The Scarecrow of Oz by L. Frank Baum

(Book Review--Land of Oz, Fantasy, Children's Books)  

(Read from The Complete Stories of Oz)

Started: January 31, 2022

Finished: February 13, 2022

(This review is written using my new format for book reviews.)  

Background Information

Originally published in 1915, this is the 9th book in the Land of Oz series.  According to Wikipedia, the plot of this novel was recycled from the silent film His Majesty, the Scarecrow of Oz (also written and produced by L. Frank Baum).

This book also marks the introduction of the characters Cap'n Bill and Trot to the Land of Oz series.  Previously L. Frank Baum had tried to launch Cap'n Bill and Trot in their own series (The Sea Fairies and Sky Island), but when that series failed to get popular, he decided to just import Cap'n Bill and Trot over to the Land of Oz.  

Also, part of this book takes place in the Land of Mo (from another L. Frank Baum book The Magical Monarch of Mo), so this book is one big crossover of L. Frank Baum related material.

Plot (SPOILERS)

Cap'n Bill and Trot (from the Cap'n Bill and Trot series fame) get sucked into a whirlpool while boating on the ocean, and end up in a mysterious underwater cave.  And so begins another mysterious journey.

Like most of the Oz books, this is a journey story.  The characters journey to strange lands, see strange things, and then move on.  

After briefly ending up in the Land of Mo (and having a crossover with another L. Frank Baum book--The Magical Monarch of Mo), they at last make it to the Land of Oz.  Kind of.  Actually they're in Jinxland, a land which was never mentioned before in any of the other books, but which it turns out is some sort of autonomous kingdom inside the Land of Oz, but cut off from the rest of Oz by high mountains.  

Once we get into Jinxland, then the characters stop journeying, and we actually stay in one place for the rest of the book.  A plot is actually introduced, which has a protagonist, an antagonist, and eventually a resolution.  (I think this is a first for the series.)  The plot involves an evil king, a wicked witch, a beautiful princess, a gardener's boy, and a magic spell.  The whole thing is very fairy-tale esque.

Oh yeah, and the Scarecrow also shows up--which is where the book gets its title.

Evaluation

I allowed myself to be charmed by the fairy-tale quality of this book.

I say "allowed myself", because in order to enjoy these books, you have to make a conscious choice to switch your brain off.  (As much as possible, at least.)  Nothing makes any sense at all.  Character motivations are paper-thin.  All the plot points are resolved by deus ex machina contrivances.  And during the whole story, you're constantly thinking to yourself, "But if they had the power to do that all along, why didn't they use it earlier in the story?"

But then, one could make the same criticisms of the stories in The Brothers Grimm.  Logic isn't the point of fairy tales.  The atmosphere and the imagery is the point.  And this book delivers upon plenty of fairy-tale imagery.

According to L. Frank Baum's Wikipedia Bio, he was very much consciously trying to imitate fairy tales in his writing.  (And L. Frank Baum himself list The Brothers Grimm as his inspiration for the Oz books in the author's forward.)  So if that's the aesthetic that he's deliberately going for, then fair enough I guess.

Links

As always, I'm relying on the analysis of Mari Ness at Tor.com.   Her review of this book is entitled: Adventuring into Fairyland: The Scarecrow of Oz

Mari Ness makes a number of interesting observations. To quote briefly from her review:

This second, frequently hilarious plot focuses on the tangled and confused tale of Princess Gloria, rightful heir to Jinxland; her evil uncle King Krewl; Pon the Gardener’s Boy, in love with Gloria; the wealthy yet awful courtier Googly-Goo; the evil witch Blinkie; and the Scarecrow, sent along by Glinda the Sorceress to save Trot, Cap’n Bill and Button-Bright—and do a bit of conquest and nation building while he’s at it. It’s one of the few times Baum allows romance to enter his Oz books, and not surprisingly, the romance is treated with a decidedly skeptical and hilarious note.  (Both Trot and Button-Bright, singularly unimpressed with Pon as a person, prince, and lover, advise both lovers to just get over it. Princess Gloria, however, explains soulfully that a woman cannot choose whom she might love, she just, well, loves, unworthy object or not. Although this might explain a lot, Trot doesn’t buy it, and her reactions—and Button-Bright’s—are priceless.)

Baum tweaks the usual fairy tale ending.  Instead of automatically elevating the rightful heir to the throne at the tale’s end, he adds an unexpected note of populism/quasi democracy by having the Scarecrow ask the people of Jinxland to name their ruler. Not surprisingly, they take a look at the available candidates and yell out, “Scarecrow!”  He, however, refuses, and with a little more tugging, the people of Jinxland yell out a name and by popular, democratic consent become a monarchy again. Er. Yay?

(Go check out the whole thing). 

