Day 1 - Fumbo loses his head
Day 2 - Grampa & Tatters start on expedition at 8 AM - meet Bill at evening,
  bandits at night - night in forest - "On the same bright morning that Grampa
  and Tatters started from Ragbad," Gorba kidnaps Pretty Good from Perhaps City
  - Prophecy of Abrog ("in four days a monster shall marry the Princess")
  - Percy Vere meets Dorothy - night in forest
Day 3 - Grampa & Tatters escape robbers before dawn - meet Urtha in garden, leave
  garden at night- Dorothy & Percy breakfast in woodcutter's cottage, taken
  by washerwomen
Day 4 - Grampa's party visits Fire Island & escapes through Blazes - night
  on lava island 
Day 5 - Grampa's party visits Iso Poso - flight to Oz - discover Fumbo's head -
  "The two days Grampa and his little party had been adventuring in the
  wizard's garden, on Fire Island and Isa Poso, Dorothy, Toto and the Forgetful
  Poet had spent as prisoners on Monday Mountain" - Dorothy, Toto & Percy
  escape washerwomen - the two parties meet - camp in field at night
Day 6 - The party meets the Playfellows - Urtha escapes to Maybe Mountain - Urtha
  married to Tatters ("it was the fourth day mentioned in Abrog's prophecy"),
  disenchanted - marriage celebration in Ragbad late into night
Day 7 - "Not until after the loud crows of Bill announced the rising of the
  sun did the party break up"
Day 8 - "After luncheon the next day" Dorothy, Toto, Peer Haps & Percy
  return to their homes

Date: Mon, 23 Aug 99 10:12:09 CST
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu> 
Subject: welcome-backs to Oz
 
Lisa Mastroberte: For a summary of "Grampa" -- well, the plot is
mostly a reworking of "Kabumpo," except that in this case the wicked
magician who transforms the princess has sent the prophecy of doom to
the princess's castle, instead of to the prince's.  The prince goes
in quest of his fortune (and his father's head), and meets up with
the others along the way in rather the same way.  Instead of an
elephant for the title-character comically choleric companion, he has
his grandfather.  Some of the characters are engaging, though, and
there's effective use of different kinds of place (forest with
bandits, ice- island in Nonestic, fire-island below ground, cloud
people above, etc.).  
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 17:30:25 -0400
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com> 
Subject: Otto know better
 
Lisa Mastroberte wrote about GRAMPA:
<<can someone please give me a synopsis of this book?>>
 
Take KABUMPO. Substitute Grampa for Kabumpo, Tatters for Pompa, a
quest for the king's head for a quest for a proper princess. Mix
well. At least that's how I remember GRAMPA. But I was looking
forward to rereading the book after having seen Eloise Jarvis
McGraw's article for the BUGLE about why she liked it more than any
other Thompson title.
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

From: "sprichards" <sprichards at email.msn.com> 
Subject: Ozzy Questions & Answers for the Ozzy Digest!
Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 17:37:33 -0700
 
And I think I'm almost ready to move on to GRAMPA IN OZ
 
I really don't like the last color plate of Ozma...she just looks
weird with braids over her shoulder
Other than that, the colored plates are wonderful in the book.
And my new ozzy E-Mail address starting soon I hope will be
KABUMPO at HOTMAIL.COM
See ya'!
 
From,
Kabumpo.

From: "Kenneth R. Shepherd" <kshepherd at email.msn.com> 
Subject: Oz matters
Date: Sat, 28 Aug 1999 20:18:00 -0400
 
One of the few things on which David Hulan and I disagree is on our
choices for favorite Oz books.  He considers GRAMPA one of the
weakest of Thompson's books; I think it's one of the best, and it's
my personal favorite.  I suspect the reason I like it so well has to
do with her wonderful handling of of the major story elements, such
as the the budding relationship between Tatters and Urtha.  GRAMPA is
also a very tightly plotted book, and there's very little in it that
is not relevant to the plot.
 
I remember that some months ago there was a discussion about IEs, and
someone indicated that GRAMPA was an example of Thompson's use of
lots of IEs.  I found a useful statement by the science fiction
writer Orson Scott Card in a book titled _Characters and Viewpoint_.
Card divides stories into four basic groups: milieu, idea, character,
and events, depending on what the major focus of the story is.  Based
on his descriptions, many Oz stories would fall into the milieu
category, in which the world surrounding the characters is the
primary focus.  He writes that in milieu stories "the author feels
free to digress from the main story line with long passages of
explanation, description, or depiction of the culture."  So (by this
argument) the IEs found throughout the Oz series do in fact serve a
purpose: they remind the reader that (s)he is journeying in an alien
land, and that expectations may often be frustrated (or unexpectedly
fulfilled).
 
But the reason I like GRAMPA is because it's primarily not a milieu
story.

It's what Card calls an "events" story, in which the protagonists are
trying to cope with a world-changing problem (in this case, the loss
of Fumbo's head and the search for Ragbad's prosperity).  Each of the
major events in the story advances the plot, occasionally by
frustrating Prince Tatters' efforts to find romance, wealth, and his
father's head; but also by introducing elements that will be
important in the later unravelling of the story.  Although the
"enchanted Princess" motif is one that Thompson had used before (in
KABUMPO) and would use again (with a twist in SILVER PRINCESS, and
with a change of gender in OJO),  I think GRAMPA shows her in top
form.  A book like this rivals (and in my opinion surpasses) Baum at
his finest.
 
Best,
KRS

From: Ozmama at aol.com
Date: Sun, 29 Aug 1999 22:49:37 EDT
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 08-29-99
 
Ken S.:< GRAMPA is also a very tightly plotted book, and there's very
little in it that is not relevant to the plot.>>

    I like the book, too, except for the Playfellows section.  Jim
    Haff hated it, but that was because he looked at it from a
    GeOzifer's point of view.  The journey and its descriptions don't
    tally at all, apparently, so it drove poor Jimbo nutso.  He and
    Dick had a heckuva time figuring out where to put places from
    that book.  I'm glad I didn't have to make those decisions.  I
    couldn't have done it!  But I do find the characters very
    satisfying.  I like curmudgeons, and Grampa's a lovable one.
    Urtha is a delightful, gentle character.  She's well- delineated,
    and I've always been very fond of her.  She's quite different
    from most other characters in the series, too.  I think she's one
    of RPT's most original characters.  Bill is a somewhat irritating
    zany/mechanical, but lots of kids like that sort of thing.  I
    just wasn't one of them.  Tatters is, I think, better drawn than
    Pompa or Reddy or even Randy.  He's also a bit different from
    most protagonists in that he's so serious. (I know Bob Up is
    serious, but...).  One thing that I loved about this book when I
    was a child was the trail of flowers left by Urtha.  I thought
    that was a terrific detail, and I still find it charming.  And
    the game leg is a great idea, although when I first read about it
    I didn't understand the pun.  I'd like to visit Gorba's Garden
    someday.

Soo-ooo, there you have my two centavos' worth for now.  --Robin

Date: Mon, 30 Aug 1999 11:03:40 -0500
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com> 
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 08-27-99 (Re-send 2) & 08-29-99
 
8/29:
Ken S.:
Thanks for the chronology on _Grampa_.
 
Since we seem to be starting discussion of the book willy-nilly,
without a date being set, I might as well respond to your comments. I
certainly find it a better book than _Cowardly Lion_, but it's well
down my list of Thompsons. I can probably attribute some of that to
having read it only once as a child, and not liking it much then
because I wasn't into Mushy Stuff and it's basically a romance, if on
a childish level. That can also be said for _Kabumpo_ and _Silver
Princess_, and to a lesser exent of _Speedy_, but I owned all three
of those books and so I was able to appreciate the romance more as I
matured myself. _Grampa_ I didn't read again until I was in my 30s,
and I was much more aware of the flaws in the plot and didn't have
the residue of fond childhood memories to temper them.
 
As for the relevancy or otherwise of the episodes in the book, we'll
have to agree to disagree on that. As far as I'm concerned the entire
set of events from the time Grampa's party leaves Gorba's garden
until they find Fumbo's head is basically filler; it serves to
establish that the magic potion can get them out of almost any
pickle, but they could have catapulted out into the Winkie country
and spent the same two days trekking along a road and everything
would have been more or less the same. The only important thing that
happened during those two days was that Tatters and Urtha fell in
love. And Dorothy's addition to the adventure seems to be entirely
for the purpose of adding a familiar character; she doesn't do
anything relevant to the main story line. (I also find Percy Vere a
thoroughly tiresome character; the gag of forgetting the last word of
a poem is amusing once or twice, but it gets very old very fast for
me.)
 
I haven't reread it recently, though, so I'll defer further comment
until I do. (Which is likely to be after I get back from Europe, by
which time the main discussion will probably have run down...)
 
David Hulan

From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com> 
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-02-99
Date: Thu, 02 Sep 1999 17:49:09 PDT
 
Robin:
>I'd like to visit Gorba's Garden someday.
 
Well, according to Melody Grandy, that garden is now being used by
Zim.  I don't know if he'd let you visit or not.
 
Nathan

Date: Fri, 03 Sep 1999 14:56:54 +1000
From: Gehan <calamity at eureka.lk>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-02-99
 
Thoughts on Grampa in Oz:
Eloise and Lauren McGraw say that _Grampa_ is the best FF book. But
personally, I didnt like this book very much. It started off quite
well, but it tend to get worse as the chapters went by. The plotlines
are very good too, but the 'story' could have been alot better......
I think its one of RPT's weakest Books.  Its also quite un-ozzy.
Several Books by RPT are un-ozzy while some are 'really' ozzy! Though
I'm sure she didnt do that intentionally......
 
Ciao!
~Gehan~

Date: Fri, 3 Sep 1999 18:37:03 -0500
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com> 
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-02-99
 
Robin:
>I do find the characters very satisfying.
 
I do too, except for Percy; characters are the strength of _Grampa_
as they're the weakness in CL, at least to my taste. Tatters is
better drawn than Randy in _Purple Prince_, but not, imho, in _Silver
Princess_. But that may, as I say, have something to do with the fact
that I grew up with Randy and Planetty and didn't with Tatters and
Urtha.
 
David Hulan

From: RMorris306 at aol.com
Date: Sun, 5 Sep 1999 12:06:32 EDT
Subject: Grampa in Oz, et al
 
    Well, I've reread GRAMPA IN OZ, and liked it a lot more this time
    than I did the first (and, I think, the second) time I read it.
    As I mentioned on the list long ago, I read most of the Thompson
    Oz books over a period of a few months, when I was allowed to
    borrow from a long-time Oz aficionado I met...and then reread
    them as I acquired my own copies when Del Rey reissued them. In
    both cases it was a little more evident how many of the recurring
    themes there were in all of Thompson's (and Baum's, for that
    matter) Oz books...but, standing alone, I can see a lot more of
    the skill that won Thompson the Oz assignment in the first place.
 
