This book is by H.G. Wells, who is sometimes known as "the father of science fiction" (W). And in fact, this book is one of the books that helped establish that reputation (W). The Invisible Man has also become one of the iconic figures of horror fiction.
This book was first published in 1897. It's a slim little book. According to Wikipedia, it was 149 pages in the original edition. My copy (Arcturus Publishing--pictured on the left) is 207 pages.
My History With This Book
This is a re-read. I read this book once before way back when I was in middle school.
I've already recounted my history with H.G. Wells on this blog a couple times (HERE, HERE and HERE). But for the purposes of making this post stand independently, I'll recount it again here.
I first discovered H.G. Wells through Great Classics Illustrated (W).
When we were children, my sister was given a collection of Great Classics Illustrated one Christmas. Although it was given to my sister, we both devoured it.
There were two books by H.G. Wells in that collection: The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds. I was utterly captivated by both stories.
When I got slightly older (in middle school), I tried to seek out more H.G. Wells. I did not, at that time, feel any need to seek out the original versions of The Time Machine or The War of the Worlds. (Having read the Great Classics Illustrated versions, I considered those books "already read"). But I was interested in tracking down the other H.G. Wells books that had not been included in the Great Classics Illustrated collection. And, the most famous of these was The Invisible Man (*)
I was at this same time becoming obsessed with the classic black-and-white monster movies (as I've written about before HERE, HERE and HERE). And the 1933 horror movie, The Invisible Man (W) was one of the Universal Classic Monster movies (W) (**)
I also saw the 1933 The Invisible Man during these years when it was shown on AMC (W). I don't remember if it was before or after I read the book.
But at any rate, due to my interest in H.G. Wells, and due to my interest in classic monster movies, I bought a copy of The Invisible Man from my local bookstore and read it sometime in middle school. (I don't remember the exact year.)
That was many years ago now, and I'd since largely forgotten almost all the content from that book. I remember reading the book--I remember carrying it along with me on a family vacation on year, and I remember reading it on the airplane. I remember what the cover illustration on my copy looked like. And I remember the feelings I had reading that book. But aside from a few vague recollections, I had forgotten the story.
I do, however, remember the general feeling of reading that book. I remember find H.G. Wells' prose very dry and boring. And I remember finding the book painfully slow moving.
The only other H.G. Wells book that I read in middle school was In the Days of the Comet (W). (This is probably one of Wells' lesser known books, but it happened to be in my local bookstore, so I picked it up.) I found In the Days of the Comet to be much the same as The Invisible Man--very slow moving, and with a prose style I found dull and uninteresting.
I then developed the impression of H.G. Wells as a writer who had a lot of interesting story ideas, but who didn't write in a readable or engaging way.
I didn't read anything else by H.G. Wells until 1996, when I got caught up in the hype surrounding the release of the movie The Island of Dr. Moreau (W), and bought a copy of the book (W). Which I actually enjoyed a lot. (I was in college by this point, and I suppose my reading level had matured to the point where I could read Wells effortlessly.)
But in spite of this, I did not return to Wells until 8 years ago, when I finally got around to reading the original versions of The Time Machineand The War of the Worlds. And absolutely loved them. I decided that, now that I was an adult, I really like Wells' prose style.
Ever since then, I've been meaning to get around to re-reading The Invisible Man.
(*) Actually, according to Wikipedia, Great Classics Illustrated did eventually do a version of The Invisible Man in 1995, but by then I was no longer part of their target demographic. I was already in high school by then.
(**) Although the 1933 The Invisible Man is certainly an iconic monster movie, The Invisible Man character was never part of the shared universe of monster team ups with Frankenstein, The Wolf Man and Dracula. Unless you count The Invisible Man's cameo appearance in Abbott And Costello Meet Frankenstein.
There were also several other films in The Invisible Man franchise (see Wikipedia HERE).
I do not now remember if I saw during this period the 1940 The Invisible Man Returns (W). I might have. I don't think I saw any of the rest of The Invisible Man films. Although they look kind of fun. Maybe someday it would be fun to try to track down and review the whole series.
Why I Read This Book
In addition to all I've written above, the impetus for picking this book up now was Halloween and the month of October.
I had been toying with picking up a classic scary story for the month of October. It seemed like a fun thing to do for Halloween, and besides most of the other booktubers were doing it.
On the other hand, I am a very slow reader, and perpetually have a lot of half finished books on my currently reading list. So maybe starting a new reading project wasn't the best idea.
The other factor was that, for various reasons, I wasn't able to make my way to a bookstore at the beginning of October. I only made it to a bookstore near the end of October. (On October 19, the wife and I ended up doing some shopping at SC Vivo City, which has a bookstore with a selection of books in English.) So as I browsed that bookstore, I was looking for something short.
