwork Girl, Ojo's guilt is established; however, Ozma pardons Ojo for his crime, and as the clover is already picked, allows him to retain it. Dorothy and the Scarecrow decide to accompany Ojo on his remaining quest; the Woozy and Glass Cat remain behind.

Shortly after their departure from Oz, the adventurers enconter one of Baum's more unfortunate creations, the dark-skinned playful childlike Tottenhots (for those unaware, "Hottentot" was a term for the Khoikhoi people of southwestern Africa and often used in a denigrating fashion). They serve little purpose in the narrative other than a momentary obstacle.

Another momentary obstacle has somewhat more long-term import; the caged yet still dangerous giant Mr. Yoop, a twenty-one foot tall monster who does indeed eat people if he can catch them; the Scarecrow figures out a way to get past him.

The party next encounters the Hoppers and Horners – underground peoples of generally kindly disposition who happen to have a dispute between their towns. The Hoppers are human except for the fact that they have a single powerful leg instead of two, and thus move by hoppy; the Horners have, of course, horns on their heads. The Horners are also fond of wordplay and jokes, while the Hoppers tend to be straightforward and not terribly good at getting jokes – which is the actual cause of the current crisis.

This section of the book is more interesting for the modern reader because it preserves a rather interesting, and very short-lived, period of history. The Hoppers and Horners live in a very radium-rich area, and mine and refine the metal. Most of their buildings and decorations are made of radium, and they ascribe all manner of benefits to the presence of this metal.

This was actually a current belief in the early part of the 20th century, shortly after the discovery of the radioactive metal. Radium tonics, radium baths, all of these were thought to confer great benefits – ironically and tragically, of course, because as we know now, additional exposure to radium is not helpful, but damaging and even lethal.

In the deep radium mines of the Horners, Ojo finds the Dark Well he has been seeking. Now he had three of the five things he needs, and the group proceeds – through a few other obstacles, most prominently a tricky river that likes to reverse its flow regularly – to the Winkie country and the palace of the Tin Woodman.

An astute reader will have already anticipated that "a drop of oil from a live man's body" could be easily obtained from a Tin Woodman who oils himself frequently, and so it is that Ojo obtains the fourth of the ingredients of his quest – and instantly encounters an impassable barrier to obtaining the fifth and final ingredient.

For the Tin Woodman, upon hearing that the last ingredient is the wing of a yellow butterfly, absolutely forbids the maiming of a living creature within his domains, and of course no butterfly of the color yellow can be found outside of the Winkie country.

Fortunately, however, when the party returns to the Emerald City it is clear that Ozma has anticipated this, and Glinda and the Wizard are able to break the charm and free Unc Nunkie along with Margolotte – and renaming Ojo as Ojo the Lucky in the bargain.

The Patchwork Girl of Oz is certainly superior to The Road to Oz and a few others, but despite some strong virtues (not the least of those being the Patchwork Girl herself) is definitely in the second tier of Oz novels. The sudden deus ex machina solution, after cutting our hero's quest off at the knees, is rather jarring.

The resolution of the Crooked Magician's work is also somewhat disturbing; he was apparently taken from his home, all his work destroyed and brought to the palace. He's not apparently a prisoner, but it's still disturbing, as is the fact that he is then deprived of magic (although he is simultaneously cured of his nigh-crippling crooked frame).

To his credit, it seemed that Baum at least recognized how some of Ozma's policies might cause problems and addresses this to some extent in later books. This is the first book in which Ozma's decree is shown to be in force, and to be enforced; later stories will show how this directive of hers causes difficulties of its own, despite the fact that it was intended to remedy other problems.

An inconsistency with the Glass Cat is also introduced – her Pink Brains are said to have been replaced, making her more quiet and modest, but all future appearances of the Glass Cat show her as she was when we knew her earlier.

Mr. Yoop, of course, is relevant to Polychrome, as we even meet him, or what Mrs. Yoop makes of him, in that novel. I'll discuss that, though, when we actually reach the book in which Mrs. Yoop herself appears.

Otherwise, however, there is little in this book that has much affect on my work. The character of the Patchwork Girl, on the other hand, continues to be a bright spot in the Land of Oz, and so for that alone The Patchwork Girl of Oz is well worth a read!

