I wrap up my time with the Bastables

With New Treasure Seekers, or the Bastable Children In Search of a Fortune, my time with the Bastable kids has come to an end, along with the series of books.

The Story of the Treasure Seekers was A. E. Nesbit's first children's book. Her influence on children's literature really can't be underestimated. She made her child protagonists realistic, full of believable flaws and virtues. She was also a forerunner in what would become urban fantasy, having fantastic elements appear in the contemporary world.

The Bastable books are a beloved part of her work and I decided that I would make 2016 the year I finally read them. I have long loved her Psammead trilogy of Five Children and It, the Phoenix and the Carpet and the Story of the Amulet.

As those of you who have already read my blogs about The Story of the Treasure Seekers and the Wouldbegoods know, I haven't really been taken by the Bastable books.

The formula for the stories is that each chapter has the siblings get into wacky hijinks. Whether it be trying to earn some money or do a good deed or just playing a game, they actively use bad judgment and poor impulse control to get into trouble, although their hearts are always in the right place.

Part of what turned me off from the Bastable books was how clueless the kids are. At the very least, the older pair of Dora and Oswald should have a better idea of how the world works and be better judges of character. Instead, Oswald seems dead set against the idea of maturity.

They do get a pass in the first book, seeing as how their mother is dead and their father's business is in ruins. While Oswald's narrative is allegedly about them trying to restore the family fortunes, it's really about them coping with how the household had fallen apart. The second book has them have a vacation in the countryside (they're wealthy again, by the way) and trying to do good deeds. Frankly, it's a surprise that a petition isn't passed in the neighborhood banning them from good deeds. 

The third book lacks the overarching narrative structure of the first two books. One of the stories even takes place before the first book, the story of their first Christmas without their mother. If someone told me the third book was originally published as standalone stories in magazines, I'd believe them. In fact, them becoming treasure seekers again, trying to raise money for a woman who doesn't need it, doesn't take place until over halfway through the book.

So, while the book does have some of the strongest single adventures of the Bastables, the whole is the weakest of the three books. It also ends abruptly, with Oswald literally writing that he's done with all this writing.

In comparison, in my beloved Psammead trilogy, each book has a strong structure and the overall series forms an arc with plenty of character development. I know Nesbit has written better and more meaningful books.

Still, if you've read the first two Bastable books and enjoyed them at all, you will enjoy this one. If nothing else, you should at least reading the Christmas pudding chapter.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25496

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus: Baum tackles the big red guy

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus is just what it says on the tin, an origin story for Santa Claus. After the Wizard of Oz, it might be the most influential book that L. Frank Baum wrote.

I don't think that someone could write a book like the Life and Adventures of Santa Claus today. Baum wrote it in a fairy tale, folk story manner, very much honoring the idea that he was writing about children's beliefs. I think it would be hard for someone to approach the same material today without deconstructing it. And the mythology of Santa Claus is now so codified that it is practically set in stone. Baum wrote about Santa Claus before so much was defined, even though the book helped create some of those ideas, like Santa having magical assistants.

Only a few decades later, Seabury Quinn wrote Roads, an origin of Santa Claus as well as a deconstruction of Santa Claus with Santa as a Viking who served under both King Herod and Ponticus Pilate. It's an audacious book on the sheer idea alone but no one is going to accuse to of trying to create a Santa Claus that's true to the folklore.  

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus starts with being found as orphan baby by Fairies, who bring him up. After he grows up and goes out into the world, Claus learns of the suffering and sorrows of the world. Since children are the most innocent, he decides to help them by creating toys. Both as a concept and a physical object. As the scope of his toy work grows, the varies benevolent magical races help out. When Santa Claus grows old and dying, the magical races decide to grant him immortality through the power of a one-use magical item, so he can help out children for all time.

Oh, and basically behind Santa Claus's back, there is a major war between the nice enchanted races and the nasty ones who want to end his toy making, children helping ways.

I've actually read this book a number of times over the years. It's a pretty good read. While you know from the start how it's going to end (well, maybe the not immorality bit but Santa becoming Santa), it has some odd twists like that war.

