I discussed Baum and his Oz books in a prior Under the Influence, but in honor of the release of Polychrome, I thought it might be appropriate to perform a review of each of the first fourteen Oz novels, including particular reference to events, characters, and my own thoughts on each book that found their way into Polychrome. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, often just called The Wizard of Oz, is the first of the Oz books, published in 1900, 115 years ago.
The basic outline of the story is well-known, thought today mostly through the classic MGM movie: Dorothy Gale and the small house she lives in are caught up into a giant twister and deposited relatively unharmed in a strange land called Oz; there she is told her only hope of getting back home is the mysterious and powerful Wizard of Oz in the Emerald City. On her travels to the Emerald City she meets a talking Scarecrow who desperately wants to have brains, a Tin Woodman who desires a real heart, and a Cowardly Lion who wants the courage appropriate to his stature as the King of Beasts.
The Wizard agrees to fulfill their requests – if they will destroy the Wicked Witch of the West, the (supposedly) last and most powerful of the Wicked Witches that once inhabited Oz. Without other choices, the four travel to the West and the kingdom of the Winkies, where they are captured by the Wicked Witch; by accident, Dorothy manages to destroy the Witch with a pail of water, which was her only real weakness.
Returning in triumph, the group makes another disheartening discovery when they find that the "Great and Powerful Oz" is just an old sideshow man, a native of America like Dorothy, who's used special effects and showmanship to trick people into thinking he's a great wizard. He nonetheless tries to fulfill his bargains, but while the three natives of Oz are reasonably happy with his offerings, the balloon he creates to take him and Dorothy home breaks free a moment too early, leaving Dorothy stranded. Nonetheless, Dorothy is finally able to return home with the help of Glinda, the Good Witch of the South.
This general outline applies to both the book and the movie; but the book differs from the movie in both an important thematic way, and in a great number of details.
First and foremost is the fact that in the books, Oz is REAL. There is no implication that this is in any way a dream or delusion: Dorothy really is taken up by a twister, dropped in Oz, and has many perilous adventures before finally being returned home, after long enough for Uncle Henry to have built a new house and settled back in.
This change is vitally important as it transforms Dorothy's journey from a sort of self-imposed therapy to force her to accept her rather drab farm life for what it is, to a story about a young girl, suddenly thrown into a completely new and dangerous place, who takes control of her life and becomes – despite being physically nearly helpless at first – one of the most powerful and important forces in the country.
While innocent and often self-effacing, Dorothy Gale is a girl of great personal courage, determination, and resilience. She's warned that her journey will be dangerous, and the Munchkins who credit her with the destruction of the Wicked Witch of the East are more than happy to offer her a home there, but she doesn't hesitate at all; she has to get back because she knows her aunt and uncle rely on her.
Later books – roughly around The Emerald City of Oz and later – would make the statement that people do not die in Oz. In the early books, however, this was far from true; people could die, and die horrific deaths indeed. Dorothy's journey is fraught with deadly dangers. Yet she has a unique power to gather people to her, and make people listen, a power born of her innocence, her straightforward approach, and a naïve confidence in doing what is right.
As in the movie, she has as her three major companions the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman (named Nick Chopper), and the Cowardly Lion. Each of them feels that they are desperately inadequate for their preferred roles in some manner; the Scarecrow with a head stuffed with straw thinks he requires brains to be smart, the gentle and considerate Woodman believes he must gain a heart, and the Cowardly Lion thinks that the fear he feels in the presence of danger means that he has no courage.
The book provides the reader with many more opportunities to come to know these characters – and to realize how little they know themselves. The Scarecrow consistently thinks of solutions to their most desperate moments, ranging from seeing that chopping through a log bridge will stop pursuing monsters from reaching them, to discovering a means to protect the party from a swarm of bees. The Tin Woodman's sympathy and soft-hearted nature brings kindness to the party in turn, rescuing them from more than one situation; and the Cowardly Lion, though shaking in his knees, turns to confront even the most formidable enemies to defend his friends.
There are a lot of other adventures that the group has on the way through Oz – the monstrous Kalidahs that try to hunt the party down, the Wicked Witch's swarms of bees and packs of wolves, the Hammerheads of the Quadling Country, and more. In addition, the movie-famous adventures aren't exactly the same in the book. For example, the Winged Monkeys eventually become Dorothy's servants and, finally, are given to the service of Glinda, who frees them. As another, the Witch that meets Dorothy upon her first arrival is the Witch of the North, not Glinda, and she gives Dorothy protection in the form of a blessed and magical kiss on her forehead.
We also learn a lot about the background of our friends – we find out how Nick Chopper came to be a living man of tin, and how the Scarecrow was made, and not only why the Cowardly Lion was seeking courage but how he truly ends up becoming the King of Beasts. For a children's book, there's a lot of detail and complexity of character in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
For Polychrome, I tended to assume that most of what we saw in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was pretty accurate. This was Oz as we first encountered it, and – taking the base conceit that Baum knew something of the truth – it would make sense that he would be tailoring and changing less at the beginning than at the end. It also made more sense than a world in which everyone was completely deathless and unaging – something that sounds real attractive until you start thinking about it.
While she only makes a small appearance in Polychrome, one of the most powerful hidden forces in the novel is that of Dorothy Gale. Dorothy literally transforms Oz almost single-handed (with Ozma being the second major force – see the next book). Dorothy's fearless, straightforward, and utterly indomitable approach to life wins her allies at every turn, and tends to confuse and disconcert her adversaries. It was Dorothy who discovered and brought together the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and Cowardly Lion – who respectively then became the Ruler of Oz (following the departure of the Wizard), the Emperor of the Winkies, and the true King of Beasts of all Oz. Dorothy (as we will see later) defeated the Nome King and stole from him his greatest treasure. Dorothy helped return the Wizard to Oz, and made him reform from the less-respectable man he had been. Dorothy is later instrumental in numerous other events.
Dorothy's character is established clearly in this book; while later books allowed her to grow a little bit (her age is uncertain but probably no more than 10 in the first book, while later she's more like 12-13), her personality remains almost unchanged, and one of the most powerful forces in Oz. I take much of my knowledge of Oz, and her most beloved and formidable mortal resident, from this book.
As a novel, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is clearly an earlier work; it is more crudely written than later works (though still quite readable) and has a number of assumptions and events that are clearly meant with a more direct and deliberate satirical touch than we see in most of the later books. For example, in the early books, everyone entering the Emerald City has green glasses placed on them, ostensibly to protect them from the blinding glory of the City, but actually to make them see the city as being all emerald in color, rather than a far more ordinary metropolis. It has somewhat fewer "unfortunate implications" than some of the other books (which I'll discuss in turn).
Nonetheless, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz remains a powerful and fascinating work of children's fiction, and well worth a read at any age for its cleverness and influence on multiple generations!
Yes, as a kid I noticed the retcon where people didn’t die in Oz … I wondered whether the WWotE was still alive and suffering under the old farmhouse.
As far as I could tell, he didn’t retcon it completely — dead people were still dead — which was just as well, because otherwise I could just see “THE WITCH IS BACK — AND THIS TIME, IT’S PERSONAL!”
Grin. I didn’t see the later Baum Oz books until I was an adult, and when I got to that “nobody aged” bit, *including the babies* my first thought was “ik!” and the second… what about the poor women who were pregnant – maybe even eight MONTHS pregnant? Classic case of not thinking it through.
Well, it was a children’s book. Children don’t generally think about that stuff either at the target age.
And as I note in the long series of reviews, consistency wasn’t one of the little hobgoblins that bothered Baum much. He’d retcon at the drop of a hat for whatever his current story was.