    As a BAUM BUGLE writer once said, Thompson "was frankly writing
    fairy tales for children." She didn't take Oz as seriously as
    Baum had, and "considered any page without at least three puns on
    it a page wasted." But she obviously loved Oz, using the existing
    places Baum had created even more than Baum had (I loved the
    references to Ragbad's neighboring kingdom of Jinxland, which we
    all remember from THE SCARECROW OF OZ), and even showing some
    definite influence from his non-0z books. King Fumbo's loss of
    his head reflects the similar loss incurred by the title
    character of THE MAGICAL MONARCH OF MO at the hands (or rather
    teeth) of the Purple Dragon, right down to his subjects'
    not-entirely-successful attempts to replace his head with new
    ones composed of other substances.
 
    The main characters are quite appealing and likable...well, at
    least I found the three primary questers so. Prince Tatters was
    properly serious and sincere, Grampa competent and
    protective--substitute a soldier for a sailor and a "game leg"
    for a wooden one and you can see the influence of one of Baum's
    best adult characters, Cap'n Bill. (That "game," by the way, is
    also inspired, though Diana Wynne Jones has described "scrum" as
    an actual British game that's much closer to rugby or football
    than a board game. Oz "scrum" seems closer to a game once
    described by Martin Gardner as "cheskers," created by his good
    friend Solomon Golomb as a combination of chess and checkers. At
    that, given Gardner's own love for Oz, the similarity might have
    even been intentional.) At first reading, I found Bill the
    weathercock almost insufferable ("Here I go by the name of Bill!"
    wore thin after a few times), but this time I can see that
    Thompson kept him more under control for the most part. At that,
    I can appreciate this more as Thompson's attempt to get many
    levels of humor into the books, so children (and adults) of all
    ages will get their share of laughter.
 
     Urtha occasionally seemed almost too sweet, but usually she was
     so lively and exotic that I could see why Tatters fell in love
     with her so quickly. I almost did myself when I imagined her
     dialogue in the "foreign" accent Thompson sometimes seems to be
     hinting at. (Because, as I can testify from personal experience,
     there's absolutely nothing more captivating to a young man,
     especially one away from home for the first time, than an exotic
     girl from faraway places.) And Grampa clearly approves, too,
     realizing much more than he acknowledges (or the young people
     realize) what's going on between Tatters and Urtha.
 
    Indeed, though he's been said to be based on Thompson's uncle
    (also an ex-military man, to whom the book is dedicated), Grampa
    in some ways seems to be a male reflection of Thompson
    herself...a true sentimentalist who, although personally single,
    has "romantic views about marriage." It's frequently been noted
    that Thompson has far more romantic subplots in her Oz books than
    did Baum, for whom such plots were a rarity (and those that did
    exist, as in TIK-TOK and SCARECROW, almost invariably had origins
    in Oz stories Baum had originated for other media). It's been
    said that Baum wrote for little girls and Thompson for little
    boys, but at least in that regard each reverted to the stereotype
    of his or her own sex (which had a lot of truth to it, if more in
    the early part of the century when the books were written than
    today) that little boys disliked "yucky romance," but little
    girls loved to read about it and dream of the future. Be that as
    it may (and with the admission that I read all of Baum's books as
    a child but most of Thompsons as an adult, when I was naturally
    more inclined toward romance), they both worked for the kinds of
    stories they were trying to accomplish.
 
    In fact, I didn't mind the "IC's" this time as much as others
    did, because Thompson seemed to be working toward a definite
    theme. Prince Tatters is looking for a princess, and Thompson
    keeps tossing one princess after another into the story...most of
    whom fit into an actual pattern! They are composed of the four
    ancient elements: fire (Prince Forge John's fire maidens), water
    (the literal ice princess of Isa Poso), and air (Maribella the
    sky shepherdess might not qualify, but Baum's own Polychrome
    definitely does); which probably explains why Thompson gave his
    final choice, Urtha, that name (rather than something more in
    keeping with her physical nature, like Flora). There are also
    princesses never even thought of as possibilities, including
    Dorothy herself and Pearl Borax of Monday Mountain...who never
    even meets Tatters and whose cap is set for Percy Vere instead.
 
    Percy's and Dorothy's adventures provide a neat Baum-style
    counterpoint (as in books like TIK-TOK and LOST PRINCESS, where
    two different groups of adventurers are followed until they
    finally meet), which Thompson frequently used. Dorothy seems to
    be the only Baum character Thompson truly enjoyed using again and
    again...but then again, there seems to be a reason for that. 

Dorothy is pretty much everyone's favorite (human) Oz character: an
intelligent, resourceful and practical tomboy who's not afraid to do
whatever needs to be done and doesn't rely on the male characters
around her for protection.
 
    Which is exactly what's needed in Percy's case. He's honest,
    bright in some ways, and (as can be seen when the Princess is
    kidnapped) has more courage than any of the other men of Perhaps
    City, but he'd essentially a protected aristocrat with no clue as
    to how to get along in the real world...even when that real world
    is the Utopion land of Oz, in which Dorothy is THE old hand at
    surviving in. David Hulan may have found his incomplete poems
    tiresome (I rather enjoyed them, myself...he was much more
    interesting than Bill the weathercock), but Thompson seemed to be
    thinking there of adults reading her novel TO children,
    challenging them to come up with the ending before Dorothy did
    (and sometimes she didn't bother). 
 
    I wonder, too, how much subtlety Thompson put into his name.
    Aside from the obvious pun on "persevere" (which he certainly
    does), his first name comes from the famous poet Percy Bysse
    Shelley (whose wife Mary wrote FRANKENSTEIN, in which the monster
    is brought to life by electricity just as Bill the weathercock
    was...but, this being Oz, Bill has a much happier fate). 

And his last name may well come from Edward de Vere, Lord Oxford, one
of several English aristocrats of the 16th century (along with Sir
Francis Bacon and a few others) whom latter-day revisionists
continually attempt to credit as the true writer(s) of Shakespeare's
plays and poetry. I may be reading way too much into it, but are
Percy's incomplete poems Thompson's own commentary on what would
happen if an effete aristocrat like Lord Oxford really tried to BE
Shakespeare?
 
    For, despite her greater use of the original European trappings
    of the fairy tale than Baum ever did, Thompson seems to see
    eye-to-eye with him in wanting to write specifically American
    fairy tales. Her characters marry for love (the American way)
    rather than through the parental arrangement of traditional
    European aristocrats and royalty (despite the efforts of the
    older generation to push such matches through). Although Thompson
    (unlike Baum, who was generally vague about ages, probably to
    increase reader identification) usually gives the ages of her
    child heroes and heroines, this time she never tells us exactly
    how old her protagonists are (maybe because Urtha herself doesn't
    think she's more than a day old for most of the book). 

Tatters seems to me (from his actions and the pictures) to be around
15-16...the traditional age for a European fairy-tale hero to seek
his fortune and a bride, even if usually considered way too young for
an American boy to marry. Urtha seems around the same age, maybe a
bit younger, maybe even (to complete her exotic appeal to the
lovestruck Tatters) a bit older...but even if she's as old as 18,
Abrog/Gorba is most assuredly a dirty old man for wanting to marry
her (against her will) himself! (To be sure, Thompson has the out
that Oz people are almost always chronologically older than their
physical age, anyway...) This may have been inspired by Pon, Gloria
and Googly-Goo from SCARECROW (Thompson clearly had Jinxland on her
mind anyway), but Thompson really didn't need the inspiration for a
very old...and essentially American...concept.
 
    Thompson's turning Abrog into a mouse was actually more generous
    than the fates she gave some of her other villains (especially in
    Oz, where mice can still talk and have their own kingdoms), but
    harsher than anything Baum ever did to his. (The only thing that
    came close...aside from the deaths of the Wicked Witches in
    WIZARD, neither of which Dorothy intended... was Ugu the
    Shoemaker's becoming a dove in LOST PRINCESS, and there Dorothy
    specifically offered to change him back.) But, on the whole, this
    book made me realize that Reilly & Lee made the right choice of a
    person to carry on Baum's "American Fairy Tales"...and Thompson
    still hadn't reached her peak.
 
Rich Morrissey

From: "W. H. Baldwin" <wbaldwin at plvwtelco.net> 
Subject: Ozzy Digest BCF
Date: Sun, 05 Sep 99 23:55:42 PDT
 
  When I was a child, and later when I was merely childlike, I used
  to read all my Oz books completely uncritically. But I feel I've
  lost my literary virginity on the Digest, and I just don't have
  that openness any more. I'm holding you collectively responsible,
  and I'm not even sure just when it happened. It must have been when
  I wasn't looking. Yeah, isn't that always the way?
  In any event, here is my take on the BCF:

  General:
  I read this book with my heart. I like most of Ms. Thompson's
  books, but this is one of my favorites in spite of its faults --
  and there are a few.

Mainly it's because of the three primary characters: Grampa, Tatters
and Urtha. I feel drawn to all three for one reason or another. Also,
I thought Ms. T. handled the subplot in an okay manner, though it
could probably have been eliminated with a little different
treatment, but I'm not one to look into any gift-horse orifices, so
I'm happy. Then there were the puns, which I adore: game leg (good
one), house plant, Percy Vere, bay window, really "losing one's
head," and Vaga Bandit. Who could ask for more? The lesser ones I
didn't mention could have been better; at least, Isa Poso.

  Specific:
  Unfortunately, there are a few nits. They don't spoil the story for
  me, but they have to be picked.

******************* SPOILER FOR GRAMPA IN OZ **********************
  Chapter 1 places Ragbad in the southwestern corner of the Quadling
  country. Check.
  In chapter 3 the expedition starts for the E.C. Grampa says that
  going north will get them to the E.C., but this isn't so (should be
  northeast), so right away they get off on the wrong foot
  (naturally; he has only one).

Ms. T. also lays a big one here: she places the Winkies in the East
and the Munchkins in the West. I really don't understand how
something like this could happen. I know that the proofreading on the
whole series was pretty sad, but this? What were the editors doing
all this time, taking three-Martini lunches? However, the rest of the
book is consistent with this, so rather than try to change everything
east to west and vice versa (about as bad as coordinate
transformations pre-computer) I'll just carry along with this scheme.
Okay, so off they start, north. Now if the Quadling country and the
Munchkin country are pie-wedge shaped, they ought to hit the M.C.
almost at once. No, it takes an entire day before they come to the
Blue Forest of the Munchkin country. This is not consistent. What it
_is_ consistent with is the Quadling country of _Wizard_, and
assuming that the Q.C. is roughly symmetrical east-west it must be a
strip country (sort of a Goza Strip, as it were) along the whole
southern border of Oz with a depth of 17% of the distance to the E.C.
in the center at Glinda's palace and about 34% (1/6 the n-s length of
all Oz) at each end. Dear me.

  In chapter 4 Grampa tells of his 980 battles, which I for one would
  like to hear, but I recall it being categorically stated in another
  Oz book (dunno which one) that Oz has _always_ been peaceful and
  prosperous with no fighting or wars. Confusin'. Then they meet the
  bandits, which isn't too memorable, but enables them to pick up a
  couple items which prove very useful later on.
  In chapter 5 they fall down the hollow tree to the wizard's garden.
  Bill says they are falling "south by west," which ought, assuming
  they don't fall under the western deadly desert, to put them pretty
  much back where they started, but underground. Here they team up
  with Urtha.