 

 

On My Shelves: The Emerald City of Oz

 

The sixth book in the series is a pivotal story in more than one way. In The Emerald City of Oz, Dorothy learns that rebuilding the house in Kansas following the twister, and then taking the rest-cure trip to Australia, put Uncle Henry in considerable debt. He had hoped to be able to pay that debt off, but crops have not been good and his health has not fully recovered.

While Henry doesn't worry much for himself, he does about Em and of course both of them are very worried for the often inexplicably cheerful Dorothy. They want her to be cared for, but have no resources to do it, and any other relatives are distant both in relation and in physical distance.

Dorothy, however, isn't worried. While Aunt Em and Uncle Henry aren't sure how much to believe of her stories of Oz, Dorothy knows that every day, Ozma checks her Magic Picture to see what Dorothy is doing – and watches for a particular signal. She tells her Aunt and Uncle that she will go to Oz and be safe there; they see her go upstairs, and then when they check a short time later, are astounded to see she's gone.

Our heroine has no intention of abandoning the people who raised her, however, and immediately asks Ozma if she could bring Aunt Em and Uncle Henry to join her. Ozma smiles and says that she had already intended to do so.

Meanwhile, Roquat (later Ruggedo), the Nome King, has been brooding over his complete and utter humiliation at the hands of the Oz people, and the mortal girl Dorothy Gale. Finally, after disposing of his more cowardly generals, he finds General Guph, a clever and devious campaigner willing to work with him on a plan to conquer and enslave all the people of Oz.

Guph points out that while they have many, many Nome warriors, they have a weakness known to the Ozites – eggs – and since the last battle numerous hens have come to inhabit Oz. Moreover, it is unsure what amount of magic Glinda and the Wizard of Oz may have at their disposal. Thus, Guph proposes that they try to enlist the help of other dark fairy races to perform their conquest of Oz. Roquat sees the logic of this, and gives Guph the order to proceed.

The Emerald City of Oz thus proceeds on two parallel plot tracks. The first is the establishment of Dorothy and her aunt and uncle as permanent residents of Oz, which after the initial introduction of the startled couple to Oz and the Emerald City, becomes a travelogue/tour of previously unfamiliar areas and peoples of Oz, including Utensia (land of living tableware), Bunnybury (naturally filled with intelligent civilized rabbits), living jigsaw puzzle-people called Fuddles, and many others.

The second is the steady and increasingly deadly preparations of the Nome King and his allies the Whimsies, Growleywogs, and Phanfasms – each more powerful than the last. All four groups actually plan to betray the others in order to seize Oz for themselves, but are all resolved to at least complete the initial invasion as planned to ensure there will be no effective resistance; in this all four are honestly united and thus present a terrible and apparently irresistible threat to the land of Oz.

The Nomes provide the method of invasion, of course: they will tunnel beneath the Deadly Desert and all the way to the Emerald City, thus bringing the invasion force up squarely in the midst of their enemies' most important and otherwise almost impossible to reach stronghold, a stronghold which also holds most of their powerful adversaries; if they can take the Emerald City and destroy those within, their victory is nigh-certain.

Roquat's plan very nearly succeeds; in fact, the only thing that saves Oz is that Ozma idly wonders what the Nome King is up to and asks her Magic Picture to show him to her, something that she apparently hadn't done, or at least had not done often, since her return to Oz. Had she had that thought a mere few days later, Oz might have fallen.

The defeat of the invading force is complicated by the fact that Ozma refuses to fight the invaders in any conventional way. Not only does she believe the invading force is far stronger than her defenders, she also is philosophically opposed to combat herself.

However, the Wizard and Glinda, with the help of Dorothy, devise a plan which succeeds: they cause the tunnel to fill with irritating, parching dust that will cause an unbearable thirst in the advancing enemy. The tunnel will break through right in front of the "Fountain of Oblivion", a fountain whose magical waters cause complete and total amnesia in any who drink it. Thus, when the invaders emerge, they are irresistibly drawn to the fountain and drink – forgetting not only why they are there, but even who they are. (the Fountain does, however, leave them the ability to speak, walk, and so on).

Following this near-disaster, Ozma asks Glinda to seal Oz away from the entire outside world magically, so that it is not generally possible to reach it even through the rather extreme means seen previously.

