Date: Thu, 1 Jun 2006 12:18:14 -0500
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] dot and tot

I'm about halfway through re-reading it, and will be away from email access
for a few days, so thought I'd put in some preliminary comments now.

Even though the story is so slow, I find I'm enjoying it (all but the
references to how unreliable chocolate servants are and how any misbehaving
chocolates get sent out to labor in the marshamallow fields). I like the
grave tone, echoing Dot's awareness and curiosity. The weirdly disordered
variety of valleys they go through in Merryland has a dreamlike quality that
seems effective to me, even when an individual valley is particularly slow
(as the stork-and-baby valley is). Denslow's use of his typical freize
compositions of almost-but-not-quite-alike figures in many of the
illustrations has its usual amusing elegance, and I'm impressed by how much
variety of effect he gets from the use of only the 3 colors (black, an
orangey-red, and a light brown in the interiors that echos the metallic gold
of the cover).

More comments later.

Ruth Berman

Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 18:16:30 -0400
From: "Nathan DeHoff" <fablesto at gmail.com>
<Regalia at pauahtun.org>
Subject: [Regalia] Thoughts on DOT AND TOT

This book definitely isn't one of Baum's stronger efforts.  It almost
seems like it was written by an author who never actually sees any
actual children, yet thinks he knows what they like.  ("Kids like
clowns, kittycats, and toys, right?")  Obviously, I know that wasn't
the case with Baum, but this is still one of his more pandering
efforts.  There are some clever parts, though, like the encounter with
the Watch-Dog, and Mr. Split's halves speaking in half-words.  And I
think it would be fun to explore the Valley of Lost Things.

Nathan

L. Frank Baum, Donald Abbott

Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 10:23:29 -0500
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] D/W, D/T, bookhunting

"Nathan DeHoff" <fablesto at gmail.com> wrote of "Dot and Tot":
> definitely isn't one of Baum's stronger efforts.  It almost seems like it
> was written by an author who never actually sees any actual children, yet
> thinks he knows what they like.  ("Kids like clowns, kittycats, and toys,
> right?")  Obviously, I know that wasn't the case with Baum, but this is
> still one of his more pandering efforts.  There are some clever parts,
> though, like the encounter with the Watch-Dog, and Mr. Split's halves
> speaking in half-words.  And I think it would be fun to explore the Valley
> of Lost Things.>

It might be partly throwing in things-kids-are-expected-to-like, but some
things, like the storks and babies, and the Valley of Lost Things, don't
particularly seem geared to kids' interests. If Baum was doing any pandering
in it, maybe it was to nostalgia for his own childhood (Tot's estate of
Roselawn is the Baum estate of Roselawn) and ideas about kids that he found
interesting. But the book lacks the narrative drive of Dorothy's quest to
get home in "Wizard," or the conflict with the Purple Dragon that frames the
"Mo" book (although the individual chapters between almost amount to a
series of separate short stories).

A place to find Lost Things is an old motif. The earliest version of it that
I know is in Ariosto's "Orlando Furioso," where the magician Astolfo
journeys to the Moon, the place where all Lost Things are, to get back
Orlando's lost wits. I suspect there may have been other versions of this
motif in other works, too. Some post-Baum examples of it are a chapter in
"Yama-Yama Land" by Baum's friend Grace Duffie Boylan and more recently in
one of P.L. Travers' Mary Poppins stories (not the main group of 4 books,
but one of the late short stories -- right now I forget which one). I don't
know of any indication that Travers knew Baum's work (her place of Lost
Things is the Moon), but Boylan did, of course. (The main plot element in
"Yama-Yama Land," the girl Sylvie's descent into an underground world by
going down a rift that opens in San Francisco during the earthquake,
resembles the opening to "Dorothy/Wizard." Baum in turn may have liked the
scene where the boy's cramped heart is freed from its bonds and may have
remembered that in Gloria's frozen heart a few years later in
"Scarecrow.")

A local theater, Stages of Hopkins MN, did an adaptation of "Dot and Tot" a
couple of years ago. One of the best moments for them, as for the book, was
the portrayal of Mr. Split. The two actors doing the two halves got a round
of applause for their ability to converse in alternating syllables. They got
a little more narrative urgency into the production by making the Watchdog
into one of the guises of a Troll who is trying to usurp the throne of
Merryland, and who is finally won over to allegiance to Queen Dolly. (I'm
not sure if this plot device really worked as a storyline, but it did seem
to make for a storyline that worked better as a play.)

Ruth Berman

Date: Thu, 8 Jun 2006 19:38:25 -0400
From: "Nathan DeHoff" <fablesto at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Regalia] D&T and RPT

On 6/8/06, Ruth Berman <berma005 at umn.edu> wrote:
> "Nathan DeHoff" <fablesto at gmail.com> wrote of "Dot and Tot":
> > definitely isn't one of Baum's stronger efforts.  It almost seems like it
> > was written by an author who never actually sees any actual children, yet
> > thinks he knows what they like.  ("Kids like clowns, kittycats, and toys,
> > right?")  Obviously, I know that wasn't the case with Baum, but this is
> > still one of his more pandering efforts.  There are some clever parts,
> > though, like the encounter with the Watch-Dog, and Mr. Split's halves
> > speaking in half-words.  And I think it would be fun to explore the Valley
> > of Lost Things.>
>
> It might be partly throwing in things-kids-are-expected-to-like, but some
> things, like the storks and babies, and the Valley of Lost Things, don't
> particularly seem geared to kids' interests. If Baum was doing any pandering
> in it, maybe it was to nostalgia for his own childhood (Tot's estate of
> Roselawn is the Baum estate of Roselawn) and ideas about kids that he found
> interesting.