I've also, as always, relied heavily on Wikipedia.  Among other observations, Wikipedia notes: 

Although the journey of an American child to Oz had long been a favorite plot for Baum, this work represented its last appearance: no more children would be inducted into Oz for the duration of his work on the series.^[4]

That's probably for the best.  That plot element has been getting overdone in this series.  It will be interesting to see what other stories L. Frank Baum can tell.  (This is book number 9, so there are still 5 L. Frank Baum Oz books left to work through before we get to the end of his run on the series.)

I'm also doing this series as a buddy reads with Dane Cobain.  His written review is HERE.  To quote from part of it:

This book was an interesting one for me because I almost feel as though it didn’t need to be an Oz book. In typical style, the titular scarecrow doesn’t actually make an appearance until towards the end of the story, and it could easily have been written in such a way that he wasn’t required at all. And then Dorothy and the rest of the Oz crew only really show up to say hello at the end, as seems to be the tradition for Oz books.

Odds and Ends 

Probably to fully appreciate this story, one would need to first read the other two stories in the Cap'n Bill and Trot series: The Sea Fairies and Sky Island.  Unfortunately, being out here in Vietnam, I was unable to get my hands on any copies.  

I did briefly contemplate trying to read those books off of project Gutenberg, but I dislike reading large amounts off of the computer screen, and so in the end decided against it.  

Besides, as I've been noting in my reviews, L. Frank Baum is pretty sloppy in his continuity.  Stuff will be established in one book, and then just completely ignored in the next book.  And so if that's the case, then I don't feel too guilty about missing some books--particularly if they're only crossover books.  I'll just rely off of the Wikipedia summaries instead.  (In fact, as Mari Ness points out in her review, Trot apparently had a loving mother that was established in the first two books of the Cap'n Bill and Trot series, and this mother is now completely forgotten about as Trot and Cap'n Bill agree to stay forever in the Land of Oz.)

Extended Quotation

It was Button-Bright who first discovered, lying on his face beneath a broad spreading tree near the pathway, a young man whose body shook with the force of his sobs. He was dressed in a long brown smock and had sandals on his feet, betokening one in humble life. His head was bare and showed a shock of brown, curly hair. Button-Bright looked down on the young man and said:

“Who cares, anyhow?”

“I do!” cried the young man, interrupting his sobs to roll over, face upward, that he might see who had spoken. “I care, for my heart is broken!”

“Can’t you get another one?” asked the little boy.

“I don’t want another!” wailed the young man.

By this time Trot and Cap’n Bill arrived at the spot and the girl leaned over and said in a sympathetic voice:

“Tell us your troubles and perhaps we may help you.”

The youth sat up, then, and bowed politely. Afterward he got upon his feet, but still kept wringing his hands as he tried to choke down his sobs. Trot thought he was very brave to control such awful agony so well.

“My name is Pon,” he began. “I’m the gardener’s boy.”

“Then the gardener of the King is your father, I suppose,” said Trot.

“Not my father, but my master,” was the reply.

“I do the work and the gardener gives the orders. And it was not my fault, in the least, that the Princess Gloria fell in love with me.”

“Did she, really?” asked the little girl.

“I don’t see why,” remarked Button-Bright, staring at the youth.

“And who may the Princess Gloria be?” inquired Cap’n Bill.

“She is the niece of King Krewl, who is her guardian. The Princess lives in the castle and is the loveliest and sweetest maiden in all Jinxland. She is fond of flowers and used to walk in the gardens with her attendants. At such times, if I was working at my tasks, I used to cast down my eyes as Gloria passed me; but one day I glanced up and found her gazing at me with a very tender look in her eyes. The next day she dismissed her attendants and, coming to my side, began to talk with me. She said I had touched her heart as no other young man had ever done. I kissed her hand. Just then the King came around a bend in the walk. He struck me with his fist and kicked me with his foot. Then he seized the arm of the Princess and rudely dragged her into the castle.”

“Wasn’t he awful!” gasped Trot indignantly.

“He is a very abrupt King,” said Pon, "so it was the least I could expect. Up to that time I had not thought of loving Princess Gloria, but realizing it would be impolite not to return her love, I did so. We met at evening, now and then, and she told me the King wanted her to marry a rich courtier named Googly-Goo, who is old enough to be Gloria’s father. She has refused Googly-Goo thirty-nine times, but he still persists and has brought many rich presents to bribe the King. On that account King Krewl has commanded his niece to marry the old man, but the Princess has assured me, time and again, that she will wed only me. This morning we happened to meet in the grape arbor and as I was respectfully saluting the cheek of the Princess, two of the King’s guards seized me and beat me terribly before the very eyes of Gloria, whom the King himself held back so she could not interfere."

(Taken from the beginning of Chapter 10: Pon, the Gardener’s Boy.  This is a pretty good summary of the central conflict for the second part of the story.)

Rating: 

Meh.  It's okay enough as a little fairy tale.  5 out of 10 stars I guess.