The Emerald City of Oz is a far stronger book than its predecessor, although its interspersing of travelogue with tense and often frightening invasion plans can be a bit jarring. It is not in my opinion one of the best of the Oz novels, mainly due to this somewhat clumsy contrast; however, it is one of the most important in several ways:

 

Dorothy becomes a permanent resident of Oz. Until now, she has been constantly bouncing back and forth, and it always appeared that Oz was just a temporary stop, a sort of vacation. Now she – and her guardians – are permanent residents.
This book makes explicit and detailed the idea expressed in passing in The Road to Oz: specifically that no one in Oz ages or dies, though it is possible to completely destroy someone with great effort.
Similarly, this book establishes that Oz – at least the part of it acknowledging the rule of Ozma – is a nigh-utopia, with minimal work required and almost endless resources from Ozma to support her people.
This is the first book in which a villain/opposing force returns, and establishes Roquat the Red as a terrible and vengeful adversary.
This is the first book in which Glinda's Great Book of Records makes a clear appearance. The Book of Records is a tremendously powerful magical artifact which records the doings of every person in the world, in detail, every day throughout the day. It later is made clear that this applies only to people (human or faerie humanoids) and not to animals. This is a tremendous resource for Glinda and Oz in general, although the description of its use demonstrates that Baum really didn't grasp the SCALE of his invention. Assuming for the sake of argument that the total number of Faerie residents is very small compared to the general world population – say, a million or so – then the book's expansion would be governed by the general rise in human population. Today, assuming that each person's doings in a given day average two sentences, fourteen billion new lines would be added to the Book of Records every day; with an average sentence length of 15 words, that's four hundred twenty billion new words a day, or the equivalent of something like four to five million novels' worth of text per day. Yes, it magically stays the same size, but in no way is Glinda reading all, or even a significant fraction, of this in a day. One must assume there's a way to prioritize and search.
Finally, this book establishes the mystical barrier around Oz, which eliminates any travel to Oz using mundane methods at all. Even if you GET to Fairyland in general, getting to Oz itself will not be easy.

 

Point #2 is, perhaps, the most problematic. It contradicts prior books in the series, which have explicitly referred multiple times to things and people dying. In addition, there is a lot of "Fridge Horror" embodied in this concept, some of which Baum will explore in later books (such as The Scarecrow of Oz), but other parts of which he ignores (such as the problem of the eternal month-old infant and the parents doomed to care for him or her for eternity, or the old, infirm man doomed to live forever at the edge of death, never crossing over).

For my own purposes in Polychrome, I decided to stick with the original version of Oz in this aspect; while people are exceedingly long-lived in Faerie, babies grow up reasonably quickly and, more importantly, death is still a real presence; those attacked by weapon or monster can die, and will. It is, however, clear that death has been vastly reduced in Oz, as have many forms of danger.

(I have seen some fan-theories that run along the lines that when Ozma – the rightful heir – was returned to the throne, the deathlessness which was supposed to be part of Oz returned with her; it was the Wizard's usurpation and overthrow of Pastoria that had allowed death to return. This explanation doesn't really work for me.)

#3 is fairly obviously drawn from Baum's own changing political alignment, something which had already started to appear in The Road to Oz, in which suddenly there is no money in Oz – when in the prior three books money had been mentioned fairly frequently. These aspects I downplay heavily, aside from Ozma's attempt to care for all her people and drive away death and injury.

Numbers 4 and 5 are very important factors both for the later books, and for my own Polychrome, as Roquat (renamed Ruggedo) and Guph both play a part in Polychrome, as does the barrier around Oz.

This is another of the recommended novels of the series; while somewhat jarringly divergent in its flavor/tone, it has one of the stronger stories of Oz and fairyland within it, and is certainly one of the most important of all the novels!

 

 

 

 

Change in scheduling…

I have a lot of projects ongoing and because of various things, most notably my wife Kathleen having been ill for over a year (she's recovered now, fingers crossed), I fell behind on several of them.

I'm therefore going to reduce my regular schedule of columns to two per week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, rather than the prior three per week; I want to provide you with regular update content, but three a week is probably not viable until I get a couple things out of the way.

Thanks for visiting!

On My Shelves: The Road to Oz

The Road to Oz begins, as did the others except The Marvelous Land of Oz, in the "outside world", this time back in Kansas on Dorothy's farm. A strange, shaggy man comes wandering through, picking apples and putting them in his pocket – and when a certain black dog challenges him, he picks up the dog and puts him in the shaggy pockets, too.

