(Read from The Complete Stories of Oz)
Started: April 11, 2022
Finished: May 3, 2022
(This review is written using my new format for book reviews.)
Background Information
Originally published in 1919, this is the 13th book in the Oz series written by L. Frank Baum. It is also the second to the last Oz book that L. Frank Baum wrote before he died. (Although Baum would die before this book hit the shelves--Baum died in May, 1919, and this book was published in June.)
Summary of the Plot
L. Frank Baum is once again recycling plots from previous books. (Yet another sign that he had run out of ideas for his Oz series, but that he still needed the money.)
It's Ozma's birthday, and everyone is concerned with the preparations. Then, at the end, there's a grand party, and all the Oz characters make a brief cameo. This is the same plot that we saw before in book number 5: The Road to Oz. While this is going on, the evil Nome King is plotting to take over the land of Oz, but he is ultimately defeated by drinking from the fountain of oblivion. Again, we saw this same plot before in book 6: The Emerald City of Oz.
Links
I am once again relying on the analysis of Mari Ness at Tor.com . Her review is titled: Boredom in Fairyland: The Magic of Oz. You may get a sense of her opinion just from that title. But if there's any doubt, you can read her introduction.
So Ozma is having a birthday again. Yawn. And the various adopted citizens and hangers-on at the palace don’t know what to get her. Yawn. And an old enemy of Oz reappears. Yawn. Yawn. Have we reached the end yet?Magic of Oz, the thirteenth book in Baum’s Oz series, is, above all, a tired book. Very little new happens. Glinda sets a group of young girls to weaving and sewing a gown formed from silk spun from softened emeralds. Trot, Cap’n Bill and the Glass Cat figure an ever changing magical plant will do the trick. Dorothy and the Wizard, cudgeling their brains together, come up with…performing monkeys. It’s even drearier than it sounds.
She eventually ends the review by saying:
With most authors, a book of this sort would be a clear sign to give up and move on. But Baum had one more Oz book left in him.
Ouch!
I'm also doing this book as a buddy read with Dane Cobain. He was a bit more kind to this book. His written review is HERE:
This book was just okay, and that’s pretty much all I have to say about it. Unfortunately, because I’ve left it a little while before getting to my review of this one and because I’ve also read another Oz book in the interim, I can’t really remember the details.I can remember how it made me feel though, and in general it was a decent enough entry into the Oz series. Baum hit a bit of a bad patch with a few of the books before this one where it felt as though he was just churning out books because he had to, which is supported by the fact that he basically needed the money.All in all, this was alright, but nowhere near as good as some of the others in the series. So there’s that.
Dane's video review is HERE:
My own evaluation is below.
Reading Experience / Evaluation
Mari Ness isn't necessarily wrong. The plot of this book is pretty underwhelming.
Ozma having a birthday party is a pretty lame plot. It was pretty lame the first time around in The Road to Oz, so it's an odd choice to recycle this underwhelming plot point.
The Nome King's attempts to take over the Land of Oz (a recycled plot from The Emerald City of Oz) could, in theory, lead to a dramatic climax. (Picture it in your head: an epic battle! All the forces of evil lined up on one side. All the characters of Oz lined up on the other side. They meet in a battle charge! Picture it like the scenes from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, or The Return of the King).
Except, in both books, the Nome King never actually gets that far. We spend a lot of time watching him bumbling around, and then he is defeated (both times!) by the Fountain of Oblivion.
What makes the Fountain of Oblivion plot point particularly irritating is that it was supposed make the Nome King forget everything and render him harmless the first time he drank it in book 6. That later got retconned in book 8, where it appeared that the Nome King could remember everything after all.
Okay, fair enough. L. Frank Baum has a lax approach to continuity, and likes to retcon things. I've learned to accept that by this point in the series. But then, after having retconned that plot point, to reintroduce the Fountain of Oblivion as a plot device a second time to resolve the exact same plot point as before? That is really pushing things! I've been forgiving a lot as I've been reading this series, but there is only so much lazy writing I can put up with.