Weekly Reading Vlogs: 

February 6, 2022 p.888-896 

February 13, 2022 p.896-980

Video Review (Playlist HERE)

The Scarecrow of Oz by L. Frank Baum: Book Review

Little Wizard Stories of Oz by L. Frank Baum

(Book Review--Land of Oz, Classics, Fantasy, Children's Books)  

(Read from The Complete Stories of Oz)

Started: January 2, 2022

Finished: January 14, 2022

(This review is written using my new format for book reviews.) 

Background Information

This isn't really a proper Oz book.  It's a collection of 6 short stories that take place in the Land of Oz.  According to Wikipedia, L. Frank Baum wrote these stories as a way to gin up renewed interest in his Oz series when he relaunched the series.

You see, L. Frank Baum originally tried to end the Oz series with The Emerald City of Oz in 1910.  But then he went bankrupt in 1911, and needed the money.  So, he came back to the Oz series in 1913 with The Patchwork Girl of Oz.  And alongside The Patchwork Girl of Oz, in order to remind the public that Oz still existed, and also apparently to hook in younger readers as well, he published 6 short stories in 1913, which were originally sold for 15 cents each in little booklets, and then in 1914 collected in one volume and released as Little Wizard Stories of Oz.

Even though this is by the original author L. Frank Baum, this isn't considered one of the canonical Oz books (i.e. the so-called "famous forty"), but it was included in The Complete Stories of Oz--located right after The Patchwork Girl of Oz--so, being a completist, I thought I'd include it in my list of reviews.  Even though it's not really a proper book.  In The Complete Stories of Oz, it's only 24 pages.  Although, in its original printing, with all the full color pictures and nice big print, it stretched out to 192 pages.  Project Gutenberg has a nice copy where you can see all the pictures HERE.  

Plot Summary

There are six short stories in this collection:

* The Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger

* Little Dorothy and Toto

* Tiktok and the Nome King

* Ozma and the Little Wizard

* Jack Pumpkinhead and the Sawhorse

* The Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman

Each story is only about 4 or 5 pages long.  (Although again, the original printing stretched these stories out over several more pages).

Links

Mari Ness's Oz Re-read series at Tor.com is usually my go to for insights and analysis, but Mari Ness seems to have sat this particular book out.  (Like I said, it's not really canonical.)

Dane Cobain, however, gave it a brief review on his website.  I hope Dane will forgive me for quoting his review in full, but I thought this was a good summation of how I feel about the book as well:

The latest in the series of Oz buddy reads that I’ve been doing with the one and only Joel Swagman on YouTube.

In this book, we have a half dozen short stories that are ostensibly aimed at younger readers, although I personally didn’t notice much different from the main Oz books in terms of the storytelling or the writing style. The only difference was that they were a lot shorter.

I don’t think there was anything here that particularly blew my mind or made me look at Oz in a different way, but that wasn’t really what it set out to do. And for what it was, I thought it was a cheerful read that kids and adults can enjoy.

I've linked to the Wikipedia article above, but I'll link to it again here, since it's informative.   

And, once again, here's a link to the version on Project Gutenberg with all the illustrations.  

The Reading Experience

I don't really have a lot to add to what Dane already said.  I think Dane pretty much hit the nail on the head.

I'm with Dane that I don't notice much of a difference in writing style, even though supposedly this book was aimed at younger readers.

The stories mostly work.  They're all only 4 or 5 pages, but they don't feel rushed--they feel just the length that they are supposed to be.

The Oz books are very episodic anyway--the characters go along the road, they encounter an adventure, then they move a bit further down the road and encounter the next adventure.  So in that respect, this collection of little short adventures feels right at home in the Oz world.

Extended Quotation

Once upon a time there lived in the beautiful Emerald City, which lies in the center of the fairy Land of Oz, a lovely girl called Princess Ozma, who was ruler of all that country. And among those who served this girlish Ruler and lived in a cozy suite of rooms in her splendid palace, was a little, withered old man known as the Wizard of Oz.

This little Wizard could do a good many queer things in magic; but he was a kind man, with merry, twinkling eyes and a sweet smile; so, instead of fearing him because of his magic, everybody loved him.

Now, Ozma was very anxious that all her people who inhabited the pleasant Land of Oz should be happy and contented, and therefore she decided one morning to make a journey to all parts of the country, that she might discover if anything was amiss, or anyone discontented, or if there was any wrong that ought to be righted. She asked the little Wizard to accompany her and he was glad to go.

"Shall I take my bag of magic tools with me?" he asked.

"Of course," said Ozma. "We may need a lot of magic before we return, for we are going into strange corners of the land, where we may meet with unknown creatures and dangerous adventures."

So the Wizard took his bag of magic tools and the two left the Emerald City and wandered over the country for many days, at last reaching a place far up in the mountains which neither of them had ever visited before. Stopping one morning at a cottage, built beside the rocky path which led into a pretty valley beyond, Ozma asked a man:

"Are you happy? Have you any complaint to make of your lot?"