The Shaggy Man encounters Dorothy and asks if she would show him the road to Butterfield; she agrees and takes him to the intersection, and is then surprised when he begins to move off down a different road. The Shaggy Man explains that he wanted to know which road led to Butterfield so that he wouldn't go there – a man in Butterfield owes the Shaggy Man money, and the Shaggy Man doesn't want it.

But as he stands there telling his story, the two suddenly realize that there are seven, rather than four, roads leading away from the point they are standing at – a place which was only an ordinary intersection a few moments ago. Another strange adventure has begun for Dorothy, her dog Toto (who escapes from the Shaggy Man's pocket), and the Shaggy Man himself.

The Shaggy Man possesses one of the few magical items we ever see outside of Oz: the Love Magnet, which causes anyone who beholds the magnet to instantly love (in a platonic fashion, at least as far as the Shaggy Man is concerned; there's some indication in the backstory that it could be romantic as well) the holder of the Magnet. The Magnet is one reason the Shaggy Man has no need or desire for money; since he's loved wherever he goes, he can just wander as he pleases.

For the most part, The Road to Oz is a travelogue, even more so than Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz was. The latter at least had considerable mystery and much genuine peril in the travels of our heroes, with the group concerned often with survival. This only happens once in Road to Oz, when the party is captured by the violent and evil Scoodlers, who intend to make soup of the entire group. (Even the Love Magnet is useless; they say they love the Shaggy Man… as soup!). Other than that, most of the things they encounter are peculiar, but not dangerous.

This isn't to say there aren't interesting and even significant events in this, the fifth of the Oz novels. It is in this book that Oz fans first meet the Eternally Lost Boy, Button-Bright, and then – most significant to me – first encounter the beautiful Daughter of the Rainbow, Polychrome.

In the first town they arrive at – Foxville – the travelers meet with the ruler, King Dox, and in a roundabout way discover the reason for the sudden appearance of the various roads; it's an arranged adventure which is to bring Dorothy to Oz by the twenty-first of August, which is Ozma's birthday, so she can be present at her fairy friend's birthday party. Pretty much everyone (other than the Scoodlers) that they encounter begs to be invited to the party, and Dorothy does promise to do so.

Baum, of course, doesn't allow the journey to be without difficulties. Besides the very real threat of the Scoodlers (who can remove their heads and use them as missiles and are quite agile and strong), there are other quandaries; both Button-Bright and the Shaggy Man end up transformed by well-meaning people and must seek a cure for their transformations, and there are various physical obstacles, the largest being the Deadly Desert which they end up crossing by use of a sand-boat (something I have Erik echo in his own crossing of the desert in Polychrome, though Erik also took inspiration there from Clive Cussler's Sahara).

Nonetheless, this is one of the weakest of the Oz books. The entire point of the journey is the Birthday Party, which is mostly an excuse to introduce a broad variety of other characters from fairyland to the reader, ranging from Queen Zixi of Ix to several guests from Merryland, others from Hiland and Loland, and even Santa Claus himself – possibly in hopes of increasing the sales of the books that these people were in, as they came from other stories Baum wrote.

These newcomers are introduced but for the most part have only the briefest of appearances at the reception; the party and subsequent return of most of the guests home by the Wizard's new bubble machine wrap up the story, without giving us much chance to learn much about anyone new.

The Road to Oz is a pleasant enough read, but it is definitely one of the lesser works of the canon, and aside from the introduction of three new recurring characters – Shaggy Man, Button-Bright, and Polychrome – doesn't really have much of substance to it. We'll have somewhat better luck in the next book, The Emerald City of Oz.

 

On My Shelves: Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz

By this point in the series, the Oz books had developed into the Harry Potter of their day. Writing an Oz novel was an assured way to mint money for L. Frank Baum, and for many years he availed himself of that mint whenever he found himself short of funds, as he invariably did since he was a terrible businessman with a fondness for putting on expensive theatrical productions.

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz is the fourth entry in the series, and the title alone shows how Baum was making sure to pay attention to his fans. Dorothy was popular, but only slightly less popular was the clever old man called the Wizard of Oz. "Bring back the Wizard!" was a common refrain, and Baum obliged.

Of course, to do that required some new means to get Dorothy (and the Wizard) back to Fairyland. One thing you have to give Baum: he didn't like to repeat himself obviously. So this time, drawing no doubt on recent events in San Francisco, the culprit is an earthquake of epic scale, ripping the earth asunder in a crack wide enough to swallow a horse-and-buggy carrying Dorothy, her cousin Zeb, and her cat Eureka; the unfortunate horse is named Jim.