  In chapter 7 it says they are no nearer the E.C. than they were
  before after a whole day trying to find a way out of the garden.
  Check. Then they go down the wizard's stairs. It says down and
  doesn't mention any horizontal moves, but boy, just wait!
  Chapter 8. We're in Perhaps City. Doesn't say specifically where it
  is, but the Happsies are a Winkie "race" so we'll assume the Winkie
  country -- the east, that is. Because of information in a later
  chapter, I'd place it about 3/4 of the way from the E.C. to the
  eastern deadly desert. Here enters Percy Vere.

  Chapter 9. Ms. T. slips again. First Toto is described with ears
  flapping, then with ears "pricked up." Now a caninophile will know
  that a doggy with floppy ears can't prick 'em up. The muscles and
  the instinct are there, but it just don't work too well with those
  flapping appendages. Poor Toto. Identity crisis time. For being
  almost an omnipresent character you'd think he'd be treated a
  little better, but his big chance doesn't come till _Mimics_. He
  and Dorothy were visiting the Woodman "in the center of the Winkie
  country," but because of the baconfly, they walk away from the E.C.
  -- east. Aha! But then the runaway road picks them up, runs who knows
  what direction, and dumps them in a forest, we assume a Winkie
  forest. By this time she's teamed up with Percy.

  Chapter 10. Back with Grampa. It is stated that they are far from
  the E.C. and Ragbad. Don't see how this could be from where we left
  them in chapter 7, but it must be so, for in spite of the fact that
  nothing is said about large horizontal movements, in

  Chapter 11 when they are shot out of the volcano by Prince Forge
  John, we find that the volcano is in Ev and they wind up in the
  northwestern Nonestic Ocean! They have somehow traversed the entire
  west length of Oz, crossed the desert, and crossed Ev. Either the
  wizard's stairs were really crooked, or there must have been some
  wormhole under that ground! Now they're on a floating island, and
  apparently still moving north, for

  Chapter 12. they come to frozen Isa Poso, the weakest part of the
  book, I thought, and an IE as far as I was concerned. After an
  adventure there, they're

  Chapter 13. back on another floating island, of ice this time, and
  floating east, it says. Grampa says "to the east of us lies Oz,"
  but this just isn't so. Where they are, to the east is nothing but
  more Nonestic Ocean. Better not listen to him. (It doesn't say how
  fast they are floating, but it must be some current because of what
  occurs in chapter 15). Now Grampa smokes some adulterated tobacco
  and they all turn into crows. They fly off, but it doesn't say
  which way. Hope it's not east.

  Chapter 14. Dot decides to walk west this time, which is the right
  direction to reach the E.C., but before long they're entangled at
  Monday Mountain, a blue mountain in the Winkie country! What's
  going on here? More laxity in the editorial offices?

  Chapter 15. Grampa and Co. reach Oz, having traversed Ev and the
  deadly desert, flying in the right direction by accident,
  apparently, because they sure didn't get there flying east. Grampa
  says "keep this up and we'll be in the E.C. by noon," but this
  isn't true, either, unless they are flying southwest. They couldn't
  reach the E.C. by flying south unless they came over the central
  part of the Gilliken country. It doesn't say that they traversed
  any part of the purple country, but assuming that it is
  wedge-shaped they would have had to overfly at least a small part
  of it because when they do come down it's in the Winkie country.
  They must have floated east pretty quickly in the Nonestic Ocean!
  This is a busy chapter, for next they're blown into a sky castle
  and find Fumbo's head, then they slide down Polly's rainbow.
  Doesn't say where they come down, but it must still be in the
  Winkie country because of what happens next.

  Chapter 16. Dot and Percy escape Monday Mountain and run off
  willy-nilly and in

  Chapter 17. team up with the rest of our protagonists.

  Chapter 18. They stumble onto the rough Play Fellows. Urtha escapes
  first and runs off to the east, away from the E.C. and the
  Woodman's castle "in the center of the Winkie country."

  Chapter 19. They all reach Perhaps City, Urtha first, then the
  others, where with the aid of the wizard's (Abrog/Gorba, not the
  Wiz) tools all is solved by

  Chapter 22, where Ozma horns in. An IE as far as I was concerned.
********************** END SPOILER *****************************
  In spite of the problems, which I don't think were all Ms.
  Thompson's fault, I liked it, I liked it.
  W. Baldwin

From: Ozmama at aol.com
Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 02:44:22 EDT
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-11-99
 
Nathan:<<
Well, according to Melody Grandy, that garden is now being used by
Zim.  I don't know if he'd let you visit or not.>>
 
Zim seems like a pretty nice guy.  Maybe he'd let me....  That garden
is introduced in such a lyrical way.  It just grabbed me as a kid
and, upon rereading that section, I understand why.  Thompson
describes it lovingly, at first.  It's magic at its beautiful best, even if it was created
by a nasty fella.   I'm enjoying my rereading of the book.  The first
chapter is RPT at her liveliest.  And wasn't Grampa clever in the way
he outfoxed Vaga?  Nice twist there, I think.

From: "W. H. Baldwin" <wbaldwin at plvwtelco.net> 
Subject: Digest 9/13
Date: Mon, 13 Sep 99 22:39:03 PDT
 
Rich Morrisey:

  Your essay was fascinating. I don't know how else to describe it.
  For _Grampa_ alone, I don't think the appelation "overkill" would
  be inappropriate, for it certainly ranged far afield. I assume that
  you contribute regularly to Club periodicals; if not, you ought to.
  I'm not expressing denigration; awe would be the correct
  designation. I suspect readers such as myself without your
  extensive and varied background won't be able to fully appreciate
  it; this is of little consequence -- allow yourself full rein on
  subsequent BCFs.

  Nevertheless, a couple comments... I'd never have caught the
  elemental quality of our princesses; a very astute and delightful
  speculation.

Neither would I have made the "scrum" connection, though I give
myself a dope-slap for that, as I _had_ heard of that one. Having one
of my "senior moments," I guess. The Shakespeare paragraph was
perhaps a bit of a stretch, but then again isn't he sometimes
waggishly referred to as "Bill"?

 And you must, you absolutely must, explain, with _full details_,
 your remark about personal experience vis-a-vis a young man away
 from home for the first time and exotic girls from faraway places.
 Dave himself has introduced the topic of romance in the Digest (all
 right, it was Ozzy romance), so 'fess up.
 
  W. Baldwin

From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com> 
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-13-99 (1)
Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 21:58:11 PDT
 
Rich:
>     As a BAUM BUGLE writer once said, Thompson "was frankly writing fairy
>tales for children." She didn't take Oz as seriously as Baum had, and
>"considered any page without at least three puns on it a page wasted."
 
Perhaps so, but her books usually seem to be more consistent than
Baum's, both because the style didn't fluctuate quite as much, and
because there weren't as many internal contradictions.
 
Warren:
>   In chapter 4 Grampa tells of his 980 battles, which I for one would like
>to hear, but I recall it being categorically stated in another Oz book
>(dunno which one) that Oz has _always_ been peaceful and prosperous with no 
>fighting or wars.
 
I'm not sure where this is mentioned, but events in the books
themselves suggest that this is probably untrue.  In both _Patchwork
Girl_ and _Glinda_, wars are brewing, and it takes Ozma or her
associates to avert them.  Before the reign of Ozma, it's likely that
there wouldn't have been anyone to intervene, so there probably were
some wars, although they were probably nowhere near as devastating as
wars in the Great Outside World.
 
>This is a busy chapter,
>for next they're blown into a sky castle and find Fumbo's head, then they
>slide down Polly's rainbow. Doesn't say where they come down, but it must 
>still be in the Winkie country because of what happens next.
 
I don't have the book handy, but doesn't Grampa specifically state
that they're coming down into the Winkie Country from the rainbow?
 
Nathan

Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 10:02:04 -0400
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com> 
Subject: Ozzy quizzicality
 
Has GRAMPA officially or by consensus become the topic of discussion?
I'm still rereading it, and saving responses to comments. But if
we're done, done, done with COWARDLY LION, I'll speed up.
 
Warren Baldwin wrote about GRAMPA:
<<Ms. T. also lays a big one here: she places the Winkies in the East
and the Munchkins in the West. I really don't understand how
something like this could happen. I know that the proofreading on the
whole series was pretty sad, but this? What were the editors doing
all this time, taking three-Martini lunches?>>
 
If Thompson's editors couldn't even ensure her questions ended with
question marks, they certainly weren't up to checking her cardinal
directions against Baum's. 

  Clearly Thompson was misled by the maps that appeared in the first
  editions of TIK-TOK, which had west and east reversed from their
  usual left-right positions. She located Ragbad near Jinxland on the
  lower left of the map, and assumed that was southwest, as it would
  be on most maps.

Marching due north into Munchkinland in the west of Oz thus makes sense.
Note that the distance to the border on the Haff-Martin map, which
adopts the irregular borders of Prof. Wogglebug's, is considerably
longer if one leaves Ragbad on the edge nearest the Emerald City;
that would fit the day's march. 

  Once her adventure started, Thompson indeed seems to have paid far
  less attention to directions. Robin Olderman mentioned how hard it
  was for Jim Haff and Dick Martin to fit GRAMPA into their Oz map.
  One would think adventurers with a weather cock would have a better
  sense of their directions than others, but perhaps Bill's internal
  compass was disrupted when he was electrified. More likely, their
  travels threw them off as well as up and down.
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Tue, 14 Sep 99 13:01:08 CST
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu> 
Subject: grampa in oz
 
Robin Olderman: So Jim Haff didn't like the geography in "Grampa"?  I
suppose the main problem geographically is that the action starts out
on the Munchkin side of things (Quadling, actually, but they start
their travels by going into the Blue Forest), and when they go
underground from there they eventually come up in the Nonestic Ocean
on the Winkie side.  But the winding staircase they're on is pretty
clearly magic, so having it take them across the whole length of Oz
and out the other side of the continent is reasonable enough,
although unusual.  I notice that the locations they put for book's
locations on the IWOC maps match up pretty closely with what RPT had
drafted on the ones she did sometime in the 30's (reprinted in the
"Bugle" in 1975, I think it was).  Like you, I like the characters
and the idea of a woman made of flowers and leaving a trail of
flowers where she goes (although, as David Hulan discusses, it has
assorted plotting problems).  It occurs to me that the fall
underground and the sight of the enchanted garden may be another
example of Carroll's influence.  

The garden when Alice gets into it is not as idyllic as it looks, and
RPT's Gorba, although non-idyllic, isn't at all like the non-idyllic
people found in the Wonderland garden, but both gardens at first
sight have a quality of enchantment.
 
Justin Richards: I think I'd agree that the plate of Ozma with braids
looks odd.  It isn't just the hairdo.  It looks as if he drew the
hand holding the sceptre before putting in an arm to connect the hand
to the body -- the arm wound up too long and with the wrong placement
for the wrist.  Some of the other illos, though, are handsome.  The
endpapers, with the parade of Oz characters lined up under Grampa's
command make quite a striking spread.  Odd that most of them are
clearly identifiable (except where they're too far back to have
enough detail to identify at all), but one is unfamiliar, the man
getting towards the far end with cross-gartered stockings.  Who's he?
 
