(Read from The Complete Stories of Oz)
Started: July 6, 2022
Finished: October 17, 2022
(This review is written using my new format for book reviews.)
Background Information
This is the 14th book in the Oz canon, and the last book written by L. Frank Baum before his death. It was published posthumously in 1920. (L. Frank Baum died in 1919.)
My History with this Book
I think my sister had a copy of this book way back when we were kids. I never read it at that time, but I do have a memory of reading the back cover and the publisher's introduction, which talked about how this was the last Oz book L. Frank Baum ever wrote, and that it was darker than the others because it was influenced by L. Frank Baum's declining health, and also the events of World War I.
In the years since, I think I've stumbled upon a couple other summaries of this book which also made references to the World War I allegory. So, I was fully expecting this book to be a lot more deep than the other Oz books.
These high expectations were a mistake. This book is every bit as silly as all the other Oz books that L. Frank Baum wrote.
My Reading Journey
I've been doing these Oz books as a buddy read with Dane Cobain, but I've fallen way behind schedule. The original plan was to do one Oz book every 2 weeks. These Oz books are very short and light, so this was in theory quite doable, even for a slow reader like me. But after keeping on the schedule for the first several books, I eventually fell off the schedule this spring. A combination of factors: my second child being born, and a corresponding drop in my free time. Plus, the covid lockdown in Vietnam came to an end, so I started to travel back to in-person work again. And the book I was reading these Oz stories out of, The Complete Stories of Oz, was way too big and bulky to take with me to work every day. (And since the second child was born, lunch break at work is now where I get all of my reading done.)
That, plus... I think I was just getting sick of these Oz stories after a while. In my opinion, L. Frank Baum lost his magic touch a long time ago, and he's just going through the motions by this point in the series. It was not captivating reading, and I was subsequently easily distracted from it.
I finished the 13th book in this series, The Magic of Oz, and reviewed it on June 23, 2022. I procrastinated a couple weeks before starting this final book in the series, but finally got around to starting this book back on July 6. I inched along - with - slow - progress for a few weeks, but then got busy again and stopped reading this book.
(Also, come to think of it, I suppose my new comic book review project also slowed down my progress on Glinda of Oz, since I primarily read those comic books in my few minutes of free time before bed--what would otherwise have been time to chip away at the Oz books.)
But then October came around, and I realized how quickly time was getting away from me. I also worried that if I didn't force myself to come back to Glinda of Oz soon, I would be in danger of just drifting away from the book, and never coming back to it.
I had already abandoned The Complete Stories of Oz once. I really didn't want to do it twice. This time I was going to finish the book, damn it! Before 2022 came to an end!
Once I finished The Wayfarer Redemption, I decided I was going to turn all my attention on finishing Glinda of Oz next. I brought The Complete Stories of Oz with me to work for a couple of days, but was immediately reminded of why I had decided not to bring it to work. It was much to big and unwieldy for me to read casually while I was in the sandwich line.
But I did try to start reading it more at home, and finally finished it up on October 17.
It strikes me now, reading over what I have just written, that this is all sounding a bit ridiculous. These Oz books are so short and light, I really am making way too big of a deal about the struggle to finish an 87 page children's book. But I'm a slow reader who quite often only managers about 30 pages a week, and I just lost motivation to finish the last 50 pages.
(If you buy the original edition of this book, with the larger print and all the illustrations, then it's actually 279 pages--according to Wikipedia. But it's 87 pages in The Complete Stories of Oz edition.)
Since I had taken a couple month break in the middle of this book, after finally finishing it up, I listened to the audiobook of it in order to refresh my memory before writing this review. (The free librivox version of this audiobook is on Youtube HERE.)
Summary of the Plot
Like all the other books in the Oz series before it, this one is loaded with a lot of inconsistencies.
For example, one of the reoccurring inconsistencies in these Oz books is that Ozma is established to be the ruler of all of Oz. And yet, almost every Oz book contains some sort of independent kingdom inside of the Land of Oz that has never heard of Ozma, and does not recognize her authority.
To be fair, I suppose L. Frank Baum kind of had to do this. Once he had established Ozma as the ruler of all of Oz, he had written himself into a corner. How could there be any narrative drama if every Oz story was just about Ozma peacefully ruling over Oz? And so, by necessity, every Oz story now has to contain some sort of independent little kingdom deep inside Oz that has never heard of the rest of Oz. But it does still beg the question: what kind of ruler is Ozma anyway? How can she possibly claim to be ruler of Oz when it seems that most of Oz doesn't even know who she is or recognize her authority?