The group plummet deep into the earth, falling for what seems many hours; during this time, a stone striking Jim causes him to exclaim, showing that he can speak, and telling Dorothy that she's once more on one of her mystical adventures. Finally, their descent begins to slow, and a strange light from a set of cold, multicolored "suns" illuminates a beautiful city, seeming to be of crystal or glass, and lush gardens below. Their descent slows even more, and they discover that their fall can be guided (and eventually learn that the air can be walked upon, with care).

Unfortunately, the inhabitants – called the Mangaboos – are cold, mostly unfeeling creatures who though appearing human are in fact nothing of the sort. They do not believe in a world above their own, and so blame these creatures for the "Rain of Stones" which fell upon them and shattered some of their houses. Fortunately, another strange sight in the air prevents their execution; as it approaches, Dorothy can see that it is a hot-air balloon, though one losing its air rather swiftly, and from the balloon steps a familiar figure: Oz, the Great and Terrible, the humbug Wizard of Oz.

The Mangaboos are as innocent of sleight-of-hand as they are of the world above, fortunately, and when challenged to a duel of magic by their Sorcerer, Gwig, the Wizard uses showmanship, clever improvisation, and – in the end – a far stronger sword-arm than one might have expected to defeat Gwig. This makes him temporarily the appointed Wizard of the land, and also reveals that the Mangaboos are, in fact, vegetable creatures. They look human, but are in fact as solid in body as turnips or potatoes.

The Prince of the Mangaboos still feels that all of these intruders but the Wizard should be destroyed or cast out, but on a short tour of the gardens in which the Mangaboos grow, Dorothy and the Wizard find the Princess who should be replacing the Prince (and who was avoiding having the Princess picked) and release her from her vine; she instantly assumes command and the Prince is removed from power, presumably to be "planted".

This causes the Princess to spare the humans, but the nonhuman animals are a source of revulsion for the Mangaboos, who have never seen any living thing not of a humanoid form, and so the Mangaboos attempt to drive them out; when the humans follow and try to stop it, all of them are driven out and walled into a glass cave. Fortunately, there is an outlet…

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz, like Ozma of Oz, takes place mostly outside of Oz, and is an even more harrowing sequence of adventures than the prior one. The Mangaboos' intentions are clearly lethal, and the Wizard actually kills his opponent, the Sorcerer Gwig, with his sword. Subsequent adventures take them through the beautiful but perilous Valley of Voe, home to enormous but invisible bears which hunt and kill any straying far from the inhabited areas; the high and dangerous Pyramid Mountain, with the hostile and deadly silent Gargoyles at the top; and the amusing yet fearsome Dragonets – baby dragons nonetheless vastly more powerful and dangerous than any man.

This marks a significant shift in the tone of the Oz books. While some of them will be lighter in parts, the fairylands outside of Oz are shown to be places of great danger, where a newcomer can be in peril from the moment they set foot on the land. The dangers are diverse, sometimes subtle and sometimes terrifyingly obvious, and require both strength and wits to overcome. Baum does not coddle his readers, that's for sure.

By modern standards, of course, the adventures are a bit too easily resolved – but this is, again, a children's book, not one for adults. Towards the end of the book, the band of adventurers find themselves trapped, and Dorothy suddenly remembers her agreement with Ozma; sure enough, when she makes the signal at the appointed time, she disappears… and a few moments later, her friends are also whisked away from the gloomy cave to the Fairyland of Oz.

They are welcomed, but even their time in Oz is not entirely without drama; a race between the Saw-Horse and Jim, the first Real Horse seen in Oz, ends with the Saw-Horse's victory and Jim, unfortunately, being a very poor sport and having to be reproved. Eureka the Kitten gets in worse trouble, apparently having eaten a pet piglet of Ozma's (given her by the Wizard), is put on trial for murder; she refuses to testify and is nearly convicted because of this before the truth is discovered.

One of the most frustrating non-events is the confrontation of the Wizard by Ozma; as one will recall from The Marvelous Land of Oz, the Wizard had given the baby Ozma to the witch Mombi as a child to enforce the legitimacy of his own rule, and Baum – trying to return the Wizard to his position in Oz – tapdances around this issue, essentially ignoring the entire sequence of events and acting as though the Wizard never knew any of these things. In a sense this is more consistent with the original The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, but of course is terribly inconsistent with the entirety of The Marvelous Land of Oz.