Warren Baldwin: I think the geography of "Grampa" works pretty well, but it has to
   be remembered that RPT was working from Baum's map, and her east-
   west directions have to be reversed, just as his map had to be
   reversed, to work with the general geography.  She did it that way
   because that was what readers would see if they looked at their
   copies of "Tiktok" endpapers or at the b&w copies that Reilly &
   Lee distributed to fans.  Most of the other "mistakes" you mention
   are not mistakes at all, but simply consistent descriptions based
   on the assumption that the map is correct.  To get the material to
   work out in terms of Baum's descriptions (most of them -- he got
   the directions confused, pretty often, in any case), just reverse
   them.  This problem is not an error on RPT's part, but on Baum's
   part in sketching his map.  North rather than northeast (or
   northwest M/H) to the Emerald City from Ragbad is correct enough
   in terms of getting started on the journey, although not as
   precise as would be needed the whole way.  

Absence of horizontal travel underground to get them from Munchkin-
side to Winkie-side of the map -- it looks to me as if she expected
readers to assume that the winding staircase was going somewhere
horizontally as well as down.
 
Rich Morrissey: I don't think there's a stereotype that Baum wrote
for girls and RPT for boys.  Pretty clearly, both tried to be sure to
use sometimes girls and sometimes boys as main characters, and
expected a readership of both girls and boys.  But it's true that
Baum's girls are usually more interesting as characters than his boys
and that RPT's boys are usually more interesting than his girls.  She
didn't invent many characters who were girls/protagonists, but that
was because she had Baum's girls already available to use when she
wanted a girl as protagonist. // Interesting point that Tatters'
choices for princess run through the four elements. // Percy's
incomplete poems and his name as a comment on aristocrats as poets --
might be possible, but the Forgetful Poet, without a name, had
existed for several years before "Grampa" came out as a character in
RPT's children's page in the Philadelphia "Public Ledger."
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Thu, 16 Sep 99 10:44:27 CST
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu> 
Subject: typo in oz
 
I noticed a typo that would probably be confusing in comments I sent
on "Grampa."  I said RPT's boy-characters were "more interesting than
his girls" -- but what I meant was "her girls."
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Sat, 18 Sep 99 15:43:02 (PDT)
From: Dave Hardenbrook <DaveH47 at mindspring.com> 
Subject: Ozzy Things
 
GARDENS OF GOOD AND EVIL?:
A few digests ago someone (sorry, I forget who) mentioned that
Gorba's garden is the same as Zim's... Are you sure?  IIRC, Zim's
arboratum is hidden away in the Seven Blue Mountains, no one is sure
exactly where, but Gorba's garden is on the Haff-Martin map.
 
                             -- Dave

From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com> 
Subject: Ozzy Matters
Date: Sat, 18 Sep 1999 19:00:41 PDT
 
Dave Hardenbrook:
>A few digests ago someone (sorry, I forget who) mentioned that Gorba's 
>garden is the same as Zim's...
 
No, what I said (or what I meant, anyway) was:
 
***************SPOILER FOR _DISENCHANTED PRINCESS_******************
 
Zim's regular arboretum is NOT the same as Gorba's garden.  Zim does,
however, take possession of Gorba's garden to use for experiments
with his Mangaboo-Rose hybrids.
**************************END SPOILER*******************************
 
Nathan

Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 10:57:20 -0400
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com> 
Subject: GRAMPS
 
On to the first of many comments about GRAMPA! My edition is a Del
Rey paperback, which uses different pagination from the Reilly & Lee copies.
Therefore, I'll cite passages by chapter number and then page number
in the Del Rey edition, as in [2/12]. 
 
I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked GRAMPA. I first read
it somewhat late among the Thompson books, well after the unsurpassed
romance in SILVER PRINCESS. Its plot then struck me as derivative of
KABUMPO's. On this reading, I came to view it as indeed a rewrite of
KABUMPO, but a more successful one. 

  Thompson's plot seems stronger because, though she still relies on
  coincidences, she also prepares us for them. The result is a
  narrative arc that is (for Thompson's quest stories) unusually
  integrated and unified.

For example:
* We learn about the missing princess in chapter 8, not the end of
the book, as in KABUMPO. 
* The main villain doesn't come from nowhere, either. The first,
indirect look we get of the wizard, from Vaga the bandit, is that
he's "as false as his whiskers" [4/35]. (Oddly, however, though
Grampa later pulls the man's whiskers [19/208], and Neill seems to
depict him without them, they never actually come off.) We also see
that villain at work more often, as Gehan Cooray wished that KABUMPO
had shown Glegg. 
* The adventurers' sudden and convenient mutation into crows is
foreshadowed by all the crows Grampa notes in the bandits' forest
[4/39].
* Most important, the way GRAMPA's main plots spiral on a
(self-fulfilling) prophecy makes almost everything click together
satisfyingly. In other words, this story seems to be resolved by
fate, not merely luck. 

  The secondary quest of Percy and Dorothy is obviously less
  interesting than Tatters's story, but it serves three important
  functions: * establishing Pretty Good's disappearance * including
  Dorothy and Toto as familiar favorites * providing breaks from
  Tatters's adventure at the most suspenseful moments: when the
  Winding Stair is out of control and when the adventurers become
  crows. 

Dorothy and Percy's actual adventures aren't significant to the
resolution, but Thompson doesn't devote significant space to them.
They come in one-chapter bursts: chapter 8 to bring in Percy, 9 for
Dorothy, 14, and 16.
 
  Rich Morrissey pointed out GRAMPA's thematic unity as well. Tatters
  has four elemental adventures: earth (Gorba's garden), fire (Forge
  John's kingdom), water (Isa Posa on the Nonestic), and air
  (Maribella's cloud island). Thompson may also have followed a
  deliberate pattern in the two places where Dorothy and Percy are
  held captive--all work (Monday Mountain) and all play (Play City). 
  Of course, Thompson still uses a lot of slapdash storytelling when
  convenient: Bill pulling out the key he stole from a bandit [5/47]
  and Grampa's unlikely mistake on the Winding Stair [7/70], for
  instance. She could have gone back to insert the names Pearl Borax
  [16/172] and King Capers [18/194] in a more elegant way. And in
  chapter 14 Thompson establishes Percy's habit of rhyming under his
  breath to keep in practice, but that trait vanishes by his next
  appearance. 

  There are two significant elements of the plot that I'd have
  handled differently from Thompson, and one problem that's harder to
  fix. First, only when we meet Fumbo's head do we realize how much
  of a reader he is.

Thompson says he spent a lot of his kingdom's resources on books
[1/4], but we never see him reading. A couple of phrases setting the
opening scene in his library, or showing him with his thumb in a
book, would be all Thompson needed to establish that trait. Then his
head being lost in the clouds would make more sense. 

********* SPOILER *********
  Second, Thompson doesn't let us read the crucial prophecy about who
  will marry Princess Pretty Good until chapter 20. Abrog announces
  it and Peer Haps takes a fearful look [8/76], but it's not quoted
  to us. (Note that the peer later insists the prophet is solely to
  blame for believing a monster would come, taking no responsibility
  for his own overreaction [20/216].) I'd have written that prophecy
  so it's a little more oblique, as in: "In four days, the Princess
  of Perhaps City shall be unwillingly wed to a stranger who flies
  into Oz on black wings and bears two heads on his furry shoulders."
  (Then I'd make sure Tatters was actually carrying Fumbo and his
  thread bear cloak when he arrived at the castle.) That sort of
  prophecy, misunderstood but not thwarted, has a long tradition,
  including the Greek myths of Jason and Oedipus. 

  The third problem is, unfortunately, more basic than either of
  these items. Despite Pretty Good's transformation into Urtha, who
  is "not quite herself," Peer Haps immediately recognizes her
  [19/200]. When restored, she is "so like Urtha that Grampa blinked
  and Tatters could hardly believe his senses" [not to mention his
  luck--21/220]. Yet Percy Vere doesn't recognize Urtha as the very
  princess he's gone to find [17/180]. It seems that rhymes aren't
  the only thing he easily forgets. 
******* END SPOILER *******
 
In his analysis of GRAMPA, Rich Morrissey wrote: <<There are also
princesses never even thought of as possibilities, including Dorothy
herself>>
 
Except by Bill, single-minded as always [16/177]. 
 
Rich Morrissey also wrote:
<<Diana Wynne Jones has described "scrum" as an actual British game
that's much closer to rugby or football than a board game.>>
 
"Scrum" is the rugby term for the formation that looks to American
football fans like a very argumentative huddle. I hadn't heard it
used as the name of a game outside of Ragbad, however. 
 
David Hulan wrote:
<<the entire set of events from the time Grampa's party leaves
Gorba's garden until they find Fumbo's head is basically filler. . .
. The only important thing that happened during those two days was
that Tatters and Urtha fell in love.>>
 
Which, we must admit, is a very important thing in a romance. 
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

From: Ozmama at aol.com
Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 20:30:03 EDT
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-18-99
 
John Bell:
Re Grampa's directional challenges:" More likely, their travels threw
them off as well as up and down."
 
Punny! Doesn't Bill mention something about variable winds? 
Obviously there were too many variables of *some* kind at work here
to keep track of all the directions.
 
Ruth: Yes, I see parallels between the gardens.  Like Carroll, RPT
gives us a place where things seem to take delight in doing their own
thing, thus thwarting the protagonist(s).  The warning to get out of
the garden comes to mind.  But Thompson clearly envisions this garden
as a place of great beauty and gets rather lyrical about its
delights.  Does Carroll ever do that?
 
" but one is unfamiliar, the man getting towards the far end with
cross-gartered stockings.  Who's he?"
 
Just a guess, of course, but I've always thought it's Neill himself.
The face looks like a self-charicature to me.  --Robin

Date: Tue, 21 Sep 1999 08:32:48 -0400
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com> 
Subject: Abrog's prophecy, take 2
 
A stranger will the Princess wed
  Before she's five days older -
He'll cross a kingdom burning red, 
  Divide a realm much colder,
And fly to Oz, a second head
  Atop his shaggy shoulders -
Their wedding rite will all be said
  Ere anyone has told her.
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 10:24:53 -0500
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com> 
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-11 thru 9/18-99
 
9/13:
Rich:
I don't know about a game of that name, but "scrum" is what they call
the formation in a rugby game where most of the players on both teams
line up in a sort of huddle around the ball and try to kick it out to
one of their players to get a play started. Sort of like a jump ball
in basketball or a face-off in hockey, only a lot more violent. (In
the course of trying to kick the ball, a lot of players' legs get
kicked as well.)
 
Very interesting comments on the elemental aspects of the various
princesses Tatters meets in the course of his quest. Works for me.
(I'm not sure Polychrome is strictly speaking a princess, but I'm not
sure she's not either. Is her father ever described as a king?
Anyhow, she has many princess-like characteristics.)
 