I'm overdue for a re-read of Dracula, but I decided that since October was already halfway over, Dracula looked too long to start now. (Maybe next year). But, The Invisible Man was only about 1/3 as long as Dracula, so it seemed the perfect book to start mid-month.
My Reading Journey / The Reading Experience
I wanted to make sure I finished this book off before October came to an end, so once I bought it, I put it on the top of my reading priority list. I easily finished it off in just 3 days.
Although I wrote above that I had largely forgotten this book, as I began to read it again, a lot of it came back to me. (I trust we've all had this experience --that Proustian experience of re-reading a book that we haven't read for years--or re-watching a movie-- and discovering that much more of it than we realized was actually still in our unconscious memory, just awaiting the right stimulus to come rushing back--so I won't waste time trying to describe that experience here. You all know what I mean.)
The book was on the whole a very easy read. It does have an older Victorian-era type prose style. I can see where it could easily have given middle-school-me some trouble. But from an adult perspective, it's completely readable. And largely enjoyable (although the pacing suffers in some sections.)
Plot Summary and Commentary (***SPOILERS***)
In a sleepy little countryside town in England, a mysterious stranger arrives at the inn. He is wrapped up in a coat and hat and gloves, which he refuses to take off, even when he is inside. And his face is all wrapped up in bandages, and his eyes are covered by dark glasses. He is working on some sort of mysterious experiment in his room. Meanwhile, several mysterious things seem to be happening in the stranger's room. Who could he be?
The mystery is teased out over several chapters, which can seem a bit overkill to the modern reader. Of course it's the invisible man! Everyone modern reader knows that instantly. The disguise of the invisible man is an iconic part of pop culture
Of course, when Wells' originally wrote this novel back in 1897, it was before the invisible man had become a pop icon. But still, even Wells' original audience had to know that this mysterious stranger was the invisible man, right? I mean, it's right there in the title of this novel.
[Unless... according to Wikipedia, this novel was original serialized in a magazine before being published as a novel. I wonder under what title it originally appeared under during serialization. Perhaps it originally had a different title which may have preserved the mystery?]
The narration throughout this section is told from the perspective of various villagers. The perspective jumps around from person to person, but never from the perspective of the invisible man the mysterious stranger himself. According to Wikipedia,
Then, finally, in chapter 7 (page 53 in my edition), the mystery is cleared up as stranger reveals himself to be invisible. There's a brief struggle, and then the invisible man disappears.
The narrative perspective then switches abruptly to a new character that we've never seen before, a tramp, Mr. Thomas Marvel, who the invisible man recruits as an unwilling accomplice.
There's then a confrontation between the invisible man and the villagers, and the perspective switches back to the villagers.
Thomas Marvel and the invisible man leave and travel to another village. The narrative perspective changes a few more times. (Sometimes from the perspective of Mr. Marvel, sometimes from the perspective of the people he encounters.)
Then, about halfway through the book, we are introduced to Dr. Kemp, who was completely absent from the first half of the book, but who will turn out to be the main protagonist of the second half of the book.
The invisible man, it turns out, is an old college classmate of Dr. Kemp's, and seeks refuge at Dr. Kemp's house. It is at this point that the invisible man also relates his whole backstory to Dr. Kemp.
This section is technically from the perspective of Dr. Kemp, who is listening to the invisible man monologuing, but the monologue itself is in the voice of the invisible man. So in this section we do get to hear the story of the invisible man in his own words.
The backstory is from chapter 19 to chapter 23 (pages 125 to 169 in my edition).
Parts of this backstory are interesting. H.G. Wells was of the school of science fiction writers that tried to incorporate actual scientific principles into his science fiction. So we get some discussion here about how visibility is created by light reflecting off of objects, and what the properties of a transparent object are. It's interesting as far as it goes, although I'm not sure I entirely understood all of it, and regardless I'm certainly not the person to evaluate it. (I'm certainly no scientist!) But at any rate, the science part is kept mercifully brief--only about 5 pages.
The rest of the invisible man's backstory is the story of how he struggled to find warmth, food, and shelter while being invisible. I thought this section went on for just a little bit too long. I started to get impatient with the backstory here, and wanted to get back to the main narrative. But this section is important for the main theme of the book--the invisible man wants invisibility because he wants to become more powerful than his fellow man. But he discovers that humans are reliant on each other for the basic necessities of life. Once he elects to separate himself out from society, he actually makes himself weaker, not stronger.