And, as much as Baum's work has any kind of coherent cosmology, The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus defines it. It describes the benevolent races of fairies and ryls and knooks, as well as mentioning the original version of the land of Mo and the nomes. Baum never let continuity get in the way of a good story but this book gives us the clearest framework of his fantasy world.

The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus is a good book for understanding the work of Baum but it's also a very good children's book.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/520

The Club of Queer Trades is a little taste of Chesterton

Every year or so, I reread Gilbert K. Chesterton’s Club of Queer Trades.

It’s not because it’s one of his masterpieces. In all honesty, The Man Who Was Thursday and any given volume of Father Brown are Chesterton’s truest masterpieces in my eyes. And I can think of other books by him, The Man Who Knew Too Much or the Paradoxes of Mister Pond, that I also think are much stronger.

So why do I keep rereading it? Well, because it’s a quick read but still carries the charm and wit that made Chesterton so brilliant and so much fun. I am always finding new books to read by Chesterton and rereading others but The Club of Queer Trades is a reliable little sip of Chesterton.

A collection of six stories, The Club of Queer Trades is bound together by the idea that the characters are discovering strange situations that turn out to people who have come up with entirely new ways to make a living.

The detective role in the stories is held by Basil Grant, a former judge who is definitely whimsical and who might also be a little insane. Amusingly, a reoccurring character is his brother Rupert, who actually is a detective, although apparently not a very good one. And, at the end, it’s pretty obvious Basil solved most of the mysteries by already knowing what was really going on.

Two of the stories have really stuck with me over the years.

The collection starts with The Tremendous Adventure of Major Brown, which is the strongest story in the book and up there in the Chesterton cannon in general. It elevates the whole book.

* SPOILERS * SPOILERS* SPOILERS*

Major Brown apparently has stumbled across a conspiracy to kill him. In actuality, he actually got mixed up with someone who subscribes to a service that is basically a LARP. The fact that the queer trade actually exits now just adds to my entertainment.

I also like how the actress involved in LARP ends up falling for Major Brown because she knew lots of men who were brave when they knew it was fake but Major Brown is the only man she knew who went down into a cellar believing a killer was waiting for him.

The other story that remains with me is the Singular Speculation of the House Agent. The twist is that the man sells tree houses, which is also a real profession these days. However, what made it stick with me is how well Chesterton describes the characters dreamy, twilight journey through wilderness to find that tree house.

The Club of Queer Trades isn’t a perfect book. While it’s bound together by an idea, it doesn’t have the thematic through line that Chesterton’s later books have. It isn’t the book I’d use to introduce someone to Chesteron’s fiction (that’d be the Innocence of Father Brown, by the way) But it is a nice Chesterton snack.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1696

The Magical Monarch of Mo, the start of Baum's fantasies

The Magical Monarch of Mo, originally published as A New Wonderland, was L. Frank Baum's first fantasy book, published right before the Wizard of Oz. 

And it has more whimsy and nonsense than any of the Oz books. Living jigsaw puzzles or people who carry their brains around in cans pale before how silly Mo is. Everything, from clothes to baked goods, grows from trees in Mo so no one has to work. No one ever dies in Mo. Getting chopped up or flattened is just an inconvenience.

Unlike most of Baum's fantasies, the Magical Monarch of Mo is a collection of short stories, connected by either about the monarch himself or one of his innumerable relatives. There is also a loose arc about the purple dragon, the greatest foe of the Monarch because the dragon is a candy hog. Oh, and likes to bite off people heads.

I found the Magical Monarch of Mo to be surprisingly fun. Not only is it lighter than almost anything else he wrote, it embraces the silliness without restraint, like how the monarch escapes from a  pit by turning it upside down so he's on top. Not having an outsider like Dorothy actually helps because it lets the natives of Moe just romp about.

Many of the ideas in the book reappear in later books, like the idea of food growing on trees or no one ever dying in Oz. However, they get  scaled back from the craziness that you find in Mo.