It's true that Thompson's characters marry for love (in those books
where characters marry at all), but isn't that really true of
European fairy tales (as opposed to standard European aristocratic
practices) as well?

Most of the ones I think of with a romantic plot - Cinderella, Snow
White, Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, etc. - deal
with marrying either for love or for beauty (in the case of Snow
White and Sleeping Beauty), not for dynastic reasons.
 
Warren:
Possibly Grampa headed north from Ragbad to get to the EC because
that way he could hit the Yellow Brick Road and have an easier trek
than by heading directly toward the capital? Might have been
mountains or swamps or something of the sort in the way of a direct
path. (Having just negotiated the Alps getting from Italy to France
I'm acutely aware that the most direct route may not be the
fastest...)
 
"Goza strip" is a great coinage!
 
9/18:
Nathan:
I think Thompson's relative lack of internal contradictions can
probably be attributed to the fact that from the beginning, she knew
she was writing a long series of books. Baum started off by writing
what was going to be a one-off book. Then the popularity of the stage
play based on it encouraged him to write a sequel as the basis for
another stage play (which wasn't successful). Then financial
exigencies forced him to accept a contract to write four more books
in the series. But it was only with _Patchwork Girl_ that he seems to
have accepted the fact that he'd done a significant job of Secondary
Creation, and that he started taking much interest in internal
consistency - and even then he didn't seem to care all that much.
 
I suspect that the majority of Grampa's 980 "battles" fell more into
the category of barroom brawls than what we'd think of as "battles"
in the present day. Not literally in a barroom, of course, but fights
between half a dozen or so on a side, probably to a great extent
without the use of deadly weapons. The only blood drawn in most cases
was probably from noses and lips.
 
Ruth:
I hadn't thought of that, but it's true that Thompson rarely created
a female protagonist. Mandy is the only one who comes to mind, though
Peg, Urtha, Gureeda, and Planetty all play important roles, and to a
lesser extent so do Shirley, Marygolden, and Azarine.
 
David Hulan

Date: Mon, 27 Sep 99 10:12:40 CST
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu> 
Subject: oz comments
 
Robin Olderman: Yes, the description of the garden as seen by Alice
through the keyhole is lyrical, although not once she actually gets
to it.
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 23:31:35 -0400
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com> 
Subject: GRAMPA grumblings
 
More thoughts on GRAMPA!
  Gehan Cooray wrote, <<It started off quite well, but it tend to get
  worse as the chapters went by.>> I agree that the first chapters
  are the best, with the later ones less consistently entertaining
  and sometimes only a step above filler. (The episode among the Play
  Fellows seems most like filler, but it does give a reason for Urtha
  to run away from her companions.)
  In those early chapters in Ragbad and its environs, nearly every
  speaking character is vividly drawn. All of the adults have their
  own stubborn quirks--Pudge's sententious advice and love of coffee,
  for instance.

Thompson lets us see each of them without much moralizing or
pigeon-holing.

Plus, there's a steady stream of wordplay and slapstick action. 
  David Hulan judged the story worked well until Gorba's garden, and
  indeed the main plot is logical and fairly straight to that point.
  Each action follows from the previous, with a minimum of
  coincidence. For me the end of that streak is when Thompson has
  Grampa eat a house plant berry, and then drops that stalk
  entirely--shades of "when knighthood was in flower" at the end of
  ROYAL BOOK. 
 
Many GRAMPA characters seem to have forefathers in Baum's books. 
  I agree with Rich Morrissey that the loss of Fumbo's head, and
  especially the replacement of it with artificial substitutes,
  recalls one of Baum's better MO stories. 
  Grampa is like Cap'n Bill, as Rich also pointed out. Each man is
  transformed into an animal with the appropriate type of artificial
  leg: a grasshopper in SCARECROW, a crow here. When Thompson has
  Grampa, Tatters, and Urtha lofted up by an umbrella [15/163], she
  may have been influenced by how Cap'n Bill, Button-Bright, and Trot
  used an umbrella to travel to Sky Island (also the only previous
  book in which we meet Polychrome in the sky, not on land). 
  I think Polychrome's most important influence on GRAMPA, however,
  is as the model for Urtha. Like Poly in ROAD, Urtha is a beautiful
  and colorful lost fairy, enjoying her first eye-opening adventure,
  and constantly dancing around her companions. 
  Another obvious borrowing from an earlier work: the Runaway that
  snatches up Dorothy, Percy, and Toto [9/93] is a knock-off of the
  Runaway Country in KABUMPO. It's not an interesting character here,
  however, just a convenient plot device.
 
Some folks have also voiced dislike of Bill's and Percy Vere's
quirks. I have to disagree. I find Bill's literalness and his
single-minded quest for girl, gold, and land to be rather endearing.
He insists on maintaining the quest when Tatters is ready to give up
[13/140]. He, much more than Urtha, carries the burden of showing
what it's like for a character to be suddenly brought to life and
have to learn about the world. 

  As for Percy, Dorothy rightly says he, with his unfinished odes,
  "exactly like a puzzle" [9/90]. Ruth Berman mentioned that <<the
  Forgetful Poet...came out as a character in RPT's children's page
  in the Philadelphia "Public Ledger.">> Were his verses there
  presented as puzzles for readers to solve? Maybe it's because I
  like puzzles, but I never found him to be annoying--not as well
  thought out a character as Thompson's others, but she's done far
  worse. 

  Percy's character also makes an interesting contrast to Grampa's
  when Thompson throws them together [18/190-1]. The weathered old
  soldier and the dainty young bard actually have a lot in common:
  they're both bachelors with a keen sense of royal tradition. We
  have to ask why Peer Haps never considers Percy as a husband for
  his daughter--the poet is his closest friend, after all. As Grampa
  would be the first to tell us [12/123], the young man who rescues a
  princess also wins her hand, but Percy is never a potential rival
  for Tatters or any prince. Why not? Is he too old? Too much like a
  jester, and too little like a prince? Implicitly gay? 
 
The other side of the coin [and there is coinage in GRAMPA--3/23] is
that several people have voiced pleasure in how Thompson portrayed
Tatters and Urtha, and I found these characterizations to be rather
bland. They aren't empty shells, but they're not much more lively
than Pompa or Betsy, to mention other young people in Thompson's
books of this period. 

  For Urtha, for instance, we don't have a single paragraph from
  within her perspective until chapter 21. And we don't hear a peep
  from her when she's under Peer Haps's cloak; she behaves like a
  canary in a cage. That's a big contrast to how Thompson related
  several scenes in KABUMPO through Peg Amy's eyes. 
  We do get a few glimpses of what Tatters is thinking, though not
  until well into chapter 2. Unlike Pompa, Tatters wasn't raised in
  luxury, and therefore doesn't have to undergo the suffering and
  loss of identity like the Prince of Pumperdink (or like Percy,
  somewhat). But he too must learn what's really important to him.
  Along with finding his father's head, he eagerly adopts the goals
  of *femme* and fortune, and he must learn to discard those aims in
  favor of happiness with the pretty, naive girl he meets along the
  way. 

  One aspect of Tatters's life that the book makes little of is how
  distant Fumbo is as a father. By the time we finally see them
  together, Tatters has gone through fire and water to rescue the
  king. He screams, "Father!" Fumbo replies to Grampa instead. The
  king's head doesn't want to return [shades of Robin Williams's
  character in Gilliam's ADVENTURES OF BARON MUNCHAUSEN].

"Oh, father, please come back," pleads Tatters on his knees. But
Fumbo continues to talk to Grampa [15/166-8]. I'm not sure the king
ever directs a word directly to his son. (He does, however, have the
best line in the book: "This is the most exciting story I ever was
in" [20/214].)
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Fri, 1 Oct 1999 19:12:22 -0400
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com> 
Subject: Ragbad RFD
 
Before he went all the way back to WIZARD, Warren Baldwin stated some
cartographic concerns about GRAMPA. I paid extra attention to those
lines while reading the book, and saw a couple of interesting
patterns.

  First, Grampa pretty consistently uses cardinal directions even
  when Thompson makes clear his true destination lies at another
  compass point.

Thus, the book places Ragbad near Jinxland [1/5], which Thompson knew
from her TIK-TOK map is in a corner of Quadlingland, yet Grampa
directs his party to march "to the North" to reach the Emerald City
[3/23]. The ocean lies "far to the Northwest" of Oz [11/117], but
Grampa has Bill lead the party back "East" [13/143]. Clearly, this is
a case where we can't accept what a character says as reflecting the
author's understanding. 

  Second, and this is more speculative, I came to wonder if Thompson
  took a second look at her TIK-TOK map and reversed herself in the
  middle of writing GRAMPA. Ruth Berman pointed out that the first
  part of the book is mighty consistent: <<the geography of "Grampa"
  works pretty well, but it has to be remembered that RPT was working
  from Baum's map, and her east- west directions have to be
  reversed.>> When Tatters's party hits the Nonestic, though,
  Thompson says that's "to the Northwest" of Oz, which is indeed
  where it appears on the TIK-TOK map (though it's in the upper right
  corner). When the crows cross the Deadly Desert going east, the
  first country they reach is the Winkies' [15/158], which is
  consistent with those directions but not the book's earlier
  description of Oz. 

  GRAMPA is the first book in which Thompson made a firm statement
  that the Winkies are in the east of Oz, the Munchkins in the west.
  As David Hulan, <<she has it right in _Kabumpo_ and wrong in
  _Grampa_>>. In COWARDLY LION the situation is ambiguous. Its
  capsule description of Oz is correct (Winkies in west), but its
  placement of Mudge in Munchkinland's southwest corner implies that
  Thompson had started off the wrong way. Perhaps she made the same
  reversal while writing GRAMPA.  
 
GRAMPA is the first novel Thompson starts in the south of Oz, and I
wonder if she was influenced by literary depictions of the American
South. In CAVALIER AND YANKEE, Prof. William R. Taylor traces a
cliche picture of Southern plantations in American novels, going back
a century before GRAMPA. Among the repeated themes of this tradition:

* "the ruin of a once prosperous and respected family," as George
Tucker wrote in VALLEY OF THE SHENANDOAH (1824). Taylor states,
"Scarcely a single novel omits the opportunity of describing a ruined
plantation house and the desolation which surrounds it." 
* agricultural depression. Taylor says, "To a very considerable
extent their [the first generation of Virginian novelists'] works
reflect the results of the prolonged rural depression which struck
the eastern counties soon after 1800 and continued to wear away at
their prosperity for close to thirty years." Later books in the
tradition blamed overplanting or the Civil War/Reconstruction, as in
the 20th century's most famous example, GONE WITH THE WIND. In the
1920s, when Thompson was writing, the villain in Southern agriculture
was the boll weevil eating the cotton crops. 
* the flawed plantation master. "If the planter is not a spendthrift,
a gambler or a dueler," Taylor reports, "he is often the dupe of his
overseer or the victim of a confidence scheme. . . . Often he has
died before the story opens and exists only as a memory." * the noble
plantation mistress. "The real focus of fictional plantation life was
not the planter but his wife," writes Taylor. In SOCIAL LIFE IN OLD
VIRGINIA BEFORE THE WAR (1897) Thomas Nelson Page claimed the
planter's wife was "the most important personage about the home, the
presence which pervaded the mansion, the centre of all that life, the
queen of that realm.