Here it is interesting to note that the whole plot of The Invisible Man is based on the fact that England has very cold and miserable weather. (The Invisible Man is a very British book in that regard. If H.G. Wells had been born in Vietnam instead of England, this book might have turned out very differently!) As soon as the invisible man puts on any clothes, then he's no longer invisible. (Only his actual body is invisible, not his clothing.) So he only has his invisibility powers as long as he is completely naked. But of course he can't go around walking naked for long in the English winter. So it turns out, being invisible in England is a very limited power.
The book eventually ends in a showdown between Dr. Kemp and the invisible man. And, to give credit where credit is due, the climax is suitably tense and exciting.
Evaluation / Extended Quotations
When I was a youngster, and I was first getting into all this stuff for the first time, I was extremely disappointed to find out that the old horror classics just weren't all that scary.
But I trust I'm not telling you anything that you didn't already know, right? We all know by now that the old classics just aren't scary anymore.
The question I do sometimes wonder is: how scary were they meant to be in the first place?
I mean, take The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, for example. I know it eventually went on to inspire a lot of monster movies, but I can't believe the original book was ever meant to be scary.
And then there's The Invisible Man. Like Frankenstein's monster and Mr Hyde, the character itself later went on to become synonymous with Universal Monster Movies, but what tone is the original book going for?
Much of the book doesn't seem to be trying to be scary at all.
The first half of the book actually has a lot more humorous scenes than scary scenes.
It's perhaps worth remembering that, back in his day, H.G. Wells was a noted comic writer as well as a science fiction writer. Nowadays, H.G. Wells is only remembered for his science fiction, but back in his day he was much praised for comic novels such as The History of Mr. Polly (W) (***).
And there seems to be a lot of comic scenes inserted into The Invisible Man as well. Take, for example, this scene where Teddy Henfrey, the clock-jobber, runs into Mr. Hall, the husband of the innkeeper Mrs. Hall:
At Gleeson’s corner he saw Hall, who had recently married the stranger’s hostess at the “Coach and Horses,” and who now drove the Iping conveyance, when occasional people required it, to Sidderbridge Junction, coming towards him on his return from that place. Hall had evidently been “stopping a bit” at Sidderbridge, to judge by his driving. “’Ow do, Teddy?” he said, passing.
“You got a rum un up home!” said Teddy.
Hall very sociably pulled up. “What’s that?” he asked.
“Rum-looking customer stopping at the ‘Coach and Horses,’” said Teddy. “My sakes!”
And he proceeded to give Hall a vivid description of his grotesque guest. “Looks a bit like a disguise, don’t it? I’d like to see a man’s face if I had him stopping in my place,” said Henfrey. “But women are that trustful—where strangers are concerned. He’s took your rooms and he ain’t even given a name, Hall.”
“You don’t say so!” said Hall, who was a man of sluggish apprehension.
“Yes,” said Teddy. “By the week. Whatever he is, you can’t get rid of him under the week. And he’s got a lot of luggage coming to-morrow, so he says. Let’s hope it won’t be stones in boxes, Hall.”
He told Hall how his aunt at Hastings had been swindled by a stranger with empty portmanteaux. Altogether he left Hall vaguely suspicious. “Get up, old girl,” said Hall. “I s’pose I must see ’bout this.”
Teddy trudged on his way with his mind considerably relieved.
Instead of “seeing ’bout it,” however, Hall on his return was severely rated by his wife on the length of time he had spent in Sidderbridge, and his mild inquiries were answered snappishly and in a manner not to the point. But the seed of suspicion Teddy had sown germinated in the mind of Mr. Hall in spite of these discouragements. “You wim’ don’t know everything,” said Mr. Hall, resolved to ascertain more about the personality of his guest at the earliest possible opportunity. (Chapter 2 p.21-23)
(Sidenote: I think Wells' humorous touch went entirely over my head when I was in middle school grade. Yet another reason why I appreciate this book more as an adult.)
I also got a chuckle out of the exasperated tone the invisible man took when he finally had to explain his condition to the villagers in chapter 7:
“Why!” said Huxter, suddenly, “that’s not a man at all. It’s just empty clothes. Look! You can see down his collar and the linings of his clothes. I could put my arm—”
He extended his hand; it seemed to meet something in mid-air, and he drew it back with a sharp exclamation. “I wish you’d keep your fingers out of my eye,” said the aerial voice, in a tone of savage expostulation. “The fact is, I’m all here—head, hands, legs, and all the rest of it, but it happens I’m invisible. It’s a confounded nuisance, but I am. That’s no reason why I should be poked to pieces by every stupid bumpkin in Iping, is it?”
The suit of clothes, now all unbuttoned and hanging loosely upon its unseen supports, stood up, arms akimbo.