Anyway... in this particular story, Ozma and Dorothy discover (via Glinda's magic book) that there are two independent kingdoms deep in the land of Oz who have never heard of Ozma and are planning to go to war with each other. And then once they find out these kingdoms are about to go to war, Ozma decides that they must journey to stop them. After all, Ozma is still their ruler, even if they have no idea who she is.
As Ozma herself says:
"I am Ruler of all the Land of Oz, which includes the Gillikin Country, the Quadling Country, the Winkie Country and the Munchkin Country, as well as the Emerald City, and being the Princess of this fairyland it is my duty to make all my people—wherever they may be—happy and content and to settle their disputes and keep them from quarreling. So, while the Skeezers and Flatheads may not know me or that I am their lawful Ruler, I now know that they inhabit my kingdom and are my subjects, so I would not be doing my duty if I kept away from them and allowed them to fight." (p.1402, in my edition)
So, Dorothy and Ozma journey to the land of the Skeezers and the Flatheads to try to stop the war.
All of L. Frank Baum's Oz stories are, one way or another, journey stories. Journey from point A on the map to point B on the map, and encounter some strange things along the way. And so it is with this story. Dorothy and Ozma journey along and encounter along the way the kingdom of the giant spiders (yet another kingdom inside Oz which has never heard of Ozma and doesn't recognize her authority) and then the land of the Mist Maidens, before finally arriving at the lands of the Skeezers and the Flatheads.
After failing to negotiate a truce between the two kingdoms, Dorothy and Ozma travel to the domed island city of the Skeezers, where they are imprisoned by the queen of the Skeezers, who (you guessed it) doesn't recognize Ozma's authority.
It then turns out that the domed city of the Skeezers can submerge itself under the water, to protect themselves against the flatheads. Which they do. But now Dorothy and Ozma are trapped in the domed city under the water.
Once word gets back to the emerald city that Dorothy and Ozma are in trouble, Glinda and the Wizard of Oz come to their rescue. And they bring along with them practically every other Oz character from all the previous books. There's the Tinman, the scarecrow, the Patchwork Girl, the Shaggy Man, Tik-Tok, Jack Pumpkinhead, Cap'n Bill, the Wogglebug, the Frogman, Uncle Henry, the glass cat, Betsy, Trot, Ojo, Button Bright and the Cowardly Lion.
Okay, so that's not quite all the Oz characters. L. Frank Baum has by this point in his continuity established a huge cast of supporting characters. (There's no Hungry Tiger, Billina the Hen, Eureka the Kitten, Woot the Wanderer, etc). But it is still a lot of characters to juggle on this journey.
And sure enough, L. Frank Baum doesn't quite know what to do with all these characters. Most of them are given nothing to do on the journey.
Anyway, the rescue party arrives. Most of them do absolutely nothing, but the key bits of magic are worked out by Glinda of Oz and the Wizard of Oz. And Dorothy and Ozma are saved. The end.
Links
I continue to be reliant on the series of excellent reviews done by Mari Ness at Tor.com.
Her review for this book is Sinking in Fairyland: Glinda of Oz.
Like a lot of the commentary around this book, Mari Ness leans heavily into the World War I allegory interpretation. To quote from the opening of her review:
Glinda of Oz, L. Frank Baum’s last Oz book, was written during World War I and published posthumously shortly after its end. Perhaps influenced by that conflict, it focuses on the dangers of technology, with a great domed city that can be both protection and trap, and the limitations of magic and magical assistance. Further echoes of that conflict may be seen in the use of submarines to wage war, the appearance of firearms (in earlier books, characters disliked guns since they could go off by mistake and scare people), unhinged leaders dragging their peaceful subjects into unwanted wars, and futile peace missions where neither side is particularly interested in peace.
I'm not sure I entirely agree that this book is a World War I allegory, but I'll get to my own views in the next section.
On the whole , though, I really liked Mari Ness's review. And she does a good job of pointing out a lot of the inconsistencies in this book, even though she mostly does so from an affectionate standpoint.
And as mentioned above, I'm doing this series as a buddy read with Dane Cobain. His written review is here:
Perhaps the most interesting thing about this one is that while the story itself might not have been the best out of all of the Oz books, it did have some of the best life advice for young readers. That’s kind of fitting because of the fact that it’s the last of the books that Baum wrote in the series. It’s as though it’s his swan song featuring his last bits of wisdom that he wants to remember.