For my own Polychrome, I had to resolve this contradiction. Rather than throwing out The Marvelous Land of Oz, I accepted that sequence as being true. Thus, in my version of Oz, I envision that confrontation between Ozma – once the boy Tip – and the Wizard who was responsible for her/him being sold into effective slavery as being rather more serious, and the Wizard having to go through considerably more to establish himself as truly reformed and trustworthy.

Ozma is, after all, a very kind and generous ruler, but she's no idiot, and this is a man who, as far as she knows, deposed (possibly killed?) the prior ruler Pastoria and sent her off to be raised as a boy by a witch no better than the Wicked Witches that Dorothy destroyed in the first book. She may be willing to believe that even the worst men can be redeemed, but she wouldn't believe it at the drop of a hat – or forgive it so swiftly, without making sure the man in question had fully faced and accepted the import and villainy of his prior deeds.

This is certainly one of the most exciting of the Oz books, even if it is rather thin on plot – basically "oops, I'm not at home, let's survive until we get to Oz and can get Wished back where we belong". Not as strong a book as Ozma of Oz, still Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz is a very worthy entry in the mythology of Oz, and does return to prominence the Wizard, who is one of the most interesting and important characters of the series.

On My Shelves: Ozma of Oz

 

The third book of the Oz series by L. Frank Baum sees the return of arguably the most popular character in the land – Dorothy Gale. In Ozma of Oz, her Uncle Henry has become ill and is advised by his doctor to take a trip to Australia for a sea and country cure. This was not uncommon in the era in which Baum was writing – various forms of "sea air", "desert air", etc., cures were recommended for exhaustion and for  illnesses, especially tuberculosis or "consumption" as they called it.

While onboard, a powerful storm strikes the vessel, and Dorothy, mistakenly thinking her uncle has gone up on deck, makes her way abovedecks; a particularly powerful gust and wave sends her overboard, with nothing but a large chicken coop to provide her with flotation. Such an event might panic most people, but a girl who survived being scooped up and dropped into a fairyland by a tornado and managed to make her way across that fairyland through many dangers is made of sterner stuff.

The subsiding of the storm allows her to take stock of her situation, and she finds that she has one other companion: a yellow hen, who proceeds to speak – showing that wherever they are, it's not the mundane world. Naming her new friend "Billina", Dorothy explains her prior adventures to the Yellow Hen and observes they are approaching some sort of land.

For the first time, we see a fairyland that is not Oz; the land Dorothy finds herself in is named Ev. Within her first day or two in Ev, Dorothy discovers fruit trees that bear breakfast, lunch, and dinner pails and boxes, finds herself chased by strange people called Wheelers, and in her refuge among rocks discovers a unique clockwork man named Tik-Tok, who assists in driving off the Wheelers once she winds him up.

While the Land of Ev is very pretty, it is not without its share of problems; the true ruling family is gone – the King having sold his wife and children off to the Nome King in a fit of anger, and then committing suicide in regret when the Nome King would not return them.

Now in charge of the country in their absence is Princess Langwidere, who has a most unusual hobby: collecting heads. Specifically, she collects heads of women with particular features, because she is able to remove her head and replace it with another, thus she can literally change her entire face to suit her moods and preferences.

Unfortunately, the heads also have their own influence on Langwidere's personality, and the one she chooses to greet her new guests in happens to be even more vain and sharp of temper than normal. When Dorothy refuses to donate her head to the collection (in return for Langwidere's "second-best" head), Langwidere has her imprisoned until she changes her mind.

At this point, we finally get to see Ozma in action – arriving from across the Deadly Desert that separates Ev and the rest of the world from Oz by means of a magic carpet that unrolls itself ahead, and rolls itself back up behind, Ozma's party. Her party naturally includes the people we have been looking forward to seeing again: the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, the Tin Woodman, and the Saw-Horse, and they quickly rescue Dorothy from her predicament.

The party from Oz did not arrive here to rescue Dorothy, however. That was a coincidence of timing; Ozma has come to liberate the Royal Family of Ev from the Nome King.