And the man replied:

"We are happy except for three mischievous Imps that live in yonder valley and often come here to annoy us. If your Highness would only drive away those Imps, I and my family would be very happy and very grateful to you."

"Who are these bad Imps?" inquired the girl Ruler.

"One is named Olite, and one Udent and one Ertinent, and they have no respect for anyone or anything. If strangers pass through the valley the Imps jeer at them and make horrid faces and call names, and often they push travelers out of the path or throw stones at them. Whenever Imp Olite or Imp Udent or Imp Ertinent comes here to bother us, I and my family run into the house and lock all the doors and windows, and we dare not venture out again until the Imps have gone away."

Princess Ozma was grieved to hear this report and the little Wizard shook his head gravely and said the naughty Imps deserved to be punished. They told the good man they would see what could be done to protect him and at once entered the valley to seek the dwelling place of the three mischievous creatures.

Before long they came upon three caves, hollowed from the rocks, and in front of each cave squatted a queer little dwarf. Ozma and the Wizard paused to examine them and found them well-shaped, strong and lively. They had big round ears, flat noses and wide grinning mouths, and their jet-black hair came to points on top of their heads, much resembling horns. Their clothing fitted snugly to their bodies and limbs and the Imps were so small in size that at first Ozma did not consider them at all dangerous. But one of them suddenly reached out a hand and caught the dress of the Princess, jerking it so sharply that she nearly fell down, and a moment later another Imp pushed the little Wizard so hard that he bumped against Ozma and both unexpectedly sat down upon the ground.

******END QUOTE****  This is the opening lines of Ozma and the Little Wizard.  The pictures are from Project Gutenberg's version.  I think this is representative of the reading experience--every couple paragraphs, there's a big full-color picture.  (Well, actually this wasn't representative of my reading experience, because I read it out of  The Complete Stories of Oz, which removed all the pictures.  But if you actually buy the original book, this would be the experience.)

Odds and Ends

* Continuity Error: The Nome King lost his memory in  The Emerald City of Oz , but this development is completely ignored in Tiktok and the Nome King. 

And there were a couple other little things that I thought might have been inconsistent with previous books, but, I don't know, is it even worth it to bring up continuity errors at this point in the series?  I mean, at this point, it's just obvious that L. Frank Baum took a very relaxed attitude to consistency across his series.   Maybe just leave it at that?  (I wonder if this was unique to L. Frank Baum, or if this is indicative of what fantasy was like 100 years ago.  Maybe the obsession with continuity and internal consistency in fantasy series is a recent phenomenon?  I wonder...)

Plus, it's not clear this book is supposed to be in continuity anyway.  (As I mentioned above, it's not part of the famous forty).  And even if it is in continuity, it's not clear when it's supposed to take place.

* The title of this collection is strange, isn't it?  Little Wizard Stories of Oz.  What does that even mean?  Apparently "Little Wizard" is now the name for the "Wizard of Oz", who pops up a few different times in this collection, and is always referred to as "the little Wizard".  Also, the little Wizard now has omnipotent magical powers that allow him to do pretty much anything.  (This was already kind of evident in the past 2 - books,  but it seems to be taken to another level here.)  I don't think this is a good character development--there's already too many characters in the Land of Oz with omnipotent magical power--but we'll see how it's used in the following books I guess.  We'll also have to see if the name "the little Wizard" sticks.

Rating: 

I don't know.  How do you rate a short little book like this?  It was alright, I guess.  It worked well for what it was.  5 out of 10 stars, I guess.  

Weekly Reading Vlogs: 

* January 9, 2022 p.749-750

* January 16, 2022 p.750-773

Video Review (Playlist HERE)

Little Wizard Stories of Oz by L. Frank Baum: Book Review

The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum

(Book Review--Land of Oz, Classics, Fantasy, Children's Books)  

(Read from The Complete Stories of Oz)

Started: December 7, 2021

Finished: January 2, 2022

(This review is written using my new format for book reviews.)

Background Information

Originally published in 1913, this was L. Frank Baum's 7th book in The Land of Oz series.  (L. Frank Baum had tried to end the series after book 6, but public demand and financial necessity eventually brought him back.) 

My History with this Book

5 years ago when I first attempted to read through The Complete Stories of Oz, I only to through the first 5 books, and halfway through the 6th.  This is book number 7, however, so from here on out, I'm entering these books fresh.  

Summary of the Plot (*SPOILERS*)

We start out the book with two completely new characters.  (Which is different. This is the first time we've done this since book number 2.)  Ojo and Unc Nunkie are two munchkins living in the forest in the Land of Oz.  They visit the Crooked Magician, who is one of Unc Nunkie's friends.  (And who, it turns out, is the same guy that makes the magical Powder of Life, which was a big plot point in book 2.)

There's an accident, and Unc Nunkie is turned into a statue.  Now, Ojo must go on a quest to get all the ingredients to make a potion in order to get Unc Nunkie back to life.