The life advice Dane is referring to comes from a conversation between Ozma and Dorothy in chapter 4:
Dorothy, resting herself at her fairy friend's command, and eating her dinner with unusual enjoyment, thought of the wonders of magic. If one were a fairy and knew the secret laws of nature and the mystic words and ceremonies that commanded those laws, then a simple wave of a silver wand would produce instantly all that men work hard and anxiously for through weary years. And Dorothy wished in her kindly, innocent heart, that all men and women could be fairies with silver wands, and satisfy all their needs without so much work and worry, for then, she imagined, they would have all their working hours to be happy in. But Ozma, looking into her friend's face and reading those thoughts, gave a laugh and said:"No, no, Dorothy, that wouldn't do at all. Instead of happiness your plan would bring weariness to the world. If every one could wave a wand and have his wants fulfilled there would be little to wish for. There would be no eager striving to obtain the difficult, for nothing would then be difficult, and the pleasure of earning something longed for, and only to be secured by hard work and careful thought, would be utterly lost. There would be nothing to do, you see, and no interest in life and in our fellow creatures. That is all that makes life worth our while—to do good deeds and to help those less fortunate than ourselves."
I agree with Dane that this is good life advice to follow. (And ties in with observations I made in my review of The Moral Animal that perhaps the only way to find happiness is to feel that you're being useful.)
Although... if we jump back to Mari Ness's review, Mari Ness points out that Ozma's moralizing is undercut by the fact that all the Oz main characters are living a life of idle play at Ozma's palace in the Emerald City.
Oh well. I agree with Dane that the message is good in theory, at least.
Dane's video review is below:
Evaluation
I'm beginning to think that this book gets too much credit for being a World War I allegory. To me, much of this book just seems like L. Frank Baum recycling plots again.
We've already seen the plot about two separate nations in Oz be on the verge of war--that was the Hoppers and the Horners in The Patchwork Girl of Oz.
And we've already seen the plot about how a dictator is able to rule over the people of his kingdom by deceiving them and making them think they are all equal. This was the High Coco-Lorum in the land of Thi in The Lost Princess of Oz.
So, for the most part, this book did not get a "Wow, isn't it so deep the way L. Frank Baum is commenting on World War I" reaction from me.
Instead, it got a "Yawn. L. Frank Baum is out of ideas, and recycling plot points again" reaction from me.
I don't know... maybe it's also supposed to be an allegory for World War I. (I can't claim to know what is in L. Frank Baum's head.) But the shallowness of it all left me unimpressed.
Of course, it's always unfair to judge an Oz book by its plot. The plot is always paper-thin in all these books, and serves merely as a device for the characters to go to strange and bizarre lands.
But in this book, the imagination is not on par with the other Oz books. The lands that the characters travel to are distinctly uninteresting. The Kingdom of the Giant Spiders is just a bunch of spiders, and is not developed. The land of the Flatheads is uninteresting.
The domed city of the Skeezers is kind of interesting at first. As Mari Ness points out, it's kind of a science fiction element introduced into the land of Oz, which is a first. The domed city is able to rise and lower itself by means of mechanical gears. Now, all these gears are controlled by magic, so L. Frank Baum is still firmly in the world of fairly tales. But still, the concept has got at least somewhat of a Jules Verne vibe going on.
But on the whole, I was underwhelmed.
In chapters 18 and 19, there's a little narrative discursion into a subplot about Ervic the Skeezer who has to trick Reera the Red the Yookoohoo into transforming the 3 Magical Adepts back into their original form. Reera the Red tries to scare Ervic away, but through patience and cunning, Ervic eventually tricks Reera the Red into transforming the Adepts back into their original forms. My little summary here probably isn't doing it justice, but the whole episode reads like a tale straight out of The Brothers Grimm. Since L. Frank Baum was consciously trying to imitate the style of the Grimm Brothers in his Oz stories (W), I suppose you have to give him credit where credit is due here. He did succeed in what he was trying to do.
...except I thought it was a bit odd that this whole episode focused on Ervic the Skeezer, who came into the narrative out of nowhere, and didn't seem to have any introduction or personality. And it was especially odd when this is happening in an Oz story in which L. Frank Baum is already juggling too many returning characters that he doesn't know what to do with. Why not have just given this role to one of the many characters L. Frank Baum already has along on the journey?
The ending of the book was very rushed. L. Frank Baum just wraps up all the remaining plot threads in a few rushed paragraphs. Although perhaps that's just as well. (There's no point in dragging out the ending in a book like this.)
Other Odds and Ends
* At this point in the Oz series, I suppose it's probably a little bit silly to keep complaining about the inconsistencies. There are plenty of inconsistencies in this book, but is it even worth bringing them up? The magic belt, for instance. Who does it belong to now, Dorothy or Ozma? What can it do and what can't it do?
And all the magic in this book seems very confused. Despite the fact that it's repeatedly established that Ozma has outlawed magic in Oz, there are way too many magical creatures in this book who have a lot of magical powers that aren't clearly defined.
