Lord Dunsany gets in your brain

At least once a year, I find myself reading the early works of Lord Dunsany. (Because those are the ones that are public domain and I can’t seem to find any version of his later stuff online or even affordably in print. Seriously, who is sitting on the rights to the Jorkens stories!?)

One of the side effects of reading early Dunsany is the urge to write like he did. Ursula K. Le Guin even referred him as “the First Terrible Fate That Befalleth Unwary Beginners in Fantasy" and boy was she right. It even happened to Tolkien and Lovecraft. Neil Gaiman may have never recovered :D

(Just joking, Mr Gaiman, sir. You mastered Lord Dunsany’s tropes to tell your own stories)

And it happens to me every time.

‘In the black halls of the Fortress Inconsolable walks the almost forgotten god T’rtl Wx. All know that he is truly a god but none can recall him what nature of godhood was given to him. Even in the moldering library of Bubblbth, which lies on the far end of the catacombs of the decadent city of Rhode Hows, the oldest and most faded of scrolls mention his name but not his nature.

‘Of all the wizened sages and plucky nimble-fingers who dare to enter  the Fortress Inconsolable to seek out T’rtl Wx and discover the truth of his nature, none have yet to return. For the dark halls were built without a floor plan and every bathroom is undiscoverable.

‘And eternally does T’rtl Wx walks, forever waiting for an honestly good cup of tea for Oolong will never suffice for him.’

Seriously, Dunsany rewires your brain.

 https://en.m.wikisource.org/wiki/Author:Edward_John_Moreton_Drax_Plunkett

The Land of Oz, when we knew it was a series

The Marvelous Land of Oz is a watershed book in a lot of ways. To the best of my knowledge, Baum hadn't planned on making a series when he wrote the Wizard of Oz. With the Land of Oz, he was at least showing some interest in creating an ongoing series, although I personally don't think the idea is solidified until the third book. I'm sure there are scholars who will prove me wrong.

OK, I'm going to give an overview of the plot of the book. Which means, spoilers galore. The book is free and you can download it from Project Gutenberg so you can do that right now and read it if you want, before I go and spoil it all.

Now that I've dutifully warn you, let me talk about the plot.

The Land of Oz is the only book in the series that doesn't have any characters from the outside world in it. As a side note, that pretty much always means someone from the United States.

In the beginning, our hero, a boy named Tip, is pretty much the slave of the witch called Mombi. It's a pretty low level of slavery, more like an abusive or really strict foster parent. However, when Mombi brings a pumpkin headed manikin to life, she plans on turning Tip into a marble statue since she doesn't need him anymore.

In the beginning, Tip and Jack Pumpkinhead, along with a Sawhorse that they bring to life who serves Jack's ride, are just trying to escape away from Mombi. However, they discover a Revolutionary Army led by General Jinjur who is planning on taking over the land of Oz.

Jinjur makes pretty good progress in conquering the country, particularly when you consider that her basic strategy is to have an army of women who the men won't fight back against. She also gets Mombi as an ally, agreeing to help get Tip. Mombi proves to have some pretty powerful magical chops.

Tip picks up some allies of his own, our old pals the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, along with the Woggle-Bug and the flying Gump. Tip isn't just trying to escape Mombi. He now needs to find the lost princess of Oz, Ozma, who is also the rightful ruler of Oz.

Ultimately, Tip is able to get the help of Glenda the Good, who is more powerful than Mombi and who has an army of girls of her own, only they actually are willing to fight. The balance of power shifts and our heroes win the civil war.

The final twist is that Mombi had hidden away Ozma by transforming her into a boy. Yes, Tip has been looking for himself the whole time. One transgender transformation later, Tip has become the fairy princess Ozma and peace at last reigns over the land of Oz.

Seriously, this is probably one of the most dynamic books in the entire series. Oz has a major civil war, the protagonist has a far more extreme revelation than there's no place like home, and the government is completely replaced.

That said, the summation makes the book seem a lot more dramatic than it really is. There's a lot of silly stuff and the entire civil war is tongue-in-cheek social commentary as opposed to a violent confrontation.

As I understand it, one of the driving forces behind Baum writing the book was a success of the stage play of the Wizard of Oz. Said play had a lot more slapstick vaudeville elements then the original book. The Land of Oz definitely has more slapstick bits then really any other book in the series.

As it turns out, since they couldn't get the actors who played the Scarecrow in the Tin Woodman in the play, since they were busy making money hand over fist with the original play, The eventual play got retooled to much more heavily feature the Woggle-Bug, who is possibly the most forgettable and disliked reoccurring character in the entire series. It was a crashing flop. Probably for the best, since the books after the Land of Oz were definitely written as books, as opposed to potential scripts.