Like many other Oz books, this is a journey story.  Ojo walks around Oz, meets strange and wonderful creatures, and encounters dangers.

This is, however, the first Oz story so far in which the protagonists get swapped out halfway through.  In the beginning of the story, the Shaggy Man, the Glass Cat, and the Woozy are all accompanying Ojo.  But they end up staying at the Emerald City halfway through, and Ojo is joined by Dorothy and the Scarecrow instead.

Evaluation

It's okay.

It's another typical Oz story in which characters wander around and encounter strange things along the way.  I'm not sure I have much to say about it that I haven't said about the other Oz stories.  It's easy to read.  (It is a children's book, after all.)  Some of the strange lands that our characters encounter are fun to imagine.  I think that's about it for my commentary.

External Links

* Dane Cobain (who I'm doing this series with as a buddy reads), reviews the book on his website here:  

The new characters in this one were actually pretty interesting, and there’s something about a patchwork girl that I found to be super relatable. But I did have a problem with the plot, and it’s basically the same problem that keeps on occurring.

Basically, the main characters are trying to brew up a potion that can be used to turn some petrified people back into flesh and blood, and I just couldn’t help wondering why they didn’t just ask Ozma to use her magic belt to do it. They even meet Ozma about two thirds of the way through the book and carry on trying to gather up all of the ingredients they need when they could have just asked her for a cheeky favour.

I agree.

* As always, I made sure to check out Mari Ness's review at Tor.com: Fairness and Foolishness: The Patchwork Girl of Oz   Mari Ness comments on a number of interesting things.  She talks about the moral ambiguity in this book:

When I first read this book as a child, I was horrified that my kind hearted Tin Woodman was willing to let two people—one a beloved uncle of the main character—remain stone statues, essentially dead, all to keep a butterfly from feeling any pain.  And although as an adult I can see the Tin Woodman’s point, I still find the elevation of a butterfly over the urgent needs of two humans morally dubious.

Mari Ness also continues her theme of criticizing Ozma:

Believe it or not, I really don’t want to be all about the Ozma hate. But honestly, Ozma, would it have killed you to, you know, explain the idea behind your law to the Shaggy Man, at least, so that it would not have seemed so arbitrary and unfair?

And, there's an interesting little factoid at the end:

Two things mar Patchwork Girl: an incident with the Tottenhots, meant to refer to stereotypical descriptions of the Hottenhots of South Africa, and the horrible song played by the living phonograph, with the godawful lyrics, “Ah wants mah Lulu, my coal-black Lulu.”  The Oz characters, to their credit, also object to this song, even if they seem to be reacting more to the sound than to the lyrics.  Both bits are jarring in a book where a literally colorful woman, created to be a household slave, earns her independence and merrily defends her unusual, “crazy” appearance, refusing to be pitied or condemned. It’s also a depressing reminder that here, at least, Baum was all too much a man of his age, despite his pointed examples of tolerance and acceptance of differing sorts of people in this and other Oz books.(The racial references have been removed in the Books of Wonder editions, but can be found in other printings and in the Gutenberg etexts....

After reading this, I double checked.  And indeed, also in my version (The Complete Stories of Oz) "coal black" has been replaced by "cross-eyed".  But the original text is preserved on project Gutenberg.

* There's also the Wikipedia entry for this book, which had some interesting information about the writing of this book.  

The same correspondence (November 23–7, 1912) discusses the deleted Chapter 21 of the book, "The Garden of Meats." The text of the chapter has not survived, but Neill's illustrations and their captions still exist. The deleted chapter dealt with a race of vegetable people comparable to the Mangaboos in Chapters 4–6 of Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz. The vegetable people grow what Baum elsewhere calls "meat people," apparently for food; Neill's pictures show plants with the heads of human children^[4] being watered by their growers. (This is thematically connected with the anthropophagous plants in Chapter 10 of Patchwork Girl.) Frank Reilly tactfully wrote to Baum that the material was not "in harmony with your other fairy stories," and would generate "considerable adverse criticism." Baum saw his point; the chapter was dropped.^[5]

* And also via Wikipedia, I learned that the Wise Donkey who appears in this book is a crossover character from another of L. Frank Baum's fantasy books, The Magical Monarch of Mo.  (This continues the trend of what I've been noting in these Oz reviews--there's more than just an Oz series, there's a whole L. Frank Baum extended universe.)

* Update: Dane's video review is HERE.

Extended Quotation

"Now, then," said the woman briskly, "I must get you some supper, for you are doubtless hungry. What would you prefer: planked whitefish, omelet with jelly or mutton-chops with gravy?"

Ojo thought about it. Then he said: "I'll take the chops, if you please."

"Very well; amuse yourself while I'm gone; I won't be long," and then she went out by a door and left the prisoner alone.