Ozma of Oz thus introduces us to the only recurring villain of the Oz series (leaving aside later add-ons by other authors, including myself): Roquat, later renamed Ruggedo, the Red, the Nome King. A powerful Earth Fairy ruler, Ruggedo has almost uncountable legions of soldiers under his command and extensive, labyrinthine delvings under the earth. He presents himself as a jolly and reasonable ruler, but beneath his Santa-Claus like exterior is a keen, rapacious, and viciously selfish mind that takes delight in granting innocent requests in a way that will make the requester regret it.

This book is a more complex, and more coherent, story than the prior two. Ruggedo is a powerful villain with a veneer of civilization that makes him a more frightening opponent as we slowly see more of his true self emerge.

Ruggedo imprisons the group and then presents them with a simple, sadistic choice: either leave without accomplishing any of their goals, or accept a most dangerous wager: he has transformed all of the Royal Family of Ev into various decorative objects ("bric-a-brac") around his extensive personal chambers. Each member of the party, if they so choose, may enter those chambers alone, and touch a number of objects equal to that of the transformed Family members, speaking the word "Ev" as they do so. If any touched object actually is one of the transformed, they will instantly resume their true form, and the person who successfully found one of the transformed will then be free to go, taking the one they freed with them.

But if they use all of their guesses and fail… they, themselves, will be transformed to another ornament somewhere in the Nome King's Halls…

Given that these are children's books, it isn't a huge spoiler to say that in the end, our heroes triumph – but Baum makes it a much narrower thing, with most of the Oz party ending up transformed to ornaments. Dorothy is the only one who finds one of the family of Ev, a young prince named Evring. Only by good fortune does one of the few remaining people – Billina, the Yellow Hen – discover the key to rescuing their friends.

Baum also plays fair with the reader; an attentive reader can deduce the likely way to free the family of Ev from the text (although, unfortunately, the members of the rescue party can't get the information, since those who fail are not able to communicate the events to their friends).

As with the first novel, Dorothy's character dominates the story, although it is her friend Billina who manages to actually upset the applecart. Still, Dorothy's straightforward approaches to all events often forces others to re-evaluate their approach, and even surprises Roquat/Ruggedo at times.

Billina's depiction is undoubtedly one of the major influences in my characterization of Poplock Duckweed, the small Intelligent Toad companion of Kyri and Tobimar in the Balanced Sword trilogy. Both are often unnoticed, always underestimated, and make great use of this to learn things that others attempt to keep secret – and are also both more dangerous than they appear.

With Billina's help, Dorothy captures the most powerful artifact we ever see in the Oz canon: the Nome King's Magic Belt. The Belt provides the Nome King with a large proportion of his power; it is capable, apparently, of almost anything (except affecting things like the mortals above him digging; perhaps because much of the digging is done in the mortal, not the fairy, realms), and among other things it allows the King to perform the various transformations with great speed and ease. The Belt also protects the wearer from virtually any form of harm, and can grant wishes under some circumstances.

Depriving the King of this Belt, plus the discovery of his one weakness – eggs, which are lethal to Nomes – allows the party to finally escape the Nome King's domains; they are free, but they have made a terrible and vengeful enemy, one who will trouble Oz more than once in the days ahead.

On the other hand, the expedition also returns the Royal Family of Ev to their rightful place, strengthening that country and gaining a powerful alliance in the bargain. Ev is a large country of Fairyland and now that the proper ruling family is back in place will be an influential and useful support for Ozma, further establishing her legitimacy.

The remaining members of the party return to Oz, where there are many celebrations, and a chance to bring Dorothy up-to-date on all the many doings of her friends since she left. Once more, of course, Dorothy must leave Oz. Billina elects to stay – she prefers being a talking Hen and, apparently (somewhat contradicting other Oz sources) the only Hen in Oz.

 

In this case, Dorothy has at hand a means of return: the Magic Belt of the Nome King. At first Dorothy thinks of just wishing herself home, but Ozma points out that while that would likely work, the Belt would then be lost somewhere along the way, as were the powerful Silver Shoes of the Wicked Witch of the East. Instead, Ozma says she will keep the Belt in Oz, and use it to wish Dorothy to the side of her beloved Uncle Henry.

 

In addition, Ozma says that every day at a given time she will watch Dorothy in her Magic Picture (a large picture which will show anything that the viewer desires) and if Dorothy makes a particular sign, she will bring Dorothy to Oz by means of the Belt. This is a very important plot point which figures in more than one story later on.

 

For Polychrome, this is of course one of the important books as it introduces the Nome King and establishes his original character – jolly, clever, affable if in a good mood, and capable of switching almost instantly to being a cruel and vindictive tyrant.