As quirky as the Land of Oz is, it does introduce Ozma, who is the second most important character in the series after Dorothy. It also gives us Jack Pumpkinhead and the sawhorse, two more characters who are regular members of the Oz posse in the books to come.

After the Land of Oz, the books settle down to a more consistent tone. And Oz starts getting described as the happiest fairyland in all the world. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz got everything started. The Marvelous Land of Oz, though, so the book that you read to find out what else is out there.

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/54

Let's take a look at the first book, the Wizard of Oz

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is honestly the last book by L. Frank Baum that I should have to tell anyone about. Seriously, if you have been living under a rock in a cave on the bottom of the ocean, you know the Wizard of Oz. When aliens land, they comment on how much they liked the Wizard of Oz before pulling out the death rays.

The Wizard of Oz is a cultural juggernaut. Everyone knows Dorothy and the Scarecrow and the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion, regardless of who you are or where you are from.

Since its public domain, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz should be on be top of the list of free books parents should download for their kids, along with Alice in Wonderland and the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. That's part of the reason I reread it.

And you already know the story. Dorothy Gale gets blown away to Oz in a cyclone. She gathers together a ragtag band of misfits. Together, they defeat the wicked witch and prove the wizard a fraud. They discover that everyone was special all along and Dorothy realizes there's no place like home.

Of course, the reason why the Wizard of Oz has become such an ingrained part of world culture is because of the 1939 movie version of it. While it is at least the fourth movie adaptation of the book, it is the definitive version of the Wizard of Oz.

I am normally the guy who always thinks the book is better than the movie. The Wizard of Oz is one of the exception to that rule. Honestly, as far as I am concerned, the movie really is better. Heck, the movie is one of the great cinematic masterpieces.

And that's the thing about approaching the book. You have to know that it is different then the movie and that, quite frankly, it isn't as good.

The movie, in addition to having some really good music, has a much tighter plotline. The book tends to ramble and it doesn't have a strong through line. 

The best way to compare them is by looking at the wicked witch of the west. In the book, she appears for one or two chapters, has almost all of her minions killed by the tin man in the scarecrow before they even get to her castle and is scared of the dark. You never are actually worried about her hurting Dorothy.

In the movie, Margaret Hamilton gives us a witch that has been giving generations of children nightmares. She shows up right after Dorothy makes it to us, is a constant looming threat, and is a fireball throwing bad ass. She is a driving presence throughout the entire movie.

OK, so I've established that everyone should see the movie. Having said that, the book is still pretty good. It is worth reading and it is especially worth reading to your kids.

You see, there are 13 more books to go. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is the gateway to a whole bunch of other fun books, ones that you in any children that you read them to will probably get a real kick out of.

Spending part of last year reading a lot of Baum

Last year, I decided to read all fourteen of L. Frank Baum's 'official' Oz books. When I was younger, I had read the first nine or so but I never actually finished reading the entire series. So, since I will probably be reading them to my son when he gets a little older, I decided that it was time to actually read them all.

As it turns out, Baum's estate and his publishers get the books coming out after his death. There are actually 40 books that are considered canon in Oz, nicknamed the Famous Forty. 

I decided that I don't need to read the other twenty-six, at least not yet. However, as I started into reading Baum's work, I found that there were other works that he had written that part of the larger Oz picture.

He wrote the queerer visitors from awes and the humbug book in order to drum up interest in the second Oz stage play, which is pretty much only remember today for being a total flop. While he was never big and continuity, the writing in these works are so different that no one considers them to be part of the actual Oz universe.

He also wrote Little Wizard Stories of Oz, a little collection of Oz short stories when he started the series back up again. On the other hand, these actually do fit in (and are much better)

I also was reminded that two of the later heroes, Trot and Captain Bill, had been into previous, unrelated to Oz books. I figured I should read those two. And then I discovered that a lot of characters from his other fantasy stories would make cameos in the books.

In the end, I ended up reading every fantasy book he wrote, including some that really had nothing to do with Oz, including the Enchanted Isle of Yew and American Fairytales

Spending a year with L. Frank Baum was an interesting experience. On the one hand, his books generally hold up despite their age. He wrote some very fun children's books. He also was a staunch feminist, I had at this time it is attitudes there. On the other hand, he wrote at least once about how the government should wipe the American Indians out wholesale. Staunch feminist, actively encouraging genocide, it feels like a weird combination.

He was also appallingly bad businessman. In fact, we have eight of the Oz books because he had to keep writing them in order to keep out of bankruptcy. He was an interesting man, all right.

Since I spent 2015 reading his books, I figure I will spend 2016 writing about them. Yeah, for the most part I'll be writing about other stuff but I'd like to write about each of the books before the end of the year.