Day 1 - At noon, Bucky is exploded out of New York harbor - lands in
  dough volcano, meets Davy Jones - sleeps in cabin for 12 hours - Number
  Nine & Wizard have lunch with Ozma, launch painting project
Day 2 - Bucky awakes at dawn - they meet the Dollfins, Zerons -
  painted Mombi finds shelter in Davy's cabin - arrive in Gnome Kingdom,
  conquer Kaliko, release Gabooches to escape - travel all night - Number
  Nine makes trip to Gnome Kingdom
Day 3 - Bucky's party emerges from Gnome Kingdom at daybreak - night
  in wilderness
Day 4 - Bucky's party continues across wilderness - cross desert a
  evening on Polychrome's rainbow
Day 5 - They meet Gamesters, Jack Pott - night with Thunderbugs
Day 6 - Davy slides down slippery slope - Gabooches meet Scarecrow,
  Tin Woodman - arrive in Lake Quad in late afternoon - Davy founders
  - Wizard resolves painting problems - Mombi captured - fireworks at night
 
Note: LUCKY BUCKY poses some interesting chronological problems. Neill
implies that the painting project takes place over a single day, but
Bucky's and Davy's journey covers six days. It's not clear in the text
when exactly the painting occurs, but it is stated that the painted
Mombi hides in Davy's cabin while he and Bucky are crossing the Zerons'
mountain. Apparently she remained hidden under the bunk in Davy's cabin
for four days--which doesn't say much for Bucky's cabin-cleaning.

Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 23:14:44 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at compuserve.com>
Subject: LUCKY BUCKY odd take on Bucky

In anticipation of our LUCKY BUCKY discussion, I've uploaded a file to the
Nonestica Files section, in the "Fan Fiction" folder. This is the first
chapter of a novella that intertwines Bucky and Davy Jones with Trot and
Cap'n Bill. (I'm still working on the last chapters, and anyone who gets
curious might have to hold their breath longer than Davy can.)

I share this chapter because it illustrates my take on the character of
Bucky, which is in some ways significantly different from Neill's and in
other ways based closely on some details Neill tells us about him.

Among the American children who come to Oz, Bucky is an oddity. He's the
only young emigrant in the Reilly & Lee series to settle well outside the
Emerald City: he chooses to live on Lake Quad, with and inside Davy. We
learn little about Bucky's family during his adventure--only that many of
his ancestors were mariners [33] and that he was "trained to the strict
order of his uncle's tug boat" [41].

There are possible hints of a darker past, however. Though Bucky finds the
magical landscape too weird for comfort [55], he never worries about going
home because his relatives might miss him or because they might be hurt by
that explosion. He's affected by sounds "too much like hungry boys begging
for bread" [183]. He's worried about prison [78], and apparently passes on
these worries to the Gabooches [269]. In sum, for all his talk about good
luck, Bucky may really have had an unlucky childhood.

Then there's the singularity of John R. Neill's narratives. Like all of his
books, LUCKY BUCKY is a rough, wild ride through loosely linked fantastic
episodes. Just as Bucky stands out from the other young Americans in Oz,
Neill's novels don't fit easily in the series. In large trends and small
facts, they contradict the other books.

LUCKY BUCKY is even harder to read as history because its own events don't
hold together in time, as Ken Shepherd's chronology notes (and as I'll
discuss later). Neill's own author note implies that this story came to him
through an unusual channel, not regular communication with someone in
Ozma's palace, and he might even disclaim responsibility for its accuracy:
"It just happened I ran across this special record of Lucky Bucky with all
the details of his difficulties and hardships. You will see for yourself
that I kept the account of his experiences very much as I received them
[sic]."

Is LUCKY BUCKY therefore a reliable history of events in and outside Oz?
And does it give us an accurate portrait of Bucky Jones? I've chosen to
read the character of Bucky, and to represent him in my novella, as a
combination of the proud young harbor rat that Neill describes and a couple
of other famous literary voyagers.