Ojo was much astonished, for not only was this unlike any prison he had ever heard of, but he was being treated more as a guest than a criminal. There were many windows and they had no locks. There were three doors to the room and none were bolted. He cautiously opened one of the doors and found it led into a hallway. But he had no intention of trying to escape. If his jailor was willing to trust him in this way he would not betray her trust, and moreover a hot supper was being prepared for him and his prison was very pleasant and comfortable. So he took a book from the case and sat down in a big chair to look at the pictures.

This amused him until the woman came in with a large tray and spread a cloth on one of the tables. Then she arranged his supper, which proved the most varied and delicious meal Ojo had ever eaten in his life.

Tollydiggle sat near him while he ate, sewing on some fancy work she held in her lap. When he had finished she cleared the table and then read to him a story from one of the books.

"Is this really a prison?" he asked, when she had finished reading.

"Indeed it is," she replied. "It is the only prison in the Land of Oz."

"And am I a prisoner?"

"Bless the child! Of course."

"Then why is the prison so fine, and why are you so kind to me?" he earnestly asked.

Tollydiggle seemed surprised by the question, but she presently answered:

"We consider a prisoner unfortunate. He is unfortunate in two ways—because he has done something wrong and because he is deprived of his liberty. Therefore we should treat him kindly, because of his misfortune, for otherwise he would become hard and bitter and would not be sorry he had done wrong. Ozma thinks that one who has committed a fault did so because he was not strong and brave; therefore she puts him in prison to make him strong and brave. When that is accomplished he is no longer a prisoner, but a good and loyal citizen and everyone is glad that he is now strong enough to resist doing wrong. You see, it is kindness that makes one strong and brave; and so we are kind to our prisoners."

Ojo thought this over very carefully. "I had an idea," said he, "that prisoners were always treated harshly, to punish them."

"That would be dreadful!" cried Tollydiggle. "Isn't one punished enough in knowing he has done wrong? Don't you wish, Ojo, with all your heart, that you had not been disobedient and broken a Law of Oz?"

**** From Chapter 15: Ozma's Prisoner****

Rating: 

5 out of 10 Stars.  A completely average Oz story. 

Weekly Reading Vlogs: 

* December 26, 2021 p.621-664

* January 2, 2022 p.664-728

Video Review (Playlist HERE)

The Patchwork Girl of Oz by L. Frank Baum: Book Review

The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum

(Book Review--Land of Oz, Classics, Fantasy, Children's Books)  

(Read from The Complete Stories of Oz)

Started: December 7, 2021

Finished: December 15, 2021

(This review is written using my new format for book reviews.)

Background Information

Originally published in 1910, this is the 6th book in The Land of Oz series.   At the time, L. Frank Baum intended it to be the final book in the series (but the need for money would eventually bring him back for more books.)   

According to Wikipedia, "This is the first time in the Oz series that Baum made use of double plots for one of the books."  (So presumably double plots will become more common in the later books?  I guesss I'll see.)

My History With This Book

As I've mentioned before (HERE and HERE) this is my second attempt to read through The Complete Stories of Oz.  I first picked this book up about 5 years ago, but eventually got stalled out on it before finishing it.  The Emerald City of Oz was actually the book that I got stalled out on.  I got about one-third into it, but never finished it.

Summary of the Book (*SPOILERS*)

As noted above, this book has a double plot.  On the one hand, the book chronicles the attempts of the Nome King and his general to assemble a coalition of all the wicked creatures so that they can conquer the land of Oz.

On the other hand, the book follows the adventures of Dorothy and Aunt Em and Uncle Henry.

Aunt Em and Uncle Henry are losing their farm back in Kansas, so Ozma agrees to let Aunt Em and Uncle Henry and Dorothy all come to Oz to live forever.  

Uncle Henry and Aunt Em soon get bored in the land of Oz with no work to do, so Ozma suggests a tour of Oz.  Dorothy, Aunt Em, and Uncle Henry go on the tour, along with some other friends from the previous books (the Shaggy Man, Billina the hen, and the Wizard).  

The encounter the usual strange and bizarre things--a town full of paper dolls, a town full of jigsaw puzzle people, a town full of talking utensils, a town full of talking bread, a town full of talking bunnies, et cetera.

Meanwhile, the Nome King and his team of wicked creatures is getting ready to invade Oz.

Ozma of Oz hasn't prepared any defenses, and, as it turns out, isn't particularly worried about the invasion.  But the scarecrow remembers that there is a magic fountain that makes anyone who drinks it forget their identity.  So the baddies are tricked into drinking from the fountain, and Oz is saved.

But what about future invasions?  Dorothy and Ozma ask Glinda the witch to make the Land of Oz invisible, so no one can ever find it again.  And then L. Frank Baum announces to his readers that because Oz is now invisible, he can no longer get reports from Dorothy about her adventures.  He's sure everyone lived happily ever after, and please don't ask for any more Oz books in the future because it's invisible now kids.  Okay?