. . . mistress, manager, doctor, nurse, counsellor, seamstress." *
satirical parallels to European aristocracy. John Pendleton Kennedy's
SWALLOW BARN (1834) contains chapters titled "Knight Errantry," "A
Joust at Utterance," and "The Last Minstrel," for example.

  I see all these reflected in how Thompson pictures Ragbad in
  chapter 1 of GRAMPA. "At one time, all the dress goods in Oz had
  been grown in the gardens of Ragbad," but "affairs in the kingdom
  had gone from bad to worse." The castle has a cracked window, a
  hole in the roof, and a frayed bell cord. 

  Ragbad's crops are failing: "The cotton fields and calico bushes,
  the chintz and tapis trees,...ran perfectly wild and
  yielded--instead of fine bolts of material--nothing but shreds,
  tatters, and rags." Except for one mention of linen, all the cloths
  Thompson mentions--chintz, gingham, lawn, calico--are forms of
  cotton. The only other familiar agricultural product mentioned in
  this chapter is also a Southern staple: "a tobacco leaf." 
  The root of this planting problem? "When Fumbo came to the throne,
  he began to spend so much time reading and so much money for books
  and tobacco that he soon emptied the treasury." All he's saved for
  a rainy day is an umbrella. Soon the spendthrift monarch loses his
  head, a symbolic death. 

  Queen Sew-and-Sew has been holding the realm together by becoming a
  full-time seamstress: "with all her sewing she had barely been able
  to keep the kingdom from falling to pieces."
  Finally, though Ragbad maintains most of the terminology of a
  kingdom (as in Kennedy's satire), in fact it's shrunk to be more
  like a plantation. The population outside the castle is only "the
  Redsmith, the Miller, the Baker and twenty-four rustic laborers"
  with their wives and children. 

  In KABUMPO Thompson started off in Pumperdink, the setting for "a
  good old-fashioned royal family." The little southern realm at the
  start of GRAMPA doesn't fit that trope. Instead, she seems to have
  a different familiar setting in mind. 
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Mon, 4 Oct 99 11:21:01 CST
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu> 
Subject: b&w in oz
 
J. L. Bell: 
 
Yes, the verses of "Forgetful Poet" as a character in RPT's "For Boys
and Girls" page were presented as puzzles for readers to solve.  The
reason why Percy never considers aspiring to win the princess himself
-- your "too little like a prince" suggestion seems the most likely
in terms of the plot.  But "too old" or "implicitly gay" seem like
possibilities, too. // Ragbad as a "decayed southern estate" -- does
sound like a possible influence.
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 17:07:14 -0500
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com> 
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-24 thru 10-3-99
 
9/24:
J.L.:
>* The main villain doesn't come from nowhere, either.
 
Glegg doesn't exactly come from nowhere. It's true that unlike
Gorba/Abrog, he doesn't appear on stage until almost the end, but we
don't (officially) know that Gorba and Abrog are the same person
until the end, either, and Glegg's Box of Mixed Magic is essentially
the same kind of _deus ex machina_ in _Kabumpo_ that Gorba's magic
potion is in _Grampa_.
 
<< The only
>important thing that happened during those two days was that Tatters and
>Urtha fell in love.>>
>
>Which, we must admit, is a very important thing in a romance.
 
Yes, but my point was that they'd presumably have done that even if
they'd just been walking along the Yellow Brick Road, as opposed to
falling into fire country, riding a volcano, killing a dragon,
floating on an ice floe, and turning into crows. None of those
adventures were relevant to the main line of the story - though I'll
admit that I hadn't thought of Rich's analysis that made Tatters'
meetings with princesses of fire and water significant.
 
I admire your poetic prophecy later on in the Digest, by the way!
 
9/30:
J.L.:
I didn't find Bill annoying, but I did Percy. (Pick one - I didn't
care for the other Ozian Percy, the rat of _Hidden Valley_, either.)
 
Tatters and Urtha aren't among Thompson's best original juvenile
characters, but they're better than most in her early books. Peg Amy
is an exception, but otherwise I don't like most of her juveniles
much until Speedy and Marygolden come along in _Yellow Knight_.
 
10/3:
J.L.:
Interesting parallels between Ragbad and a Southern plantation. I
rather doubt that Thompson has any such idea in mind consciously, but
it might well have been a subconscious influence.
 
David Hulan

Date: Fri, 8 Oct 1999 09:37:26 -0400
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com> 
Subject: GRAMPA is smokin'!
 
And on to this message's GRAMPA thoughts. First, thanks to Ruth
Berman for the news about Percy the puzzler.
 
A long while back, Gehan Cooray wrote:
<<The plotlines are very good too, but the 'story' could have been
alot better...... I think its one of RPT's weakest Books.  Its also
quite un-ozzy.>>
 
I'm hoping to understand your criteria for Ozziness, and how you're
drawing a line between the story and the plot lines. 
 
David Hulan wrote:
<<we don't (officially) know that Gorba and Abrog are the same person
until the end>>
 
No, but we do have the clues of their names and the wizard's false
whiskers. Those aren't giveaways, but when we look back we can see
how GRAMPA's twists do fit together. They don't seem as arbitrary as
in KABUMPO's. In that book the heroes have the dumb luck to be right
in assuming that J.G. and Glegg are the same person; Trot has the
dumb luck to give her doll the same name it had as a princess; a
wizard manages to hide his magic right under Ozma's palace, though
he's in love with a princess in the Winkie Country; and on and on. 

  Has it been mentioned how Peg Amy's and Urtha's enchantments
  resemble each other? In both books an evil magic-worker tries to
  turn a princess into something natural but mute, only to be foiled
  when she takes human shape and is then brought to life.
 
One interesting theme of GRAMPA is anti-tobacco. As I quoted earlier,
Fumbo's two expenses driving Ragbad into ruin are books and tobacco
[1/4].

The bandits use tobacco to keep people captive [4/39, 15/160-1].

  But the character most obviously addicted to nicotine is Grampa.
  Thompson explicitly says taking snuff is one of his two bad habits
  [3/24], and even introduces him "trembling like a tobacco leaf"
  [1/4]. He owns 75 pipes, "and deciding which of these to carry with
  him took longer than all of his other preparations" [2/18]. 
  Grampa doesn't just smoke tobacco. He *needs* to smoke. When the
  house plant berry has enchanted him, all he can think of is, "Give
  me my pipe"--which makes fumes come out his chimney [7/65-6].
  Having finally lulled the bandits to sleep, he nevertheless pauses
  to steal Vaga's tobacco, though he must do it "very carefully"
  [4/37]. On miraculously getting back to Oz, Grampa still has reason
  to complain: "The mischief, boys! I've lost my pipe!" [15/160] For
  the rest of the book he's on a quest for "a couple of new pipes"
  [15/170], even trying a bubble pipe [18/194], which he seems to
  ruin [19/207]. Grampa's "happiness was complete" only after Peer
  Haps has given him a pipe he can really smoke [21/221]. 

  Contrast Thompson's portrait to how Baum showed Trot taking comfort
  in Cap'n Bill's smoking in SCARECROW and other books. If Grampa was
  indeed based on Thompson's "Uncle Billy," I wonder if she'd seen
  the old man's grumpier side when he couldn't smoke. 
  Smoking of a sort does produce the nicest metaphor in the book.
  While Grampa has pipes on his mind, he says, "I wouldn't trust a
  prophet as far as I could swing a chimney by the smoke" [17/184]. 
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

From: "Warren H. Baldwin" <wbaldwin at plvwtelco.net> 
Subject: Responses
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1999 16:24:17 -0500
 
9/30
  D. Hulan <Possibly Grampa headed north from Ragbad to get to the EC
  because that way he could . . . have an easier trek> A possibility.
  I prefer evidence to speculation. On the other hand, I'm literarily
  athletic: a great conclusion-jumper. And it _is_ explicitly stated
  in one of the Thompson books, and perhaps in others as well, that
  the four countries are triangle-shaped and meet at the E.C. zone.
  This view is absolutely irreconcilable with the earliest Baum
  writing and must have given Haff and Martin fits. Their map does
  not conform to this view entirely, so they must have gone through
  some compromise process. 
  W. Baldwin

Date: Tue, 12 Oct 1999 08:38:39 -0400
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com> 
Subject: Oz going soft
 
Turning to GRAMPA, Warren Baldwin wrote: <<In chapter 4 Grampa tells
of his 980 battles, which I for one would like to hear, but I recall
it being categorically stated in another Oz book (dunno which one)
that Oz has _always_ been peaceful and prosperous with no fighting or
wars. >>
 
Grampa drops a hint about these battles when he says, "In my youth,
young lads served in the armies of strange kings, slew monsters, and
were rewarded with half the kingdom and the Princess' hand" [12/123].
So most of Grampa's army career may have been rather like Sir Hokus's
one-man quests.

Baum usually drew on 19th-century military detail for his soldiers,
and Thompson seems to do the same for Grampa; with his gun, drum, and
checkered pants, he appears to fit better in the Grand Army of the
Republic than in a troop of armored knights. But in his youth battles
might have been very different.
 
Back in February, Dave Godwin wrote about the storm in ROYAL BOOK:
<<Such weather is so rare in Oz that I expected some sort of
explanation for its special occurrence, but none was forthcoming.>>
 
GRAMPA begins with a bad storm, Bill gets caught in another (or is it
the same?), and Polychrome and her father travel with the rain. In
this part of Oz, at least, Fumbo seems wise to provide his heir with
a big umbrella. And Thompson seems more willing than Baum to use bad
weather as a convenient device (which needs no explanation) to shake
up her plot. On the other hand, she assures us it never snows in Oz,
though Fumbo's books mention such a phenomenon elsewhere [11/120]. 
 
Thompson contradicted Baum in GRAMPA in several other minor ways that
are nevertheless interesting as clues to how she went about telling
her story.

For instance, she says that Ragbad's army marched off to Jinxland
[1/5].

Obviously, she'd forgotten the bottomless gulf between that kingdom
and the rest of Quadlingland in SCARECROW, and was simply looking at
the TIK-TOK map.

  Grampa tells Bill, "there are no live wires in Oz" [3/28]. Baum
  wrote that Ozma's palace had electric lights, with the implication
  that they indeed had electric currents flowing through them. Both
  Fumbo [17/183] and Peer Haps [9/90] have detailed and recent
  histories of Oz, so Grampa should presumably have known about
  Ozma's castle. Instead, Thompson seems to be accelerating the
  process of making Oz more quaint than the contemporary American
  countryside. 

  Thompson states that Ozma made the Tin Woodman emperor of the
  Winkies [9/86], but in WIZARD it's clear that he was the Winkies'
  own choice. I see this as reflecting Thompson's top-down view of
  authority, in contrast to Baum's bottom-up preference. There also
  seems to be a shift of perspective when Tatters asks Dorothy if
  she's "The Dorothy who discovered Oz?" [17/182] As I write on
  Columbus Day, it seems especially apt to note that a native like
  Tatters would know that Oz needed no discovering. That line
  discloses Thompson's US-centered view of the world; Dorothy
  "discovered" Oz for us, not for them.