* Oh, and that whole "nobody can die in Oz" thing is once again very inconsistent. At the beginning of the book, L. Frank Baum goes out of the way to remind his readers that no one can die in Oz. But then he seems to forget about this throughout the rest of the book.
To be fair, no one actually dies in this book. But the threat of death seems real. In the wild Gillikin country, for example, there is the threat of being eaten by the ferocious animals. And then in the lake surrounding the city of the Skeezers, it's mentioned multiple times that the fish are in danger of being poisoned or eaten.
Extended Quotation
When night fell all the interior of the Great Dome, streets and houses, became lighted with brilliant incandescent lamps, which rendered it bright as day. Dorothy thought the island must look beautiful by night from the outer shore of the lake. There was revelry and feasting in the Queen's palace, and the music of the royal band could be plainly heard in Lady Aurex's house, where Ozma and Dorothy remained with their hostess and keeper. They were prisoners, but treated with much consideration.
Lady Aurex gave them a nice supper and when they wished to retire showed them to a pretty room with comfortable beds and wished them a good night and pleasant dreams.
"What do you think of all this, Ozma?" Dorothy anxiously inquired when they were alone.
"I am glad we came," was the reply, "for although there may be mischief done to-morrow, it was necessary I should know about these people, whose leaders are wild and lawless and oppress their subjects with injustice and cruelties. My task, therefore, is to liberate the Skeezers and the Flatheads and secure for them freedom and happiness. I have no doubt I can accomplish this in time."
"Just now, though, we're in a bad fix," asserted Dorothy. "If Queen Coo-ee-oh conquers to-morrow, she won't be nice to us, and if the Su-dic conquers, he'll be worse."
"Do not worry, dear," said Ozma, "I do not think we are in danger, whatever happens, and the result of our adventure is sure to be good."
Dorothy was not worrying, especially. She had confidence in her friend, the fairy Princess of Oz, and she enjoyed the excitement of the events in which she was taking part. So she crept into bed and fell asleep as easily as if she had been in her own cosy room in Ozma's palace.
A sort of grating, grinding sound awakened her. The whole island seemed to tremble and sway, as it might do in an earthquake. Dorothy sat up in bed, rubbing her eyes to get the sleep out of them, and then found it was daybreak.
Ozma was hurriedly dressing herself.
"What is it?" asked Dorothy, jumping out of bed.
"I'm not sure," answered Ozma "but it feels as if the island is sinking."
As soon as possible they finished dressing, while the creaking and swaying continued. Then they rushed into the living room of the house and found Lady Aurex, fully dressed, awaiting them.
"Do not be alarmed," said their hostess. "Coo-ee-oh has decided to submerge the island, that is all. But it proves the Flatheads are coming to attack us."
"What do you mean by sub-sub-merging the island?" asked Dorothy.
"Come here and see," was the reply.
Lady Aurex led them to a window which faced the side of the great dome which covered all the village, and they could see that the island was indeed sinking, for the water of the lake was already half way up the side of the dome. Through the glass could be seen swimming fishes, and tall stalks of swaying seaweeds, for the water was clear as crystal and through it they could distinguish even the farther shore of the lake.
"The Flatheads are not here yet," said Lady Aurex. "They will come soon, but not until all of this dome is under the surface of the water."
"Won't the dome leak?" Dorothy inquired anxiously.
"No, indeed."
"Was the island ever sub-sub-sunk before?"
"Oh, yes; on several occasions. But Coo-ee-oh doesn't care to do that often, for it requires a lot of hard work to operate the machinery. The dome was built so that the island could disappear. I think," she continued, "that our Queen fears the Flatheads will attack the island and try to break the glass of the dome."
"Well, if we're under water, they can't fight us, and we can't fight them," asserted Dorothy.
"They could kill the fishes, however," said Ozma gravely. (End Quote. From Chapter 10)
[I've been complaining about this book a lot, but in an effort to be fair, I thought I would use the extended quotation section to highlight what I thought was one of the cooler scenes of the book--the whole domed city sinking into the water. I thought that this scene was fun to imagine. Although, I also can't resist pointing out that that last line by Ozma is once again contradicting Baum's "no one can die in Oz" policy.]
Commonplace Book
3 out of 10 stars. I know most other people rate this book higher. But you know what? I'm going to be cranky and go ahead with the low rating.
July 10, 2022 Glinda of Oz p.1399-1402
July 17, 2022 Glinda of Oz p.1402-1404
July 24, 2022 Glinda of Oz p.1404-1444
July 31, 2022 Glinda of Oz p.1444-1450
October 9, 2022 Glinda of Oz p.1450-1468
October 16, 2022 Glinda of Oz p.1468-1474
Video Review (Playlist HERE)