The Reading Experience

Well, like I said above, I ended up stalling out on this book the first time I tried to read it 5 years ago.  So I guess it obviously didn't grip me that much.

I don't know, it's not terrible.  I think I was just starting to get bored by too much of the same thing by this point in the series (after attempting to read The Complete Stories of Oz straight through.)

I suppose it doesn't help that the action in this book isn't exactly gripping.  

The threat of invasion in Oz is new (L. Frank Baum has not done that plot before).  But it is also a distant threat.  The Nome King's general is just wandering from land to land, with no hint that the invasion is going to be ready until near the end of the book.  Meanwhile Dorothy, Aunt Em, and Uncle Henry are just wandering around the Land of Oz without much to do.

Evaluation

So, over the course of these 6 books, the Land of Oz has evolved from a dangerous place full of dangerous creatures to a happy utopia where nothing bad ever happens.  It's been an interesting tonal switch to watch over the course of the series.  I'm not exactly sure what the motivations behind this were, but I suspect that L. Frank Baum wanted to create a happy fantasy world for his child readers.

This book, even more so than its predecessors, lays out the vision of Oz as a socialist utopian land where everyone shares everything together, and no one has to work too hard.  (See HERE for the complete quotation.)

But in the same book, we get to see the wicked baddies assembling outside of Oz, and so it's an interesting tonal juxtaposition.  See, for example, from chapter 4:

"Oh, indeed!" exclaimed the King. Then he turned to his servants and said: "Please take General Crinkle to the torture chamber. There you will kindly slice him into thin slices. Afterward you may feed him to the seven-headed dogs."

"Anything to oblige your Majesty," replied the servants, politely, and led the condemned man away.

Well, so much for the happy fantasy land story where nothing bad ever happens!

In fact, even within the land of Oz, we get to see that not everyone lives happily ever after.  (Some of the talking bread creatures are eaten up by Toto the dog!)

Commonplace Book

* Chapter 3: Utopianism in Oz

Extended Quotation

They visited the Sugar Bunns, the Currant Bunns and the Spanish Bunns, the latter having a decidedly foreign appearance. Then they saw the French Rolls, who were very polite to them, and made a brief call upon the Parker H. Rolls, who seemed a bit proud and overbearing.

"But they're not as stuck up as the Frosted Jumbles," declared Mr. Bunn, "who are people I really can't abide. I don't like to be suspicious or talk scandal, but sometimes I think the Jumbles have too much baking powder in them."

Just then a dreadful scream was heard, and Dorothy turned hastily around to find a scene of great excitement a little way down the street. The people were crowding around Toto and throwing at him everything they could find at hand. They pelted the little dog with hard-tack, crackers, and even articles of furniture which were hard baked and heavy enough for missiles.

Toto howled a little as the assortment of bake stuff struck him; but he stood still, with head bowed and tail between his legs, until Dorothy ran up and inquired what the matter was.

"Matter!" cried a rye loafer, indignantly, "why the horrid beast has eaten three of our dear Crumpets, and is now devouring a Salt-rising Biscuit!"

"Oh, Toto! How could you?" exclaimed Dorothy, much distressed.

Toto's mouth was full of his salt-rising victim; so he only whined and wagged his tail. But Billina, who had flown to the top of a cracker house to be in a safe place, called out:

"Don't blame him, Dorothy; the Crumpets dared him to do it."

"Yes, and you pecked out the eyes of a Raisin Bunn—one of our best citizens!" shouted a bread pudding, shaking its fist at the Yellow Hen.

"What's that! What's that?" wailed Mr. Cinnamon Bunn, who had now joined them. "Oh, what a misfortune—what a terrible misfortune!"

"See here," said Dorothy, determined to defend her pets, "I think we've treated you all pretty well, seeing you're eatables, an' reg'lar food for us. I've been kind to you, and eaten your old wheelbarrows and pianos and rubbish, an' not said a word. But Toto and Billina can't be 'spected to go hungry when the town's full of good things they like to eat, 'cause they can't understand your stingy ways as I do."

"You must leave here at once!" said Mr. Bunn, sternly.

"Suppose we won't go?" asked Dorothy, who was now much provoked.

"Then," said he, "we will put you into the great ovens where we are made, and bake you."

Dorothy gazed around and saw threatening looks upon the faces of all. She had not noticed any ovens in the town, but they might be there, nevertheless, for some of the inhabitants seemed very fresh. So she decided to go, and calling to Toto and Billina to follow her she marched up the street with as much dignity as possible, considering that she was followed by the hoots and cries of the buns and biscuits and other bake stuff.

***END QUOTATION  From Chapter 17*****

Connections with other Books I've Read (and Movies I've Watched)

* It's clear by this point in the series, and especially in this book, that the Land of Oz is a land where everything is alive and everything is sentient.  At least in some part of Oz. The paper dolls are sentient.  The utensils are sentient.  The bread and crackers are sentient.  