While the Monarch does not reappear in later books, moon is referred to in both the Oz books and the Life and Times of Santa Claus (Santa gets his candy from Mo).

The Magical Monarch of Mo is not one of Baum's greatest books. It definitely lacks dramatic tension when someone can get their head bitten off and be just fine. It also lacks a strong central protagonist like Dorothy for the readers to relate to and cheer on. However, it is still silly fun and if a child can handle someone getting squished flat and pumped back up, they will enjoy it.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16259

The Emerald City of Oz, where Baum planned on ending the series

Ho boy. This is a big one. The Emerald City of Oz is the book that turns so much of Oz on its head. The Nome King returns, more vindictive than ever. Vast evil armies march upon Oz. Oh, and Dorothy moves to Oz permanently, along with Uncle Henry and Aunt Em.

Okay, it's that last one that really shakes things up and breaks the formula we've become used to. You know, Dorothy somehow ends up in the fairy lands, has adventures and goes home to her loving family that don’t quite know what to make of her stories.

Like pretty much everyone alive today, my first exposure to Oz was the 1939 movie with Judy Garland. That version of the Wizard of Oz ends with it all being a dream. Having Uncle Henry and Auntie Em end up living in the emerald city is a huge difference than it all being just a dream.

As is often the case with Baum, real life does have an explanation for this big shift. Baum was wrapping up the series and intended for the Emerald City of Oz to be the last book, which also explains the whole evil armies invading Oz too.

Of course, the fact that he would go on to write eight more Oz books, plus a small short story collection about Oz shows how wrong he was. Unfortunately for Baum but fortunately for those of us who enjoyed his Oz books, nothing else sold nearly as well and he had to go back to Oz in the name of money.

(I do think that Sky Island, which was the last book he wrote before he threw in the towel and went back to Oz is a really good book, by the way)

Anyway, let the spoilers begin as I give a quick summery of the book.

Most of The Emerald City of Oz goes back and forth between two plotlines that dovetail together at the end of the book. On the one hand, we have the villains’ storyline. The Nome King is back, planning his revenge on Oz by leading several armies of evil creatures to conquer Oz. On the other hand, we have Dorothy and her family immigrating to Oz and spending some time as tourists before they learn about the impending invasion.

At the beginning of the book, Uncle Henry’s about to lose the farm. It turns out that he never was able to financially get over the farmhouse getting destroyed in the first book.

After she learns this, Dorothy arranges with Ozma for the whole family to move to Oz. (So that happens right at the start of the book so I didn’t spoil much mentioning it in the first paragraph)

After they arrive, in order to help them settle in and get used to what Oz is like, Dorothy and the Wizard take Uncle Henry and Aunt Em on a road trip where they get a chance to see some of the crazy tiny little kingdoms in Oz.

While Baum is no stranger to oddball places, he really pulls out the stops with this trip. Living jigsaw puzzles, talking utensils and philosophy arguments between crabs and zebras.

The trip does include what I found to be one of Dorothy’s most unsympathetic moments. After Toto eats some of the inhabitants of Bunbury, who are living bread, Dorothy takes offense to them having a problem with that since they are food, after all.

The other plotline, which I found more interesting, describes how the Nome King appoints a new general, Guph. Guph then goes out and recruits increasingly nasty allies. The Whimsies are giants with tiny heads that they cover with papier-mâché masks, the Growleywogs are even stronger giants with a total absence of body fat and finally the Phanfasms who have vast magical powers.

Of course, every last one of them, including the Nomes, plan on betraying everyone else. While they don’t get a chance to, my money would be on the Phanfasms. The other three groups have their silly elements but the Phanfasms are just plain creepy.

Thanks to Ozma’s magical picture, Ozma and company learn about how the Nomes are tunneling to Oz so the armies can invade. They trick the armies into drinking from the Fountain of Oblivion, causing them to lose all their memories and give up this whole evil invasion nonsense.

Glinda the Good then casts a spell that renders Oz invisible to the outside world. Since Dorothy was allegedly the one telling Baum everything that happened, his source has dried up, hence wrapping up the series.