 

Ozma of Oz is one of my favorite Oz novels. It has a clear plot, well-thought-out, and has the return of prior favorites to draw in prior readers while introducing many new and interesting characters – Billina, Tik-Tok, the Hungry Tiger, and others, including of course Roquat AKA Ruggedo himself. Highly recommended!

 

 

 

 

On My Shelves: The Marvelous Land of Oz

The success of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz naturally brought a demand for new Oz material; Baum obliged by producing this, the second in the series.

Unlike The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, The Marvelous Land of Oz takes place entirely in fairyland, and all of its characters are natives of Oz itself. The main character is a boy named Tip (short for "Tippetarius") who was left with the witch Mombi as an infant, and has lived there as her ward-cum-servant for all his life. There is no love lost between the boy and the clearly wicked witch, and so when Mombi is off for a few days, Tip decides to play a prank on her; he creates a wooden, pumpkin-headed man, dresses it up, and places it on the road, hoping to scare Mombi.

The witch is made of sterner stuff than he guesses, however, and she instead decides to use the mannequin as a test subject for the legendary Powder of Life; the powder proves effective, and Jack Pumpkinhead is born. However, Mombi has decided that Tip has become too much of a bother, and intends to turn him to a decorative statue the next day, having Jack Pumpkinhead replace him as a worker.

Tip, not at all liking the thought of becoming a marble statue, runs away that night, taking Jack with him. So begins an odyssey that will take Tip across the length and breadth of Oz and even a little ways outside of it before returning at the end. We meet some old friends – the Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow – and new ones, ranging from the stolidly reliable Sawhorse to the pompous and pun-loving H.M. Wogglebug, T.E., and see new sights in the world that Baum is building.

The Marvelous Land of Oz is a more clearly political book than The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and in some ways dates itself far more with its sometimes clumsy handling of the subject matter. General Jinjur's army of the women of Oz exhibits some of the most stereotyped traits of women, yet at the same time some of the events and commentary show that the Scarecrow (and apparently the author) is not entirely unsympathetic to their complaints and that there may well be substance to their protests. People of more modern sensibilities may find these sequences difficult to get past.

However, this is overall a fast-paced and often amusing adventure, with Tip trying to stay out of Mombi's hands (even harder once Mombi has joined up with Jinjur), the Scarecrow deposed from the throne he was given by the Wizard, and eventually all of them having to flee from the Royal Palace in a unique flying contrivance which takes them over the Deadly Desert and back.

However, this book holds one of the greatest surprise endings in all of childrens' literature, in the explanation as to why Mombi has had Tip in her possession – and was desperate to get him back. When the Wizard of Oz managed to take over Oz, there was one remaining legitimate heir to the throne of Oz: a baby girl named Ozma. She disappeared, and Glinda discovered that at the same time the Wizard had visited Mombi.

Tip is, of course, Ozma – transformed into a boy to hide the Princess where no one would ever find her, where – indeed – she would never find herself. At the end of the book, the enchantment is broken and Tip becomes Ozma.

This was one of the most jawdropping moments of my childhood. The whole dénouement is very well orchestrated, so that a reader – especially a child – probably won't catch on until almost the moment the secret is revealed. Tip himself is shown as uncertain about changing back to a girl, as he has no memory of being one, and is reasonably comfortable as a boy. But he has learned something of responsibility on his journey, and reluctantly allows Glinda to undo the transformation. Ozma retains the memories of being Tip; as she says shortly afterward:

"I hope none of you will care less for me than you did before. I'm just the same Tip, you know; only—only—"

"Only you're different!" said the Pumpkinhead; and everyone thought it was the wisest speech he had ever made.

At the same time, there's a marked change in Ozma/Tip's behavior after the change, and by the next book, there appears to be little left of Tip. This sometimes gives me the creeps; it was as though Ozma took Tip's knowledge, but was always a different person, so that in effect Tip died in the transformation.

This is, however, typical of Oz; it has a lot of creepy elements, far more than one might expect of a kid's book, and some of those elements will get even darker in later books.

The Marvelous Land of Oz is still a strong entry into the Oz canon, and in some ways one of the most important, as it introduces Ozma, who is undoubtedly one of the most influential characters in the series. It remains one of the more enjoyable reads, and the final sequence is one of the most innovative and interesting parts of the entire Oz series. Highly recommended!