But in a world where everything is alive and can talk, do they live happily ever after?  Or do they inevitably meet a tragic fate, like when some of the delicious talking bread gets eaten (see the extended quotation above.)  I can't help but think of the film Sausage Party.  Sausage Party is a lot darker than L. Frank Baum.  And a lot more crass.  But they both share essentially the same joke.  The wonderful fairy-tale world, where everything is alive and everything can talk, quickly ends in disaster.

* Poor L. Frank Baum.  He kept trying to end the Oz series, but the public kept insisting that he keep writing.  I can't help but think of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes.  

Links

* As always, I continue to enjoy the reviews of Mari Ness at Tor.com: Invading Utopia: The Emerald City of Oz

The dual plots give this book a rather schizophrenic feel, not helped by the very different tones of each.  The invasion plot is as close as Baum got to pure horror in the Oz books: the Phantasms, master illusionists who revel in evil, are particularly effective.

But if the Phantasms provide Baum’s most obvious and ghastly horror, some rather wretched stuff is going on in the See Oz and Eat Some of Its Inhabitants Along the Way Plot. (And I’m not just talking about Ozma finding an imminent invasion dreadfully dull.)  Ozma has Dorothy visit some seemingly delightful places—a village of living paper dolls, a second village of living jigsaw puzzles—but both places are frighteningly fragile. A single sneeze from the Shaggy Man nearly topples the paper dolls. As for the jigsaw puzzles—if no one comes along to solve them, they must remain on the ground in tiny pieces, completely unable to move. (This totally freaked me out when I was a kid.)

But the worst is to come after Dorothy meanders off with Toto and Billina and finds herself in Bunbury, where her two companions eat some of the inhabitants (made of bread, they are sentient and can talk.)

* From Wikipedia: 

The Emerald City of Oz contains more material on the social organization of Oz than most of the earlier books, and as a consequence has attracted commentary on its Utopian aspects.^[3] The "explicitly socialist" economy of Oz has been contrasted to other "fantasy" projections of socialist societies, like Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward (1888) and William Morris's News from Nowhere (1890). How far such analyses and comparisons should be pursued is, of course, open to debate; as Baum writes of the social structure of Oz in Chapter Three, p. 31, "I do not suppose such an arrangement would be practical with us...."^[4] There are also strong similarities between The Emerald City of Oz (and to a certain extent the other Oz books) and the 1915 feminist utopia Herland (novel) by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Today probably best known for The Yellow Wallpaper, Gilman was, like Baum, a newspaper editor who used her publication as a platform for social reform. The literary connection between Gilman and Baum is thought to be another campaigning newspaper editor, Matilda Joslyn Gage, the women's rights activist who happened to be the mother of Baum's wife, Maud Gage Baum.^[5] Sally Roesch Wagner of The Matilda Joslyn Gage Foundation published The Wonderful Mother of Oz describing how Matilda Gage's feminist politics were sympathetically channeled by her son-in-law into his Oz books.^[6]

* And Dane Reads Written Review: 

The buddy read of the Wizard of Oz series continues! I’ve been reading them with my YouTube friend Joel Swagman, and we’ve been tackling one book every couple of weeks. The last one was a little bit of a disappointment, but I did enjoy this one some more, although it’s not quite at the heights that the earlier books in the series were able to achieve.

Odds and Ends

* Well, that's convenient!  Now Dorothy and her family all live in the Land of Oz.  No more contrived plots and statistically unlikely natural disasters will be needed now to get Dorothy to the land of Oz for the beginning of each new book.  Now Dorothy and her family will just live their permanently.  L. Frank Baum intended this to be the last book in the series, so I guess he wasn't thinking about more sequels at this point.  But since we all know he eventually gave in and started writing more sequels eventually,  I imagine that having Dorothy in Oz will be a convenient starting point from here on out.

* So, The Wizard has magical powers now.  (He learned them from Glinda the Sorceress).  

"Oh, Mr. Wizard! How did you manage to do it?" asked Dorothy.

"It's a trick Glinda the Sorceress taught me, and it is much better magic than I used to practise in Omaha, or when I first came to Oz," he answered. "When the Good Glinda found I was to live in the Emerald City always, she promised to help me, because she said the Wizard of Oz ought really to be a clever Wizard, and not a humbug. So we have been much together and I am learning so fast that I expect to be able to accomplish some really wonderful things in time."  (From chapter 14)

This seems to me to be rather pointless.  We already have plenty of magical characters in the Land of Oz.  We don't need any more.  The whole point of The Wizard's character was that he was an excellent trickster and an illusionist.  To give him real magical powers seems to me to ruin what was unique about his character. 

Rating: 

5 out of 10 Stars.  The plot doesn't really go anywhere, but at least there are some imaginative scenes along the way.

Weekly Reading Vlogs:

* December 12, 2021 p.484-550

* December 19, 2021 p.550-609

Video Review (Playlist HERE)

The Emerald City of Oz by L. Frank Baum: Book Review