ODE TO OZ

 

The Wizard of Oz remains more than eighty years later one of the greatest films ever made but its very enduring popularity has obscured the fact that forty years earlier, long before Tolkien and Pratchett, L. Frank Baum created an elaborate fantasy world with its own history, laws and customs. For those who explore them beyond the first, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, from 1900, the Oz books are a reminder of the wonder, the frights and the joys timeless fantasy can bring.

Baum who, at the time had a minor career as a newspaper head and the author of assorted poetry books for children conceived of the first book as an all-American counterpart to the traditional European fairytale. It is not much of an overstatement that the symbols, the phrases and the characters from the first (and subsequent) Oz book have become embedded in the fabric of American folklore. He strove away from the grim darkness of the bohemian fairytales but still thrilled his readers and the enchantment has proven itself for over a century.

Unlike Middle-Earth but very much like Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland outsiders can enter the land of Oz and its residents visit our world (or the “outside world” as it is referred to in the books) provided one can get by the encompassing Deadly Desert. This was done in the second Oz book The Marvelous Land of Oz and later by one of the land’s more obscure creatures, the Woggle-Bug, in his own book.

As far as has been revealed the first outsider to arrive in the magical land was that blunder humbug, who would come to be known as the Wizard of Oz, a hustler from Omaha who found himself unwittingly transported to Oz when he lost control of his air balloon. Once in Oz he established himself ruler of the kingdom, earned the loyalty of the tiny inhabitants, the Munchkins, built the Emerald City and, just as in Omaha, created the illusion of wizardry to maintain power.

The Munchkins, it turns out, are just one of the four groups living in Oz. Their land is neighbored by the home of the Quadlings, the Winkies and the Gillikins. Each of these lands is ruled by a witch, with only the iconic Glinda being considered “the Good”.

By the second book it will be revealed that Oz had a ruler long before Oz of Omaha. By the second book the story of Ozma of Oz begins to unfold and she becomes a central character to the mythology. An explanation is offered, by the way, to the coincidence of a long-time residence of Oz bearing the phony wizard’s name in Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz which just has to make sense!

Dorothy Gale of Kansas, of course, is the most famous outsider and reading the series we see her develop from a lost child in a strange land to a connoisseur of its ways to one of its pillars, guiding future children swept into this fantastic world. Perhaps Dorothy’s appeal to children (not to mention the adults who will always love the books) is that while she can eventually travel freely in and out of Oz (Ozma arranges a magical method with her, though she is sometimes still transported accidentally) she still wants and does return Home in the end, something every child, no matter how vivid their imagination or ow strong their yearning to explore, always seeks to do. And so a balance is created, the ability to explore a magical land through their avatar but with the comfort of always easily (enough) being able to return home with all of its simplicities never looking more comforting.

The bite of, say, Grimm and Perrault, was soften in that all of the peculiar residents of Oz, no matter how spooky, are revealed to be hiding a weakness. Much like the wizard, a second rate circus performer posing as a sorcerer, the Cowardly Lion that attacks them turns out to be a sissy, the Big Hungry Tiger talks of eating children but is prevented from doing so by his own conscience and even the Wicked Witch of the West is defeated by nothing more than a pale of water.

On the other hand the deficiencies many of them are over compensating for are in fact but minor setbacks when measured against their worth in other hidden but nonetheless valuable areas. The Scarecrow may not have been made with a brain and his view on the world often reflects this, but he surprises all with clear logic. The Tin Man can feel little except the greatest feeling of all. And when it comes to rescuing his friends none shows more courage than the Lion.

Both Baum and Carroll had the gift of understanding not only the tastes of children but their fears, concerns and emotional needs. The magic of the Oz books thrives on its own, but it’s the rare way in which they get into the soul of children that has made them classics.