The first of these archetypes is the greatest maritime storyteller of all,
Odysseus. In Books 9 through 12 of THE ODYSSEY, he entertains his rescuers
on the Phaeacian Island with the poem's most fantastic tales: the Cyclops,
Scylla and Charybdis, the lotus-eaters, the nymph Circe, the sirens, even
the gates of Hades. Homer never actually says that Odysseus had those
adventures, however. We can choose to take the sailor's word for them, but
the blind poet keeps reminding us that Odysseus is a cunning deceiver.

I imagine that Bucky and Davy Jones told similar tales after they arrived
outside the Emerald City. They, too, wished to excite the locals' pity,
admiration, and hospitality. So they spun stories of floating volcanoes,
frost monsters, a whale crossing a desert, conquered Nomes, a sorcerers'
confab, and much more. Over and over they described Davy swimming into
danger and escaping--and we know how little faith to put in tales of big
fish who keep getting away.

My other literary model for Bucky in my novella is Huckleberry Finn. The
two boys already share some qualities: anxiety about good and bad luck,
"shabby clothes," a preference for living apart. While it's merely
conceivable that Bucky is an Odyssean storyteller, Huck definitely is (at
least in his own book).

Seeing Bucky more like Huck Finn (especially as he appears in TOM SAWYER)
prompts me to portray the boy from New York harbor with a different
personality from what Neill chose. Instead of being relentlessly cheerful,
if sometimes shy, the Bucky of this novella is solitary and gruff. For this
change, I can plead only that it helps to explain why Bucky lives outside
the Emerald City, and provides me with a more interesting character to
explore.

I must acknowledge that Bucky and Davy are characters created by John R.
Neill and still held in copyright by his heirs. I'm therefore sharing this
first chapter for a limited time as part of our discussion of LUCKY BUCKY,
as a way to open up consideration of Bucky's character, and then I'll take
it down.

J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2004 14:35:04 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at tmbg.org>
Subject: LUCKY BUCKY general thoughts and temporal and spatial errors

Happy new year!  I suppose it's time to begin discussion of our new BCF,
LUCKY BUCKY.

Overall, this was my favorite of Neill's FF books (RUNAWAY might be even
better, but that's Quasi-Famous).  While it has some of the same chaotic
aspects of Neill's other books, they seem to work better here.  There's more
of an actual unified plot than in WONDER CITY or SCALAWAGONS.  I suppose
Bucky and Davy's journey to Oz is somewhat similar to journeys in books such
as ROAD, but I'd say the journey in LUCKY BUCKY is more exciting and
interesting than that in ROAD.

As is typical with Neill's books, there are a lot of loose ends and
unexplained backgrounds in LUCKY BUCKY.  Bucky begins the story on his
uncle's tugboat, but it isn't specified whether this uncle his guardian, or
even if he is on the boat at the time.  If he is, are we supposed to assume
that he died in the boiler explosion?  I would assume not, since Bucky
doesn't seem particularly worried about that possibility.  We never learn
where the Gabooches came from, or why and how they were turned into
wind-blowing creatures and then doorknobs.  The paintings on the castle
walls include a several magic-workers who have apparently caused trouble for
the Ozites in the past: Aunt Geranium, Little Blue Schoola, Plush, and
Trickolas Om.  There are brief descriptions of these magicians, but very
little indication as to what actually happened during their previous
meetings with the Ozian celebrities.  (On my most recent reading, I noticed
an interesting, but quite likely unintentional, connection.  Trickolas Om is
described as "transforming innocent people into lost keys and door-knobs"
[p. 241].  And what form do the Gabooches have when Bucky first finds them? 
Could Trickolas have been involved in this enchantment somehow?)  The Zerons
and Slippery Dick seem to be presented as if they're characters we should
recognize, but Neill apparently created them for this book.