Baum might not have ended up ending the Oz books with the Emerald City of Oz but he certainly does a good job making it a worthy end to the series. While the General Jinjur got farther in her civil war in the Land of Oz as far as conquering Oz is concerned, the Nome King and his allies are a far more serious threat. They are easily the greatest danger that the land faces in all of Baum’s books.

Heck, even the degree of silly stops on Dorothy and company’s grand tour of Oz exceeds anything else in the series for sheer density of locations. Baum clearly planned on ending in a big way and I’d say he succeeded.

Of course, it wasn’t the end. Not by a long shot. But, boy, were things shaken up.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/517

Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz - dangerous underground adventures

Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz is the fourth book in the Oz canon and, in case you didn't guess, brings the wizard back to Oz. Bringing the wizard back into the fold really gets the whole gang back together.

OK, spoilers time as I give a quick summary of the plot.

Dorothy, on her way back from Australia, is visiting some relatives in California. And earthquake opens up the world beneath her feet. Okay, under the buggy she is riding in. Dorothy, her cousin Zeb, the horse Jim and Dorothy's kitten Eureka all end up falling into the magical kingdoms under the Earth. 

Shortly thereafter, the wizard shows up in a balloon that had ALSO fallen through a crack in the Earth from ANOTHER Earthquake. Seriously, coincidence in the eyes books is more reliable than gravity. Lightning doesn't just strike twice, you could set your a clock by it.

At this point, our heroic little band ends up visiting a series of magical kingdom's, practically turning into a road trip movie. However, unlike some of the later books, there is some thematic progression in their travels, with each one more dangerous than the last.

They start off in a glass city of the heartless vegetable people. They passed through a beautiful valley filled with ferocious, invisible bears. 

After a breather scene where they meet the silly Braided Man, our heroes end up in the silent, wooden kingdom of the gargoyles. The gargoyles might actually be one of Baum's most disturbing creations, not the least because they completely silent and relentless.

The gargoyles are followed up by a nest of baby dragons who really, really want to eat our heroes.However, they do have some amusing dialogue so they're not nearly as creepy as the gargoyles.

Once our heroes get past baby dragons, they come to the end of their line and are well and truly trapped. Fortunately, Ozma regularly checks on Dorothy magically and uses the power of the Nome King's magic belt to transport the mole safely to us. As I mentioned in Ozma of Oz, that belt is the ultimate deuce ex mechana of the books.

After that, everyone has some fun times in Oz. It is worth noting that Jim and Zeb and Eureka actually all decide they don't want to stay in Oz. The wizard, of course, does decide to stay. And Dorothy goes back home as well.

After the first three books in the series have such different tones, the fact that Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz is written in the same tone as Ozma of Oz actually makes it harder for me to say anything that is trying to be deep about the series.

As I already mentioned, the book is really serious with episodes, with the heroes passing through different magical kingdoms. This is something that happens a lot in the Oz books.

However, Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz actually has a bit more of a framework to its road movie feel. For one thing, unlike most of the books, virtually every place that they visit wants to kill them. With the exception of their visit to the Braided an, every place is actively out to get them. And, as they go farther and farther under the Earth, each place becomes progressively more dangerous.

I am also going to go out on a limb and say that this book has some of the most violent scenes in the entire series. The first book in the series is also pretty violent but I found the violence in this book more striking. And the wizard is central to almost all of the violence.

His duel with the vegetable wizard, which begins with parlor tricks, rapidly degenerates to the two of them trying to kill each other. The wizard comes out ahead by pulling out a sword and. Cutting. Him. In. Half. Really, that is some rough stuff.

The wizard also kills one of the invisible bears with his sword and, when they get to the land of the gargoyles, pulls out a pair of revolvers from his magical trick bag to fight off the gargoyles.

Seriously, for his magic tricks at the fair, the wizard is carrying around a fully functional sword and two loaded pistols. What, in the name of organized crime, kind of carnival was he working at?

