On My Shelves: The Magic of Oz

With The Magic of Oz we approach the end of the original series, as this is the thirteenth and penultimate book in the novels by Baum himself.

Young Kiki Aru, a boy of the Hyup people who live atop Mount Munch, is a bored and indolent sort of boy, the kind who seems always unwilling to be part of the community around him. One day, however, he discovers the only magical secret his father, Bini Aru, had preserved from the days that Bini Aru was a great Sorcerer: the magical word "Pyrzqxgl", complete with instructions on how to pronounce this peculiar word, which can transform anything into anything else.

This seems an excellent opportunity to relieve his boredom, and so – after very carefully memorizing the pronunciation of the word – he transforms himself into a bird and flies across the Deadly Desert to tour some of the distant lands he has only heard of in tales. When he discovers that in these lands one needs money to, for example, spend a night at an inn, Kiki Aru demonstrates that he has even less conscience than he does social skill, transforming into a bird so he can steal the money he needs and fly away with it.

Another bird witnesses this feat, but Kiki Aru laughs at the bird and, told that he was being wicked, says he's glad.

At this, another voice speaks up, approving of Kiki's attitude – the voice of none other than Ruggedo, the former Nome King.

Once more, Baum decides to ignore his prior continuity in favor of getting to a story he finds interesting; the last time we saw Ruggedo, he had apparently reformed, his experiences at the hands of the motley crew in Tik-Tok of Oz having given him a new perspective in life. Here, Baum has retconned that, deciding to take events from the point that Ruggedo was kicked out and then had a many-pocketed garment made but to stop before his reformation. This version of Ruggedo has been wandering for years, dreaming of revenge, living as well as he might through pocketsfull of brilliant gems but still a wanderer and exile.

In Kiki Aru, Ruggedo sees a perfect opportunity to achieve his true goals of revenge upon those of Oz and to regain his kingdom. While Kiki Aru is far too clever to allow Ruggedo to simply take the secret of the magic word, he is in no way a match for a devious villain like Ruggedo, who knows that Kiki Aru's "wickedness" is really mere childish spite and contrariness than anything else.

Between the two of them, they devise a quite clever plan to travel to Oz – using only forms of birds and beasts, so that Glinda's book will not record their actions – and raise an army from the beasts of Oz by convincing the beasts that they are in fact the secondary and oppressed people of Oz. After the revolution, Kiki Aru will be able to transform the beasts into people (to occupy and make use of the human cities) and transform the former people into beasts and exile them to the wilds. This isn't at all a bad plan in outline, especially for a children's book, and the two proceed to carry it out.

In the meantime, we find that Ozma's birthday is fast approaching. As with The Road to Oz, it is expected that her birthday will be quite a celebration, and all of her close friends are trying to devise some gift or performance that they can provide the Fairy Ruler with that she couldn't get herself. Dorothy, having a hard time figuring out what to do, asks her friends, getting various apropos answers – the Tin Woodman's making her a girdle of tin nuggets set with emeralds, the Scarecrow some woven straw slippers set with gems, and so on – but it is ultimately Glinda that gives her the idea of making a special cake. Between her and the Wizard, they decide on a cake which will, in the center, house a number of miniature monkeys; the monkeys will emerge upon the cake being cut, perform, then serve the cake.

Of course, this means that they'll need to find some monkeys and convince them to go along with the plan…

In basic structure, The Magic of Oz is rather similar to The Emerald City of Oz; there is a powerful and unsuspected force preparing to destabilize or destroy Oz – led in both cases by the Nome Ruggedo – while at the same time a much more innocuous set of adventures happen which are ostensibly not connected to the main plot.

However, The Magic of Oz improves significantly on this plot by both connecting the Wizard and Dorothy's journey with that of the conspirators Kiki Aru and Ruggedo (by the fact that the forest of beasts the conspirators chooses turns out to be the same forest in which Dorothy and the Wizard go to find the monkeys they need), and by making one of the secondary missions, the search for a particular Magic Flower for Ozma by Trot and Cap'n Bill, much more than a mere travelogue but instead a venture with considerable difficulty and peril that results in the two being trapped on an isolated island in desperate need of the Wizard's assistance.

Baum's characterization is also more carefully thought out. The failure of the conspirators' plans comes from Kiki Aru's perfectly understandable panic when he sees the Wizard and party arrive, fearing that the newcomers will discover the plot and turn the beasts against him and Ruggedo. He therefore attempts a very ill-advised pre-emptive strike, transforming the entire party from the Emerald City and then even transforming Ruggedo when the latter tries to stop him.

The resolution of this main plot turns out to be less of a deus ex machina than some others, as well, since it relies on the Wizard of Oz discovering the secret of the magic word (although there is a considerable bit of author-arranged luck involved).

Very little of The Magic of Oz was used in my development of Polychrome; about the only relevant piece was the explicit statement that only humans and humanoids were tracked by the Book of Records. This point was vital for the plans of Ugu and Mrs. Yoop/Amanita.

Overall, The Magic of Oz is a good second-tier Oz novel – not quite at the level of the best, but clever, with a tighter plot than many and with some excellent and even tense sequences in which our friends appear to actually be in some real peril.