LUCKY BUCKY contains probably the most blatant temporal error in the entire
book.  No, I'm not talking about the description of Jack Pumpkinhead having
worked for Mombi for seven years, although that's also worth pointing out. 
When I first read LUCKY BUCKY, I had read only one Thomspon Oz book, and I'm
not sure I had even finished the Baum 14, so I thought there might have been
a period during the unread books in which Jack was Mombi's slave, but this
turned out to be incorrect.  The temporal error I'm talking about involves 
Number Nine's observation of Bucky and Davy.  In Chapter 9, Bucky finds
these adventurers in the Tattlescope, and eventually inteferes in the Nome
Kingdom.  After this, he observes the painted Mombi's flight from the
Emerald City.  Mombi enters Davy's cavern right when the whale is being
thrown into the Nome Kingdom by Tickley Bender.  This event, however,
happened BEFORE Number Nine's interference in the Nome Kingdom, so there's a
real mix-up there.  Tempus must have been hard at work. <g>

In terms of Ozian geography, Neill has the odd habit of referring to the
entire Nonestic region as "Oz."  This even confuses the characters
themselves, as can be seen in this exchange between Davy and Bucky on p. 55:

"No question about it; we are going to Oz."
"Oz?  I thought we were already in Oz!"
"In a way, yes--but mostly no!  Of course, you understand that we are only
on the outside edge.  Everything will be different when we get inside this 
really truly wonderland."

Neill also constantly refers to the Nonestic Ocean as the "Nonentic," which
is slightly annoying, but easy to mentally correct while reading the book.

On p. 212, the Scarecrow says that he and Nick Chopper have walked from the
corn castle to the Emerald City in two days.  Characters have gotten from
one of these places to the other much more quickly in previous books.  Also,
Neill seems to make the Scarecrow's tower taller than it has been in the
past.  The Scarecrow falls down "twelve flights of stairs" on p.  215, yet I
think the tower had only four stories in EMERALD CITY.
--
Making something of nothing 'til there's no more nothing left,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 09:03:40 -0600
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at tc.umn.edu>
Subject: lucky bucky in oz

I enjoyed re-reading it. Bucky is a pleasant character, and (as usual with
Neill) the Emerald City scenes have a pleasant bustling-city air. Neill's
WPA-style CWO art project gives him a chance to poke some loving fun at the
complexities of group art. And it's nice to get a look at the Daughters of
the Rainbow. (Rather oddly, this time at a couple of points, Polychrome says
that they collectively *are* the rainbow -- in Baum's portrayal, the Rainbow
had some kind of individual identity, and Polychrome spoke of him as her and
her sisters' father.)

The artwork is often outstanding. Probably everyone's favorite is the 2page
spread Neill had done for another project several years earlier, of the
ominous group of wizards and witches by the river -- a more detailed, more
romantic style of drawing than he was doing by the time of "Lucky Bucky."
But the drawing he did of Bucky and the whale in the same setting is also
impressive. Some other examples that are notable are the watery depths of
Lake Quad as the whale sinks to fall on the catfish/octopussy, the endpaper
portraits of Ozma and the Wizard, the various vignettes of the
simple-but-very-active Gabooches, and so on.

Apart from the Rainbow, I don't much care for most of Bucky's adventures --
they stay too much at the level of puns-set-in-motion (the Dollfins,
Jack-Pott, the cricket-playing crickets, and so on), and don't seem to have
much personality. The glimpse we get of the (G)Nome Kingdom is so brief that
it seems that it could as well have been skipped. It seems a pity to send
Number Nine off to warn Kaliko not to hurt the travelers, and then not get a
direct look at what Kaliko would have tried to do or how he reacted to being
interrupted. Kaliko's development as an initially likable fellow, who gets
stuck with taking over Ruggedo's role in the updating of the "Rinkitnik" ms.
to take place after the change-in-Nome-Kings, made him figure in RPT's books
as an increasingly villainous character, although she usually gave him some
friendly impulses and some ambivalence over all his actions, both friendly
and hostile, which made for a fairly interesting character. Maybe Neill
didn't want to cope with Kaliko's ambivalence.