  There are also some small differences in how Thompson depicts
  Dorothy and her family. On Monday Mountain, Dorothy asks Percy,
  "Can you fight?" [14/152] It's ambiguous whether she's asking him
  (as a male) to fight for her, or whether she's preparing to wade in
  herself (as she did with the Cowardly Lion and the Tottenhots). In
  any event, Thompson doesn't actually dare to show her heroine
  physically resisting. I do prefer how Thompson shows Toto in this
  book barking except when necessary [9/84, 14/154]. Is this the
  first book that sets Uncle Henry and Aunt Em in "a comfortable
  little farm just outside of the Emerald City" [9/87]?

  One feature that Thompson shared with Baum: a wish to allow
  characters to hear what people in Magic Picture are saying. In
  EMERALD CITY, as I recall, Ozma and her friends merely had to be
  *very quiet* to hear the Nomes and their allies quarreling. In
  TIK-TOK she had a radio hook-up to the Shaggy Man. Here the Wizard
  creates "a powerful radio" [22/223]--picking up what signals? At
  the end of OZMAPOLITAN, Dick Martin shows the Wizard performing
  another temporary spell that created the same effect.
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Thu, 14 Oct 99 14:12:36 (PDT)
From: Dave Hardenbrook <DaveH47 at mindspring.com> 
Subject: Ozzy Things
 
THOMPSON:
J.L. Bell wrote:
>Grampa tells Bill, "there are no live wires in Oz" [3/28]. Baum wrote
>that Ozma's palace had electric lights, with the implication that they
>indeed had electric currents flowing through them. 
 
I always thought that on whatever grounds Neill's books are open to
criticism it was wrong to criticize them in _The Oz Scrapbook_ for
bringing contemporary technology to Oz because Baum did it in several
places.  Thompson was the one who wanted Oz to be more like a
*conventional fairyland*. (Yawn.)
 
That's not meant as a criticism of Thompson -- I just feel she was
not as imaginative as Baum.  I think we had to wait until Sid Krofft
to find another man with nearly as wild an imagination as Baum.
 
>Thompson states that Ozma made the Tin Woodman emperor of the Winkies
>[9/86], but in WIZARD it's clear that he was the Winkies' own choice. 
 
The T.W. was already emperor when he met *Tip*, so it couldn't have
been *Ozma* who appointed him!!!
 
>In any event, Thompson doesn't actually
>dare to show her heroine physically resisting. 
 
I find it "a most ingenious paradox" how Oz's females assume more
frequently passive roles when RPT (a female) was Historian.
 
Face it, there are so many places Thompson flatly contradicts Baum
that I can't see how any statement she made can be taken as Holy Scripture.
( And you guys all know what statement in particular I'm referring
to. :) )
 
                             -- Dave

From: "sprichards" <sprichards at email.msn.com> 
Subject: Oz Digest Stuff
Date: Sat, 16 Oct 1999 11:01:50 -0700
 
Was it Baum or Thompson who stated "Oz has always been a peaceful and
prosperus country without any fighting or wars?" For the Hoppers and
Horners have had lots of wars, both in PATCHWORK GIRL OF OZ and THE
ROYAL BOOK OF OZ. Liked the comments on GRAMPA IN OZ. I think it is
one of Ruth's best, but like a few other Oz books has its good points
and it's bad. COWARDLY LION was quite dark in a few ways, but the
only part I liked was the Fiddlestick Forest or whatever it is. But
in Grampa, the whole story is neat, but after a while Bill certanly
gets more annoying than Percy Vere. I wish Thompson put the end to
Percy's rhymes, for I didn't bother to make up an ending. I'll have
to re-read it. Last time I read it was around February 1999.
I have a pretty good memory though!
 
Oz Ever,
Justin Richards
 
P.S. Does anyone with a First Edition of GRAMPA IN OZ knows if there
was ever a front color plate? Mine doesn't have one, but has all 12
in different parts of the book, but not in front. Perhaps a later
First Edition would have it. Thank you!

From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com> 
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 10-15-99
Date: Sat, 16 Oct 1999 13:01:59 PDT
 
J. L. Bell:
>On the other
>hand, she assures us it never snows in Oz, though Fumbo's books mention
>such a phenomenon elsewhere [11/120].
 
Actually, I think that the statement was along the lines of "there is
no snow in Oz," although she mentions in _Ojo_ that Oz has a Snow
Mountain.  

This doesn't necessarily mean that snow falls from the sky there, but
the substance is presumably there, or that name most likely wouldn't
have been used.  There's soap snow in _Gnome King_ and talcum powder
snow in Neill's _Lucky Bucky_, but neither of these really count.  It
did, however, snow in Icetown (from _Hidden Valley_) and at the Link
(in _Merry Go Round_), but these were probably just localized
occurrences.
 
>   Grampa tells Bill, "there are no live wires in Oz" [3/28]. Baum wrote
>that Ozma's palace had electric lights, with the implication that they
>indeed had electric currents flowing through them.
 
After the palace sinks in _Lost King_, Dorothy uses a "radio button"
to turn on the lights.  I don't really know what this means, but it
could be suggesting that the lights are powered with the use of
electrical wires.
 
>Is this the first book that sets Uncle Henry and Aunt Em in "a comfortable
>little farm just outside of the Emerald City" [9/87]?
 
I'm not sure.  Uncle Henry and Aunt Em's home seems to vary from one
book to another.  They're given a suite in the palace in _Emerald
City_, but I think Baum places in a house in a later book (I'm not
sure about this, though).  

Thompson, as you mentioned, has them live outside the city, but I
think Neill returns them to the palace.  I think _Magical Mimics_
places them outside the castle again; I haven't read that book in
several years, but I seem to recall either Em or Henry saying that
Dorothy would come to visit them every day.  (I suppose this
statement could still be true if they lived in the palace, though.)
They're definitely living in the palace in Dick Martin's
_Ozmapolitan_.
 
>   One feature that Thompson shared with Baum: a wish to allow characters 
>to
>hear what people in Magic Picture are saying. In EMERALD CITY, as I recall,
>Ozma and her friends merely had to be *very quiet* to hear the Nomes and
>their allies quarreling. In TIK-TOK she had a radio hook-up to the Shaggy
>Man. Here the Wizard creates "a powerful radio" [22/223]--picking up what
>signals? At the end of OZMAPOLITAN, Dick Martin shows the Wizard performing
>another temporary spell that created the same effect.
 
Good point about the signals.  Perhaps Thompson just used "radio"
because that term would give a good indication to the readers as to
what the device looked and acted like, even if it did not really use
radio waves.  The magic radio (or a very similar device) was also
used in _Royal Book_ and _Merry Go Round_, and _Scalawagons_ had Ozma
and company listening to the people in the Magic Picture with no
explanation as to how.
 
Dave Hardenbrook:
>I always thought that on whatever grounds Neill's books are open to 
>criticism
>it was wrong to criticize them in _The Oz Scrapbook_ for bringing 
>contemporary
>technology to Oz because Baum did it in several places.  Thompson was the 
>one
>who wanted Oz to be more like a *conventional fairyland*.
 
While Thompson did introduce a lot of medieval-type elements into Oz,
she did not completely abandon technology in her books.  Sir Hokus
states that Ozma's palace has electric burglar alarms (in _Yellow
Knight_), the Wizard invents Ozoplanes and other mechanical devices,
and Tik-Tok makes a mechanical handcar in _Wishing Horse_.  Those are
just three examples that I thought of on the spur of the moment;
there are probably others.
 
> >Thompson states that Ozma made the Tin Woodman emperor of the Winkies
> >[9/86], but in WIZARD it's clear that he was the Winkies' own choice.
>
>The T.W. was already emperor when he met *Tip*, so it couldn't have been
>*Ozma* who appointed him!!!
 
You're right, although I would assume that Ozma would have been
called upon to approve Nick's rule after taking control over all of
Oz.  Still, that doesn't really constitute "making" Nick Emperor of
the Winkies.
 
Nathan

Date: Mon, 18 Oct 1999 13:29:57 -0400
From: Michael Turniansky <turnip at bcpl.net>
Subject: *Ozma* making Nick emperor?
 
>
>  >Thompson states that Ozma made the Tin Woodman emperor of the Winkies
>  >[9/86], but in WIZARD it's clear that he was the Winkies' own choice.
>
> The T.W. was already emperor when he met *Tip*, so it couldn't have been
> *Ozma* who appointed him!!!
>
 
    Perhaps Thompson meant to imply Ozma merely ratified the
    already-existing situation, especially since the government tends
    to become more republican as opposed to confederated as time goes
    on.  Just as she allows some benign magic workers to continue
    their (theretically extrajudicial) practice.   After all, if she
    runs the entire uber-empire, does any population have the right
    to democratically self-determine their leadership?
 
                     --Mike "Shaggy Man" Turniansky

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 17:48:13 -0500
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com> 
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 10-11 & 15-99
 
10/11:
J.L.:
>One interesting theme of GRAMPA is anti-tobacco. As I quoted earlier,
>Fumbo's two expenses driving Ragbad into ruin are books and tobacco [1/4].
 
It's difficult to imagine how paying for books and tobacco could
bankrupt a kingdom - even a very small one - unless the books in
question were comparable in value to a Gutenberg Bible, and Fumbo
only smoked exceedingly rare tobaccos. Clearly Grampa can afford his
tobacco habit, so it's not that tobacco in general is terribly
expensive in Oz.
 
Warren:
>   D. Hulan <Possibly Grampa headed north from Ragbad to get to the EC
>because that way he could . . . have an easier trek> A possibility.  I
>prefer evidence to speculation.
 
So do I, but where there is no evidence (which is very often the
case, as it is in this one), speculation is all we have left.
 
10/15:
J.L.:
Thompson uses storms quite often - in _Royal Book_, _Cowardly Lion_,
_Grampa_, and _Silver Princess_, for sure, and there may be others
that I've forgotten in a quick run-through. (For that matter, I used
a couple in _Glass Cat_...)
 
I suppose it would be possible for the Ragbad army to march off to
Jinxland despite the bottomless gulf. If Ozma decided to keep a
serious eye on that kingdom after it came to her attention in
_Scarecrow_, it's quite plausible that she'd install (or have the
Wizard or Glinda install) a bridge over the gulf so it would
communicate with the rest of the kingdom. The gulf doesn't seem to
have been all that wide; after all, a spider web could span it. I
don't see this as a serious contradiction. (Though a few years ago I
also hypothesized that "marched off to Jinxland" might just be a
metaphor comparable to "took off for Timbuktu," not to be taken
literally but just meaning" heading out for parts unknown.")
 
>   Grampa tells Bill, "there are no live wires in Oz" [3/28]. Baum wrote
>that Ozma's palace had electric lights, with the implication that they
>indeed had electric currents flowing through them.
 