The development of the wizard throughout the early books is a fairly interesting one. Of course, in the original wonderful Wizard of Oz, he is a harmless and lovable trickster. However, in the stage play, he is the big bad guy and that gets reflected in the Land of Oz, where he had a hand in kidnapping and transforming of Ozma. 

But all of the children who just read the books really liked the lovable old humbug and wanted him back. So with this book, we completely forget about him aiding and abetting in the kidnapping of a small child. Although, if that bugs you too much, Mombi could have been lying about how complicit he was with the kidnapping.

From here on out, the wizard is going to be a regular character in the books and he is going to be practically a surrogate father figure for all the small children who end up living in Oz.

Unusually enough, almost none of the new characters who get introduced this book really go on play a major role or even just hanging out in the background of Ozma's court. Jim and Zeb are never mentioned ever again. And, while Eureka the kitten does eventually make it back to Oz, she never returns to any degree of prominence. The glass cat who is introduced a few books later is the definitive cat character in Baum's Oz.

And, quite frankly, the pet piglets of the wizard makes such a small impression that I haven't even bothered to mention them up until this point.

While I liked Ozma of Oz better, Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz is still a strong part of the canon. The characters are constantly in dire danger and that keeps the story driving forward.

It is a book that I would recommend reading yourself before you would read it to a small child because some of the scenes of violence are pretty shocking compared to what leads up to them. While they aren't graphics  or glory, I still think they are startling. And you wouldn't have to change the gargoyles at all to make them at home in a horror movie.

Still, if you have decided to read the first three books, you won't be disappointed with the fourth.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/420

Ozma of Oz - my favorite Oz book

Ozma of Oz is the third book in the Oz cannon. It also happens to my favorite book in the series. I've easily read it more often than I've read even the Wizard of Oz. It is the most tightly plotted book in the series and I think it is really where Baum found his voice for the series.

The Land of Oz was heavily influenced by the success of the stage version of the Wizard of Oz. Among other things, the stage play downplayed the role of Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion so neither of them showed up in the second book. The Land of Oz also had a lot of slapstick, which doesn't jibe well with the fairytale atmosphere of Oz.

In other words, I think that Baum forgot his real audience, children. Apparently, quite a few children wrote to him, asking whatever happened to Dorothy and the lion. More importantly, the second stage play was a serious flop.

While the Oz books have a huge and imaginative cast, Dorothy is the most important part of the picture. She is our eyes and ears into the fantastic world. And she also teaches the valuable lesson that a regular little girl  can make a big difference, even when she has companions who are so magical.

The book begins with Dorothy as a castaway along with a yellow hen named Billina after they get washed off of the ship going to Australia. (In some ways, a farm girl from Kansas going to Australia for a vacation may be one of the most strange elements of the book.)

Dorothy puts together that she is in a fairy land after Billina gains the power to talk. They have an encounter with creatures called the wheelers, who have wheels instead of hands and feet, and discover the clockwork man Tik-Tok, who becomes their staunch ally.

After Dorothy becomes the captive of Princess Langwidere, who has the disturbing trait of interchangeable heads, Ozma and her entourage arrive, using a magical carpet to cross the deadly desert that surrounds Oz. Amusingly enough, it is not a flying carpet but a red carpet that rolls and unrolls so you can always walk on it.

After they free Dorothy, Ozma and company explained that they are there to save the royal family of Ev, who are the captives of the Nome King.

And here is where the story really goes into high gear. The Nome King transformed his captives into tchotchke and intends to do the same for the Oz crew. Fortunately, Billina overhears him gloating and learns the how he color coded the tchotchkes so she knows how to free everyone.  

Of course the Nome King is an evil bastard and refuses to release everyone but Dorothy gains his magic belt. That belt is the most powerful dingus in all the books. Seriously, you do not mess with Dorothy. Cue the triumphant escape.

Everyone is able to happily go home and Ozma also now has the magical belt so she can freely transport Dorothy to and from Oz.

As I said before, this is one of the most tightly plotted books in the Oz canon. Most of the books have at least some element of being a road movie, where our heroes pass through some kind of strange village or land that has nothing to do with the overall plot. In Ozma of Oz, virtually every scene drives the plot forward.