There's an odd plot-glitch in the timing of the events -- Number Nine in the
morning sees Bucky and the whale enter the Nome Kingdom, leaving Tickley
Bender behind, and in the afternoon Number Nine goes to look at the art
project, where he sees the painted Mombi escape. She flees across the desert
and hides in the whale just before the travelers go underground and into the
Nome Kingdom. A little unmentioned magical time-travel, perhaps?

Bucky's decision to stay in Oz seems a bit odd. Orphan though he is, he's
got an uncle who's been raising him, and there's no indication of hostility
between them. By the end of the adventure, he has so strong a feeling that
he and the whale are "second cousins" that it would no doubt be hard for him
to abandon this "family." I suppose we can guess that the uncle won't be
worrying about what's happened to him, because the uncle must think the boy
died in the boiler explosion, but that leaves room for considerable family
grieving.

Ruth Berman

From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at ...>
Date: Mon Jan 5, 2004  10:26 am
Subject: lucky bucky ps

"J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at ...> on Subject: LUCKY BUCKY odd take on Bucky
 
Interesting discussion. Your suggestion of hints that Bucky's upbringing by
his uncle was a more fraught relationship than the opening chapter makes it
sound seems a sensible way to explain his easy decision to stay in Oz.
 
On whether Bucky's account of his adventures along the way to Oz may to some
extent be "yarning" -- well, much of it was witnessed (without sound on the
Wizard's equipment, or with sound when Number Nine interferes directly) by
Number Nine.
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Mon, 05 Jan 2004 16:00:37 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at tmbg.org>
Subject: RE: LUCKY BUCKY odd take on Bucky

J. L. Bell:
>He's worried about prison [78], and apparently passes on
>these worries to the Gabooches [269].

Davy Jones insists that "[i]n the Emerald City they never heard of a
prison," and Number Nine tells the Gabooches, "There is no prison."  What
about the one that held Ojo in PATCHWORK GIRL?  Considering how rarely this
prison seems to be used, perhaps Davy and Nine aren't even aware of its
existence, or it might have even been shut down in between the two books.

>I imagine that Bucky and Davy Jones told similar tales after they arrived
>outside the Emerald City. They, too, wished to excite the locals' pity,
>admiration, and hospitality. So they spun stories of floating volcanoes,
>frost monsters, a whale crossing a desert, conquered Nomes, a sorcerers'
>confab, and much more. Over and over they described Davy swimming into
>danger and escaping--and we know how little faith to put in tales of big
>fish who keep getting away.

I'd say this brings up an interesting question.  How accurately should we
regard the events recorded in the Oz books?  The authors often refer to
themselves as "historians," and claim that they received the stories from
various sources, often including hearing them from the characters
themselves.  Historians are prone to error, and characters might be ignorant
of some of the facts, or have their own reasons for distorting them.  On the
other hand, if we choose to dismiss a confusing or inconsistent incident or
book, does that lead to a slippery slope in which we can choose to disregard
any part of an Oz book we don't like?  It's obviously impossible to see
every single statement in every FF book as true, since there are numerous
contradictions and inconsistencies, sometimes even within a single book.  My
general take is to regard the events in the Oz books as basically true,
although some of the details might not be exactly accurate.  Aside from some
problems with timing and Neill's general style, I don't really find LUCKY
BUCKY to be especially difficult to reconcile with the rest of the series.

>Seeing Bucky more like Huck Finn (especially as he appears in TOM SAWYER)
>prompts me to portray the boy from New York harbor with a different
>personality from what Neill chose. Instead of being relentlessly cheerful,
>if sometimes shy, the Bucky of this novella is solitary and gruff. For this
>change, I can plead only that it helps to explain why Bucky lives outside
>the Emerald City, and provides me with a more interesting character to
>explore.

I think it's an interesting take on Bucky, although, if I were to use him in
a story, I would probably stick more closely to Neill's characterization. 