But, in spite of all my complaining, I actually didn't completely hate this book. It's got enough of a manic imaginative energy to it that I found it mostly entertaining, in spite of all its flaws. I'll try to illustrate some of this with a quotation below:
Extended Quotation
(From the beginning of Chapter 8--The Li-Mon-Eags Make Trouble)
There had been trouble in the Forest of Gugu that morning. Chipo the Wild Boar had bitten the tail off Arx the Giraffe while the latter had his head among the leaves of a tree, eating his breakfast. Arx kicked with his heels and struck Tirrip, the great Kangaroo, who had a new baby in her pouch. Tirrip knew it was the Wild Boar’s fault, so she knocked him over with one powerful blow and then ran away to escape Chipo’s sharp tusks. In the chase that followed a giant porcupine stuck fifty sharp quills into the Boar and a chimpanzee in a tree threw a cocoanut at the porcupine that jammed its head into its body.
All this was against the Laws of the Forest, and when the excitement was over, Gugu the Leopard King called his royal Counselors together to decide how best to punish the offenders.
The four lords of the forest were holding solemn council in a small clearing when they saw two strange beasts approaching them—beasts the like of which they had never seen before.
Not one of the four, however, relaxed his dignity or showed by a movement that he was startled. The great Leopard crouched at full length upon a fallen tree-trunk. Bru the Bear sat on his haunches before the King; Rango the Gray Ape stood with his muscular arms folded, and Loo the Unicorn reclined, much as a horse does, between his fellow-councillors. With one consent they remained silent, eyeing with steadfast looks the intruders, who were making their way into their forest domain.
“Well met, Brothers!” said one of the strange beasts, coming to a halt beside the group, while his comrade with hesitation lagged behind.
“We are not brothers,” returned the Gray Ape, sternly. “Who are you, and how came you in the forest of Gugu?”
“We are two Li-Mon-Eags,” said Ruggedo, inventing the name. “Our home is in Sky Island, and we have come to earth to warn the forest beasts that the people of Oz are about to make war upon them and enslave them, so that they will become beasts of burden forever after and obey only the will of their two-legged masters.”
A low roar of anger arose from the Council of Beasts.
“Who’s going to do that?” asked Loo the Unicorn, in a high, squeaky voice, at the same time rising to his feet.
“The people of Oz,” said Ruggedo.
“But what will we be doing?” inquired the Unicorn.
“That’s what I’ve come to talk to you about.”
“You needn’t talk! We’ll fight the Oz people!” screamed the Unicorn. “We’ll smash ’em; we’ll trample ’em; we’ll gore ’em; we’ll—”
“Silence!” growled Gugu the King, and Loo obeyed, although still trembling with wrath. The cold, steady gaze of the Leopard wandered over the two strange beasts. “The people of Oz,” said he, “have not been our friends; they have not been our enemies. They have let us alone, and we have let them alone. There is no reason for war between us. They have no slaves. They could not use us as slaves if they should conquer us. I think you are telling us lies, you strange Li-Mon-Eag—you mixed-up beast who are neither one thing nor another.”
***END QUOTE*** The scene actually goes on for a couple more pages, but you get the idea.
In one sense, this is terrible writing. L. Frank Baum is writing here like either he's on a caffeine high, or like he's sleep deprived and is just putting whatever comes into his head to fill up his word count.
But, on the other hand, there's a kind of fascination here with this bizarre Loony-Tunes world. I mean, a crazy forest where the animals are constantly getting into shenanigans? Ruled by a Jaguar King who is being advised by a paranoid maniac unicorn? Yeah, sure, I can stick around to see where this is going.
Odds and Ends
* This is yet another Oz book in which L. Frank Baum worked in some brief tie-ins with some of his previous fantasy books. (Queen Zixi of Ix, John Dough and the Cherub). So yet another reason why the series really should be called "The Expanded Universe of Oz".
* The idea that no one can die in the Land of Oz has proven to be one of L. Frank Baum's worst ideas. He can't keep it consistent, and he doesn't know how to introduce any kind of danger without breaking his own rules.
3 out of 10 stars. That's me being generous. But as I said above, I can't hate this book completely.
April 17, 2022 p.1308-1322 (page numbers come from The Complete Stories of Oz edition)
April 24, 2022 p.1322-1336
May 8, 2022 p.1336-1396
Video Review (Playlist HERE)
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