Two possibilities here, if we want to preserve the appearances:
Grampa may not have known about the electricity in Ozma's palace
(he'd never been there, after all, and even if Fumbo had an
up-to-date encyclopedia Grampa may not have read that part of it), or
by "live wire" he may have been meaning a wire exposed to the outside
world, which might not have been the case regarding the
electrification of Ozma's palace. (Maybe the generator was in the
basement and so there were no wires outside the palace.) Speculation,
yes, but in the absence of concrete evidence, as I said to Warren...
 
The Tin Woodman was certainly Emperor of the Winkies before Ozma took
the throne; perhaps what Thompson meant was that Ozma had confirmed
him in his position.
 
David Hulan

From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com> 
Subject: Ozzy Thoughts for the Day
Date: Thu, 21 Oct 1999 19:25:53 PDT
 
David Hulan:
>I suppose it would be possible for the Ragbad army to march off to Jinxland
>despite the bottomless gulf. If Ozma decided to keep a serious eye on that
>kingdom after it came to her attention in _Scarecrow_, it's quite plausible
>that she'd install (or have the Wizard or Glinda install) a bridge over the
>gulf so it would communicate with the rest of the kingdom. The gulf doesn't
>seem to have been all that wide; after all, a spider web could span it. I
>don't see this as a serious contradiction. (Though a few years ago I also
>hypothesized that "marched off to Jinxland" might just be a metaphor
>comparable to "took off for Timbuktu," not to be taken literally but just
>meaning" heading out for parts unknown.")
 
******************SPOILERS FOR _GARDENER'S BOY_**********************
In Phyllis Ann Karr's _Gardener's Boy_ (which, admittedly, is not
part of the FF), there is a spell on the Great Gulf that stops
bridges from being built across it.  At the end of the book, this
spell is lifted.  The book seems to take place at a later date than
_Grampa_, though.
**************************END SPOILER********************************
 
Nathan

From: Ozmama at aol.com
Date: Fri, 22 Oct 1999 23:20:33 EDT
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 10-21-99
 
Justin R.: <<
P.S. Does anyone with a First Edition of GRAMPA IN OZ knows if there
was ever a front color plate? Mine doesn't have one, but has all 12
in different parts of the book, but not in front. Perhaps a later
First Edition would have it>>

    Nope!  Justin, you're old enough, smart enough, and deeply enough
    into Oz to get a copy of _Bibliographia Oziana_.  It has all
    kinds of info in it like the fact that _Grampa_ never had a
    frontispiece.  It's well having.  Order it from IWOC.
    --Robin

Date: Sun, 24 Oct 1999 15:29:31 -0400
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com> 
Subject: old pictures of GRAMPA
 
Finishing up GRAMPA, David Hulan wrote: <<it would be possible for
the Ragbad army to march off to Jinxland despite the bottomless gulf.
. . . I don't see this as a serious contradiction.>>
 
Not a serious one, I agree, but a significant one if we're seeking
clues to how Thompson probably went about composing GRAMPA. We can
indeed come up with plausible ways to reconcile the two authors, but
that just underscores the differences between them.

  In the same spirit, we can see the influence of KABUMPO when
  Thompson briefly writes Percy as Wag: "Don't you be so migh and
  highty" [17/179]. 

  As for how Thompson might have gone about *reporting* GRAMPA as a
  historian, it seems significant that she twice uses the phrase, "As
  Dorothy told Ozma afterwards" [14/153, 18/193]. That implies that
  her information came through Ozma, or somehow from Ozma and
  Dorothy's conversations. 
 
In commenting on GRAMPA's art, I'm handicapped by not having a Reilly
& Lee edition, though I understand one is on its way to me. I'll try
to identify illustrations by means other than page numbers.

  On the "This Book Belongs To" page, the Woozy makes yet another
  appearance in the frontmatter of a book in which he plays little
  role. His shape must have made him easy and fun for Neill to draw. 
  Thompson's text says Fumbo has a red beard [1/3], but Neill chose
  to draw his head clean-shaven in chapters 15 and 17. Of course,
  Thompson also says his body had only "stockinged feet" [1/6], and
  in chapter 1 Neill twice depicted it shod.

  Thompson says Bill is a "large reddish fowl" [3/26]. I always
  thought of him as black because he's cast-iron, but Neill's line
  drawings mostly show him in outline. What color is he in the book's
  color plates?

  Neill's ice princess at the start of chapter 13 seems prettier than
  Thompson described her.    Finally, in the full-page line art in
  chapter 19, in which Grampa stands with a shovel, who are the men
  standing behind Grampa? The one in the foreground was identified by
  Jack Snow in WHO'S WHO as Gorba. So why does Grampa seem friendly
  to him? Why is the old soldier carrying a shovel? Where has his leg
  reappeared from? And who's the man behind them? (One possibility is
  the Lord High Humpus, whose best moment comes when "The wig of the
  Chief Justice rose in the air and turned around three times"
  [19/205-6].)
 
For the last word on those mysteries, however, I return to chapter 3: 

    "What do you mean, flying through this forest 
  deceiving hungry travellers?"

    "I don't know what I mean," replied the weather 
  cock calmly, "for I've only been alive since last 
  night. What do you mean yourself, pray? Must 
  everyone have a meaning like a riddle?" 
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 99 09:39:22 CST
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu> 
Subject: color in oz
 
Justin Richards: Others will probably comment, but -- "Grampa" never
had a color frontispiece.  It had a b&w frontispiece drawing of
Grampa, and 12 color plates scattered through the book.  The IWOC's
"Oz Bibliographica" book by Greene, Hanff, et al, is very useful to
get if you're interested in such questions.  (Peter, it's still
available from the IWOC, isn't it?)
 
Nathan DeHoff and J.L. Bell: RPT's "There is no snow in Oz" is
probably similar to Baum's statements about the lack of horses
(Sawhorse excepted) or chickens (Billina and offspring excepted).
The "narrative voice" usually claims to be reporting information
provided by communication with Ozites or Oz visitors, and can be as
forgetful and otherwise unreliable as they are.  "No" claims should
perhaps always be translated as "None, so far as I know/remember, and
certainly not many."
 
Ruth Berman

From: "Kenneth R. Shepherd" <kshepherd at email.msn.com>
Subject: Digest of 10-26
Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 09:29:46 -0400
 
I've been meaning to address a comment about _Grampa_ that came up several
weeks ago about the house plant in Gorba's Garden causing Grampa to grow a
chimney.  The commenter suggested that this was a virtually irrelevant
episode in the book.  Actually, I think that this is the first place where
the medicine bottle is used, and since the bottle is crucial to the
resolution of the story, I had always considered it a relevant episode.
 
Best,
 
KRS

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 99 08:32:33 CST
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: one oz
 
David Hulan: I like your suggestion that "going to Jinxland" might be
like "going to Timbuktu," as an idiom for "taking off for parts unknown."
But it might also be possible to read the phrase literally as an
accusative of direction rather than literally as a dative of arrival.  That's
to say, the soldiers might have set off in the direction of Jinxland
(perhaps knowing there was a kingdom of that name in that direction,
but not knowing there was a gulf isolating the place).  The report that
they were heading for Jinxland doesn't need to imply any knowledge
about whether they got there.
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 17:51:28 -0500
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 10-26-99
 
Ruth:
 >Nathan DeHoff and J.L. Bell: RPT's "There is no snow in Oz" is
 >probably similar to Baum's statements about the lack of horses
 >(Sawhorse excepted) or chickens (Billina and offspring excepted).  The
 >"narrative voice" usually claims to be reporting information provided by
 >communication with Ozites or Oz visitors, and can be as forgetful and
 >otherwise unreliable as they are.  "No" claims should perhaps always be
 >translated as "None, so far as I know/remember, and certainly not
 >many."
 
Or, "not in the part of Oz that I've heard about so far." There seem to be
quite a lot of horses in Corumbia and Corabia, for instance (once they're
disenchanted), but until YK nobody in the EC knew about those places.
(Glinda may have, but she tends to keep her knowledge to herself unless
there's a real need to reveal it.)
 
David Hulan

Date: Tue, 2 Nov 1999 16:54:06 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com>
Subject:  at %&#in' Oz!
 
Ruth Berman wrote:
<<"No" claims should perhaps always be translated as "None, so far as I
know/remember, and certainly not many.">>
 
Especially with Thompson, I usually such claims even more skeptically: "Not
so far as I can remember, but that could change if I get a bright idea."
 
Kenneth R. Shepherd wrote:
<<I've been meaning to address a comment about _Grampa_ that came up
several weeks ago about the house plant in Gorba's Garden causing Grampa to
grow a chimney.  The commenter suggested that this was a virtually
irrelevant episode in the book.  Actually, I think that this is the first
place where the medicine bottle is used, and since the bottle is crucial to
the resolution of the story, I had always considered it a relevant
episode.>>
 
I commented on that moment in GRAMPA as the first when I detected
Thompson's usual pattern of tossing in almost any adventure or joke she had
thought of. Up until that point, all the action had seemed fairly unified.

   It's true that the house plant shows the efficacy of Gorba's medicine,
but Grampa tests it earlier, just after he fell into the garden [64--yes, I
have an edition of GRAMPA with original page numbering now]. Later episodes
also show the medicine's powers, and those usually (a) arise naturally from
the characters' quests, and (b) often have further consequences, which this
one--for all the consternation about Grampa growing brickwork--doesn't.

   Thompson doesn't even bother motivating the moment by showing Grampa
foraging for food before he tastes the house plant. Instead, "absently
pulling a blossom from a nearby bush he popped it into his mouth" [88]. Oh,
yeah, that happens to me all the time: suddenly I find myself chewing on a
strange flower.

   Grampa's run-in with the house plant is no more extraneous than many of
the village visits and other encounters Thompson puts in her books--indeed,
using the medicine probably may make it a bit less so. And the image of the
old soldier with a chimney for smoking and a bay window ruining his slim
profile is fun. But for me that episode signaled a break in how
thoughtfully Thompson was writing GRAMPA.
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Mon, 15 Nov 99 18:26:25 -0500
From: jwkenne at attglobal.net
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 11-06-99
 
J. L. Bell wrote:
 >Oh,
 >yeah, that happens to me all the time: suddenly I find myself chewing on a
 >strange flower.
 
Unusual today.  But not terribly unusual for someone brought up
in the country over a hundred years ago.
 
// John W Kennedy

Date: Sat, 20 Nov 1999 11:33:02 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com>
Subject: Odds on Oz
 
After my doubt that I would "suddenly I find myself chewing on a strange
flower," John W. Kennedy wrote:
<<not terribly unusual for someone brought up in the country over a hundred
years ago.>>
 
In previous centuries more people indeed ate and healed with flowers, but
is there evidence they acted like Grampa: "absently pulling a blossom from
a near-by [sic] bush he popped it into his mouth" [88]? I think most people
of any age would be more aware or careful than that, especially in a garden
that's proven to be magical. Idly masticating strange flowers was not said
to be one of Grampa's two bad habits.
 
I'll repeat my question about the picture on GRAMPA, page 251. Who is the
man in the background? Does this art depict any particular moment in the
book? Why does Grampa have a shovel, and why does he seem so friendly with
what appears to be Gorba?
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com