Several other of the men folks had now entered the room, so that it was closely crowded. “Invisible, eh?” said Huxter, ignoring the stranger’s abuse. “Who ever heard the likes of that?”
“It’s strange, perhaps, but it’s not a crime. Why am I assaulted by a policeman in this fashion?” (chapter 7 pages 56-57)
But it's not all humorous. The invisible man himself actually has a lot of malice to him. And the tone of the story can switch quite suddenly from humorous to malicious. There's a part in chapter 11 where I thought this sudden tone shift was particularly well, so I'll quote part of it:
“Diary!” said Cuss, putting the three books on the table. “Now, at any rate, we shall learn something.” The Vicar stood with his hands on the table.
“Diary,” repeated Cuss, sitting down, putting two volumes to support the third, and opening it. “H’m—no name on the fly-leaf. Bother!—cypher. And figures.”
The vicar came round to look over his shoulder.
Cuss turned the pages over with a face suddenly disappointed. “I’m—dear me! It’s all cypher, Bunting.”
“There are no diagrams?” asked Mr. Bunting. “No illustrations throwing light—”
“See for yourself,” said Mr. Cuss. “Some of it’s mathematical and some of it’s Russian or some such language (to judge by the letters), and some of it’s Greek. Now the Greek I thought you—”
“Of course,” said Mr. Bunting, taking out and wiping his spectacles and feeling suddenly very uncomfortable—for he had no Greek left in his mind worth talking about; “yes—the Greek, of course, may furnish a clue.”
“I’ll find you a place.”
“I’d rather glance through the volumes first,” said Mr. Bunting, still wiping. “A general impression first, Cuss, and then, you know, we can go looking for clues.”
He coughed, put on his glasses, arranged them fastidiously, coughed again, and wished something would happen to avert the seemingly inevitable exposure. Then he took the volume Cuss handed him in a leisurely manner. And then something did happen.
The door opened suddenly.
Both gentlemen started violently, looked round, and were relieved to see a sporadically rosy face beneath a furry silk hat. “Tap?” asked the face, and stood staring.
“No,” said both gentlemen at once.
“Over the other side, my man,” said Mr. Bunting. And “Please shut that door,” said Mr. Cuss, irritably.
“All right,” said the intruder, as it seemed in a low voice curiously different from the huskiness of its first inquiry. “Right you are,” said the intruder in the former voice. “Stand clear!” and he vanished and closed the door.
“A sailor, I should judge,” said Mr. Bunting. “Amusing fellows, they are. Stand clear! indeed. A nautical term, referring to his getting back out of the room, I suppose.”
“I daresay so,” said Cuss. “My nerves are all loose to-day. It quite made me jump—the door opening like that.”
Mr. Bunting smiled as if he had not jumped. “And now,” he said with a sigh, “these books.”
Someone sniffed as he did so.
“One thing is indisputable,” said Bunting, drawing up a chair next to that of Cuss. “There certainly have been very strange things happen in Iping during the last few days—very strange. I cannot of course believe in this absurd invisibility story—”
“It’s incredible,” said Cuss—“incredible. But the fact remains that I saw—I certainly saw right down his sleeve—”
“But did you—are you sure? Suppose a mirror, for instance— hallucinations are so easily produced. I don’t know if you have ever seen a really good conjuror—”
“I won’t argue again,” said Cuss. “We’ve thrashed that out, Bunting. And just now there’s these books—Ah! here’s some of what I take to be Greek! Greek letters certainly.”
He pointed to the middle of the page. Mr. Bunting flushed slightly and brought his face nearer, apparently finding some difficulty with his glasses. Suddenly he became aware of a strange feeling at the nape of his neck. He tried to raise his head, and encountered an immovable resistance. The feeling was a curious pressure, the grip of a heavy, firm hand, and it bore his chin irresistibly to the table. “Don’t move, little men,” whispered a voice, “or I’ll brain you both!” He looked into the face of Cuss, close to his own, and each saw a horrified reflection of his own sickly astonishment. (From Chapter 11, p. 73-76)
I thought that section was quite good when I first read it--the way it suddenly changes from the innocent humor of the Vicar and Mr. Cuss to the cold scary malice of the invisible man.
As you keep reading through that section, the tone changes again several more times between humor and scary in a way that I thought was very skillful.
**********************************
When it comes to classic monsters, the invisible man is in many ways the least impressive of the bunch. After all, he doesn't have any superhuman strength or special powers. He's just invisible. That's not really that deadly.
And yet, horror fiction has never been about what how potentially deadly the monster can be. Successful horror fiction is about how well the monster taps into our brain's primordial fear centers (****).
