Our Oz streak has continued, uninterrupted only by blizzard conditions that kept me stuck at work. We're on book #10 at the moment, but here's a rundown of 5, 6 and 7.
The Road to Oz (1909)
"Road" introduces the Shaggy Man, who is one of Baum's classic Kindly Old Man fixtures who consistently pair off with his young leading ladies on adventures. It rings odd today, for sure. I mean, Shaggy Man is essentially a bum, but because he has the Love Magnet, everybody likes him. Creepy! He meets up with Dorothy, who is brought to Oz for her fourth visit by way of Ozma screwing with her and intentionally getting her and Toto lost.
They also find Button Bright, a young boy (younger than Dorothy although by the time we see him again in Scarecrow of Oz he seems much older and smarter) who is moderately annoying. Luckily, Dorothy's companions this time also include Polychrome the Rainbow's Daughter... who is one of my favorites if only because she is one of the female characters who inspire Baum to literary fits as he tries to explain how mind-meltingly beautiful she is.
By this book (#5), the pattern is clear. Dorothy is somehow warped to Oz and collects and bizarre entourage of followers and she explores an even more bizarre section of the Oz countryside. As per usual, the end goal is the Emerald City where Ozma and her older friends await. This time, Dorothy's arrival coincides with Ozma's birthday celebration, which attracts penitents from all over the land, including books Baum wrote that were not even set in Oz.
One Oz habit that starts to bother me by book five is that Baum very definitely treats the animals as second-class citizens. By Ozma's party, the animals eat at separate tables and have to lodge in separate quarters (IE, stables, not palace rooms). Even the Lion, who should be according one of Oz's greatest heroes for his role in the elimination of the Witch of the West and his status as part of Ozma's personal bodyguard! Although, Baum does note that Billina the Yellow Hen has been allowed to reproduce unfettered, somehow single-handedly populating Oz with millions of chickens. I don't quite understand how this works, but while they do not eat Billina's children and children's children etc... Billina does allow the Ozites to eat all the unfertilized eggs.
The Emerald City of Oz (1910)
This is a great adventure, because it dovetails the usual Dorothy-wanders-through-Oz bit with a parallel story of Ruggedo the Nome King's efforts to conquer the Emerald City.
One important event in this book is that Aunt Em and Uncle Henry are brought to live in Oz, effectively removing Dorothy's need to return to Kansas at the end of each adventure. Baum explains in his preface that this idea was supplied by his fans, which suggests that children everywhere were irritated by Dorothy being constantly forced to abandon a wonderful fairyland to go home to a destitute farm in the middle of nowheresville, America. "There's no place like home," indeed! F that, Oz has a utopian socialist society where she's a friggin' princess and lovingly cared for by an entire underclass of willing servants. Plus all the eggs she can eat, apparently.
The Nome King is a great villain, alternately menacing and comical, but in this tale he outmatches himself when he allies with a trio of truly terrible monster species. In true conniving-villain fashion (this was written in 1910!), each of the four evil factions plans to destroy the others as soon as the Emerald City is overcome.
Once word gets out that such a terrible army is on its way, the Oz people lose hope. Ozma herself refuses to fight, so as to not lower herself or her country to the level of the invaders. However, the Scarecrow and Glinda cook up a plan, based around the deus ex machina of the Forbidden Fountain... a location that has not been mentioned before and likely is never mentioned again.
To avoid any future invasions, it is suggested to render Oz invisible to all outsiders. Dorothy, having secured a home for her American family, says "You may make Oz invis'ble as soon as you please, for all I care." Glinda replies that she already has. Cold as ice, that one.
The final chapter of book #6 is an interesting personal note from Baum himself, where he reveals that since Oz is closed to all communication, there will be no more Oz books. Wikipedia reports that Baum changed his tune once he needed more money.
The Patchwork Girl of Oz (1913)
Luckily, modern technology provided Baum with an out to get around Glinda's shield of invisibility. In this preface, Baum claims to be using a wireless telegraph to talk with Dorothy and learn more new stories about Oz.
"Patchwork Girl" is interesting because we see even more of the authoritarian power wielded by Ozma and her trusted confidants, such as the Tin Woodman. The Patchwork Girl herself - Scraps by nickname - being "new" to Oz is used as commentary on Ozma's absolute power. Chief among Ozma's rules is that no one is allowed to practice magic, except for Glinda and the Wizard (who has backed off from his earlier stance as a fraudulent P.T. Barnum character and is now in training to learn actual magic from Glinda.) Ozma has shut down magic for the common good, that no more magicians can threaten Oz, but it smacks of a tyrant's decision to me.
Baum is plainly bored with sending Dorothy around on another tour, so this time he drafts a munchkin boy named Ojo. Ojo's uncle has been turned to stone, and he needs to collect specific far-flung ingredients to get a local illicit magician to cure him. Ojo then ventures on a typical Oz quest, but Baum does not let him encounter a single familiar Oz friend until one hundred pages in... and then it's only the friggin' Shaggy Man. The Shaggy Man recognizes that Ojo's quest is a valiant one, but he knows that the whole magic bit is not going to sit well with Ozma.
Ojo is frustrated by the laws of Oz, because they stop him from gathering the ingredients. When he picks a six-leaf clover, Ozma has him thrown into jail for breaking her law. When he tells the Tin Woodman that he needs the wing of a yellow butterfly - the latter being the Emperor of the Winkie land where most yellow creatures live - the Tin Man outright refuses on the grounds that the butterfly would be injured. Ojo can't catch a break.
Clark really enjoyed this book because of the lively cast of characters, plus the relatively unusual practice of a boy assuming the lead. Scraps is immediately positioned as the romantic counterpart to the Scarecrow (one of Clark's favorites.) There's a boxy little beast called the Woozy who becomes absurdly angry when he hears the phrase "krizzle-kroo." When the others ask him what it means, the Woozy replies "I don't know! That's what makes me so upset!" Then there's Bungle the Glass Cat, a vain creature illegally brought to life who offers the series' best running gag by constantly referencing his visible pink brains by saying "You can see 'em work."
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