The tone of the book also shifts solidly into what I'm going to call Baum's American Fairy Tale voice. Baum manages to convey ridiculously imaginative settings and characters in a very grounded voice. Baum has his children react realistically to their situations or at least the way that children would like to think they would react. (I'm pretty sure I'd have run screaming from a waking, talking scarecrow when I was a kid... or right now, really)

Ozma of Oz introduced several characters who continue to be important in the series. Perhaps the most important to Tik-Tok, who may be one of the earliest robots and clockwork men in modern fiction. He is unique in all of the strange crowd of Oz by distinctly NOT being alive. Despite that, he goes on to be a very steady part of the Oz posse.

Another very important character who gets added is the Nome King, known as both Roquat and Roggedo. While the Wicked Witch of the West is THE Oz villain, thanks to Margaret Hamilton's brilliant portrayal in the 1939 movie, the Nome King is the big bad of the books. He goes on to be a thorn in Oz's side in three more books and even gets an appearance in one of Baum's rare short stories.l

It has to be admitted that picking fights with the kingdom of Oz is a bad idea. Ozma of Oz sees the Nome King at the height of his power. As the books go, he just falls farther and farther from grace but he remains a determined villain.

While not actually a character per se, the Nome King's magic belt. While most of the magic in Baum's books is very specific in what in can do, the magic belt can do whatever the plot needs it to. Most importantly, it gave an automatic way for to Dorothy to come and go from Oz. 

While Ozma of Oz is Billina the Yellow Chicken's only major role, she also makes regular appearances throughout the series and has the virtue of speaking common sense more often than a lot of folks.

The book also introduces what I have to say feels like the most underused character in the Oz posse, the Hungry Tiger. Best friend of the Cowardly Lion and staunch protector of Ozma, the Hungry Tiger craves fat babies to eat but his conscious will never let him. Honestly, it feels like his character development took place in a missing book because he feels like he should have a backstory like the lion or the Tin Woodman or the Scarecrow.

Ozma of Oz is a very good book. It brings back Dorothy to her place as eyes and ears of Oz and builds a foundation of tone and situations and characters that served Baum for many books to come.

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/486

The Swoop: using Project Gutenberg to explore obscure Wodehouse

I just finished reading the Swoop by P. G. Wodehouse. 

What I personally find interesting isn't the book itself, although it's definitely an oddity in and of itself in Wodehouse's writings, but the fact that I was not only read it for free but at all.

When I first got into Wodehouse, which was close to twenty years ago now that I think about it, the Swoop was one of his most obscure stories. It didn't even get printed here in the US until after Wodehouse's death AND it had been written in 1909! I saw it once as a battered hardback in one library.

And now, thanks to the power of public domain and Project Gutenberg, I was able just download it to my phone and read it for free in about a half hour. Seriously. 

I love living in the future. Our day to day life is the science fiction of my childhood. It. Is. Awesome.

The Swoop is an oddity in Wodehouse's work. While just about everything the man wrote was a comedy or at least really funny, the Swoop might be the only actual parody that he wrote. More than that, it's a parody of Invasion Literature, which is not the genre it was back at the start of the twentieth century.

Fortunately, I had read the Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers so I had at least some idea of what Invasion Literature was all about. Back in the day, it was all about how England wasn't prepared for war and invasion and what steps needed to be taken to safeguard her shores.

In the Swoop, nine different armies invade England on the exact same same day. England, while annoyed at how this disrupts the Cricket season, treats them like tourists and overcharges them for goods and services. In the end, the Boy Scouts drive them out and save England.

While the Swoop doesn't have the sparkle or brilliance of Wodehouse's later, mature books, it is still pretty funny. Some of his other early work, like Love Among the Chickens, are actually dreadful but the Swoop is silly fun. 

The Swoop isn't what I would recommend for someone wanting to explore Wodehouse through the public domain. There are much better works available there, like Mike and Psmith or The Clicking of Cuthbert or My Man Jeeves. But the Swoop was still an amusing discovery.  

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/7050