Throughout
the years I have written reviews on quite a few fantasy series, mostly modern books
though Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy was also thrown in there for
good measure. Since it’s the new year
I’ve decided to go down the rabbit hole (or perhaps more aptly over the
rainbow) of some explicitly pre-Tolkien fantasy. I’ve always adored both the 1939 film The
Wizard of Oz. I’d even read The
Wonderful Wizard of Oz by: L. Frank Baum multiple times. I knew about the sequels, however I have
never read them, and yet the fourteen Oz books by Baum are in the public
domain and I have a friend who sings their praises. So this year, in an effort to review a bit
more than what has become my standard, I have decided to attempt to read and look
at these 14 books (plus one extra included in the editions I have written
apparently from Baum’s notes).
The
Wonderful Wizard of Oz
will always be overshadowed by the 1939 film, even going so far as being republished
often as The Wizard of Oz. It was
always going to be this way, it’s incredibly difficult to get the film’s version
of Oz out of the mind of the reader, unless you’ve read the novel first. But that shouldn’t discount L. Frank Baum’s
way of actually telling the story because it does not follow the narrative
structure of a film. The first chapter
is a very quick introduction to Dorothy, crafted with care to convey how terribly
dull the Kansas landscape is and as it has made its people while Dorothy is
saved by her dog, before a cyclone whisks her, Toto, and her farmhouse off to a
distant land. There’s an urge in me to recount
the differences between The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and The Wizard of
Oz which I will largely resist, however, Dorothy as a protagonist is
largely the same, wishing to get home simply for the love of her Aunt Em and Uncle
Henry; the Wicked Witch of the West is not green though color does play an
important part in distinguishing the four featured areas of Oz (Munchkin
Country, the Emerald City, Winkie Country, and Quadling Country being blue,
green, yellow, and red respectively); the wicked witches are not sisters and neither
is a major antagonist; and finally there are in fact four witches as the only
witches in Oz the Good Witch of the North being the least powerful who sends
Dorothy towards the Emerald City and Glinda the Good Witch (or sorceress) of
the South who sends her home in the end.
Baum keeps
the book episodic, each chapter or two essentially being a new danger for
Dorothy to face or a new friend to meet.
The general people of Oz are kind to her, even if at first they appear
scary or dangerous as is the case with the Cowardly Lion and even the Flying
Monkeys. There are dangers, going into
the woods is always dangerous, but Baum is considerate to give as many
backstories as he can: the Lion was born a coward, the Tin Woodsman had his ax
cursed by the Wicked Witch of the East to slowly shop him to bits, the
Scarecrow remembers being made. The
Wizard himself is a humbug and as said in the 1939 film is a very good man, just
a very bad wizard. He still wants to
help, even if he has gotten this child to commit a murder of a Wicked Witch. The people live different lives: there is a
country of people made from China who if they leave their country they become
stiff and are often scared of being stepped on, the Munchkins had been slaves
under the witch until Dorothy dropped in, and even the Winkies make the Tin
Woodsman their leader to help them recover when the Wicked Witch of the West is
melted. What makes this fascinating is
that L. Frank Baum while writing about a world where so many different
societies and yet was a deeply racist man.
He fully supported the total annihilation of Native American populations
despite marrying a woman whose mother was a staunch advocate for Native
Americans. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
is odd because it doesn’t actually reflect Baum’s dangerous views, and as a man
he contained multitudes (he was a proponent for women’s suffrage and I have
been told that many of the sequels to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz lend
themselves to a feminist reading and various queer readings). This is a book that wants to impart the
morals of holding one’s own while relying on others, Dorothy and her friends have
a great sense of community and their “allies” who come to help them come to be
because Dorothy is just nice to everybody.
There are monsters, bear/tiger hybrids called Kalidahs, the Wicked Witch
of the West, and a giant spider, plus some natural dangers like rushing rivers
and a field of deadly poppies.
The Wonderful
Wizard of Oz works
so well because it is a well-written fairy tale. It is not talking down to the children, though
understands the logic of a child where the world around them is exactly what they
see. Oz does not need to be like Tolkien’s
Middle Earth or Lewis’s Narnia, it’s a land that is real and the story of a little
girl just trying to get home will resonate if its in a technicolor masterpiece
or a short novel written for children over 100 years ago. 10/10.