The idea that an adversary can be hidden somewhere in the room, unseen and unseeable, and can jump out to attack us at any moment is something that definitely triggers our primitive panic impulses. (I suppose their must be an evolutionary fear trigger here--the fear of unseen predators lurking in the bushes.)
There are a couple scenes in this book where H.G. Wells expertly plays on the panic of knowing the invisible man is out to get you, but not knowing where he is.
The “Jolly Cricketers” is just at the bottom of the hill, where the tram-lines begin. The barman leant his fat red arms on the counter and talked of horses with an anaemic cabman, while a black-bearded man in grey snapped up biscuit and cheese, drank Burton, and conversed in American with a policeman off duty.
“What’s the shouting about!” said the anaemic cabman, going off at a tangent, trying to see up the hill over the dirty yellow blind in the low window of the inn. Somebody ran by outside. “Fire, perhaps,” said the barman.
Footsteps approached, running heavily, the door was pushed open violently, and Marvel, weeping and dishevelled, his hat gone, the neck of his coat torn open, rushed in, made a convulsive turn, and attempted to shut the door. It was held half open by a strap.
“Coming!” he bawled, his voice shrieking with terror. “He’s coming. The ’Visible Man! After me! For Gawd’s sake! ’Elp! ’Elp! ’Elp!”
“Shut the doors,” said the policeman. “Who’s coming? What’s the row?” He went to the door, released the strap, and it slammed. The American closed the other door.
“Lemme go inside,” said Marvel, staggering and weeping, but still clutching the books. “Lemme go inside. Lock me in—somewhere. I tell you he’s after me. I give him the slip. He said he’d kill me and he will.”
“You’re safe,” said the man with the black beard. “The door’s shut. What’s it all about?”
“Lemme go inside,” said Marvel, and shrieked aloud as a blow suddenly made the fastened door shiver and was followed by a hurried rapping and a shouting outside. “Hullo,” cried the policeman, “who’s there?” Mr. Marvel began to make frantic dives at panels that looked like doors. “He’ll kill me—he’s got a knife or something. For Gawd’s sake—!”
“Here you are,” said the barman. “Come in here.” And he held up the flap of the bar.
Mr. Marvel rushed behind the bar as the summons outside was repeated. “Don’t open the door,” he screamed. “Please don’t open the door. Where shall I hide?”
“This, this Invisible Man, then?” asked the man with the black beard, with one hand behind him. “I guess it’s about time we saw him.”
The window of the inn was suddenly smashed in, and there was a screaming and running to and fro in the street. The policeman had been standing on the settee staring out, craning to see who was at the door. He got down with raised eyebrows. “It’s that,” he said. The barman stood in front of the bar-parlour door which was now locked on Mr. Marvel, stared at the smashed window, and came round to the two other men. (from Chapter 16, page 100-102)
The scene goes on, but you get the idea. There's also an extended confrontation at the end of the book which is also well done, and also plays on that creepy feeling of knowing the invisible man is there somewhere, but not knowing exactly where he is.
**** Actually while I'm on the topic, I can resist mentioning a different book which I think played very well on the contradiction between what is actually deadly, and what our primitive brains find scary: The Werewolf of Paris. The whole book the reader is focused on the werewolf attacks, and then, at the very end of the book, the narrator suddenly pulls back to ask: Why are we so focused on this werewolf, which has only killed a handful of people, when the government of Paris is killing 20,000 people by firing squads?
Links
* An interesting Youtube video on H.G. Wells: The History of Sci Fi - H.G. Wells - Extra Sci Fi - #2 by Extra Credits. They briefly mention The Invisible Man, and call it Wells' anti-libertarian novel because the invisible man's rejection of society for personal gain leaves him weaker than the weakest of us.
* The Intellectuals and the Masses by John Carey devotes 2 whole chapters to the works of H.G. Wells, but, unfortunately, mentions The invisible Man only very briefly. John Carey claims that some of Wells' other books appear to endorse the Nietzschean idea of the superior individual, but...
But in other stories--The Invisible Man, The Island of Dr Moreau, The Country of the Blind--the superiority of the singular individual is by no means apparent. The murderous, invisible Griffin and the crazed vivisectionist Moreau are prodigies that seem to endorse the ordinary man's suspicion of ruthless scientific genius (p.138)
8 out of 10 stars. Granted it's just a silly science fiction story, but you have to judge these things against what the author set out to do, and for what he was trying to do, Wells succeeded wonderfully. It's borderline 9 stars, but I'm taking one point off for the pacing issues.
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 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.
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 Ozwith 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.
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 Ozedition.)
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.)
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.
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."
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.
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.
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.]