I find it interesting that Tot's last name is "Thompson."  I assume
that wasn't the real name of the gardener at Roselawn, but it's still
an odd connection to the name of the person who would continue the Oz
series after Baum's death.  Is there any clear evidence as to whether
Ruth Plumly Thompson had read DOT AND TOT?  I assume she had, since I
know she had mentioned reading other Baum non-Oz fantasies, and I see
no reason why she would have left that one out.  Still, the only
significant mention of Merryland in her Oz books is in WISHING HORSE,
and she has it ruled over by a king.  She presumably should have known
about Queen Dolly even if she HADN'T read DOT AND TOT, though, since
she appears in ROAD.

In another D&T/RPT connection, both the Valley of Pussycats and Catty
Corners are ruled by Maltese cats.  I really wasn't sure what a
Maltese cat was, but Wikipedia defines it as "any solid grey or blue
cat of inderminate breed."  I wonder why they would be chosen as the
rulers of feline kingdoms.

Nathan

Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 14:59:38 -0500
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] Re: Regalia Digest, Vol 23, Issue 7

"Nathan DeHoff" <fablesto at gmail.com> wrote:
> I find it interesting that Tot's last name is "Thompson." I assume that
> wasn't the real name of the gardener at Roselawn, but it's still an odd
> connection to the name of the person who would continue the Oz series
> after Baum's death.  Is there any clear evidence as to whether Ruth Plumly
> Thompson had read DOT AND TOT?  I assume she had, since I know she had
> mentioned reading other Baum non-Oz fantasies, and I see no reason why she 
> would have left that one out.  Still, the only significant mention of 
> Merryland in her Oz books is in WISHING HORSE, and she has it ruled over
> by a king.  She presumably should have known about Queen Dolly even if she
> HADN'T read DOT AND TOT, though, since she appears in ROAD. >

I don't know of direct evidence, but, as you say, it seems unlikely that
she'd have missed that one while reading so much else of Baum's Oz &
Borderlands stories. The reference to a king in Merryland may be totally an
error -- but I wonder if she might have been remembering Flippety Flop, the
prince of the clowns in the Clown Valley, as a ruler, and misremembering the
clown territory as the ruling segment of the "merry" land. Or she might have
been misremembering the Candy Man as a king instead of as the queen's prime
minister. The coincidence of names seems like something she would have
enjoyed.

> In another D&T/RPT connection, both the Valley of Pussycats and Catty
> Corners are ruled by Maltese cats.  I really wasn't sure what a Maltese
> cat was, but Wikipedia defines it as "any solid grey or blue cat of
> inderminate breed."  I wonder why they would be chosen as the rulers of
> feline kingdoms. >

It does sound as if there should be some specific reason, doesn't it! I
don't think the story -- is it a folktale? -- of the man who tells about
seeing cats burying a coffin marked with a crown, whereupon the cat dozing
by the fire cries, "Then I am king of the cats!" and disappears up the
chimney mentions the coloration of the cat, does it?

Ruth Berman

Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 09:32:16 -0500
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] d&t (cont)

I notice that Denslow draws the King Felis, the Maltese cat, as wearing a
maltese cross on the collar around his neck. I've forogtten -- did Neill
have the same joke for Her Maltese Majesty in "Lost King."

There must be a touch of magic in making a diet of milk and bread digestible
for the cats. Cats like milk, but a diet with that much milk isn't good for
them. And the bread would probably just go right through the system. (Or
come back up, maybe.)

There must also be a touch of magic in the stream, as Dot and Tot make a
circle tour, drifting with the current all the way, and come out upriver of
where they started. Well, the boat is wand-powered for the last three
valleys, so perhaps they could be heading up a river at the point, if there
are two rivers that meet at some kind of drainage point in the Valley of the
Dolls  (a phrase with literary associations nowadays considerably
different! -- I hope Jacqueline Susanne isn't a Baum fan?), and they have
turned into the other river and headed upstream at that point. But there's
no indication in the text that that could be the case.

Ruth Berman

Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2006 07:38:25 -0700 (PDT)
From: Alan Wise <alanmacwise at yahoo.com>
Subject: [Regalia] Feline Headwear

Ruth Berman <berma005 at umn.edu> wrote:
  
>>I notice that Denslow draws the King Felis, the Maltese cat, as wearing a
maltese cross on the collar around his neck. I've forogtten -- did Neill
have the same joke for Her Maltese Majesty in "Lost King."<<

As I recall, Neill puts the Maltese Majesty wears a crown made out of
cattails. 
  
  Alan Wise