Regarding the story, I find it kind of odd that Trot claims that Cap'n Bill
was "near fifty" when the two of them came to Oz.  The sailor is sixty in
SKY ISLAND.  Was this a mistake, or an intentional indication that Trot
really didn't know how old Bill was?
--
Making something of nothing 'til there's no more nothing left,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 11:25:20 -0600
From: David Hulan <dhulan at wideopenwest.com>
Subject: Lucky Bucky

This was one of the first Oz books I ever read, which may explain why I
still have a fondness for it even though it's not, objectively speaking,
one of the better ones (though it's the best of the Neill FF books by a
goodly margin). I read WIZARD first, not long after turning five in
December of 1941, and the summer after that got and read WISHING HORSE
and loved it even more (and it's still my top favorite Oz book). Then,
for my sixth birthday, I got LOST PRINCESS, MAGIC, and the new Oz book
for the year, LUCKY BUCKY. Don't remember what order I read them in, but
I'm sure that I'd read LB at least once by the beginning of 1943. And
those five were the only Oz books I had access to until my seventh
birthday, so you can guess that I became intimately familiar with them.

I was an adult by the time I read Neill's other two books, so even
though they gave much more ink to Jenny Jump and Number Nine than LB
did, my impressions of the two characters are still largely governed by
my memories of them in LB - Jenny rescuing the Wizard's black bag from
Mombi and pushing Oz Cream, and Number Nine being the Wizard's assistant
(the job I wanted!) and keeping an eye on Bucky's adventures and helping
a time or two.

I do like both characters, and in some respects I think Neill was as
good at creating characters as Baum or Thompson - he wasn't at all good
at plots (though LB is a considerable improvement over his first two
books), and his prose was frequently awkward, but he had a vivid
imagination and was good at characterization. Number Nine and Bucky are
much more distinct as characters in the writing than their images are in
the artwork, in fact.

John and Nathan and Ruth have all commented ably on various elements of
the book, and I don't have much to add regarding its basic structure. I
do think that most if not all of Bucky's adventures really happened,
though - we have independent evidence of the volcano and the adventures
in the Nome Kingdom, at least.

I'm not sure what to say about Bucky's lack of interest in getting home
again. He's apparently a bit older than most of the American children
who come to Oz, if not a lot - he definitely seems more of a young teen
than a pre-teen in most of his actions and attitudes. Peter and Speedy
in their last appearances, and probably Zeb, seem more the age Bucky is;
those boys didn't want to stay, but they all seemed to have strong
feelings for people they'd left behind, and Bucky didn't. I know if I'd
been given his option of staying in Oz I'd have had a hard time turning
it down, even though I'd left some people I loved behind (especially in
the circumstances, since they'd all be convinced I was dead and would
have gotten through the worst of the grief by the time I could get back
anyhow).

From: "Joseph Bongiorno" <TheSithEmpire at ...>
Date: Thu Jan 8, 2004  1:47 pm
Subject: Re: [Nonestica] Lucky Bucky

Lucky Bucky is definitely a top ten favorite of mine of
the FF, although I'm not entirely sure why.  It's one of Neill's best
combinations of illustration & prose, and overall the story just has a
certain feel to it.  I agree with Nathan as to the best means of reconciling
the contradictions, and indeed it does "a slippery slope in which we can
choose to disregard any part of an Oz book we don't like," but essentially
I don't think that that's a bad thing.  Also, thanks to the shoddy
editorship of R&L, we're left with little other choice unless we
discard the entire series or the premise behind them.  But even a child
paying attention would have fixed Nonentic to Nonestic, and the time glitch in
the book shows yet another proof that no one was proofreading these books!

My only real complaint, however, is with the cover. 
Why is Judy Garland sitting there eating an apple?  Was someone was
trying to capitalize on the success of the film (or was Neill was telling
us something about Bucky we don't know from the text)?  Either
way, the person on the cover clearly has lipstick and breasts!

Joe

Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2004 15:37:18 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at tmbg.org>
Subject: RE: lucky bucky in oz

J. L. Bell:
>Another BCF issue: Should the book after LUCKY BUCKY be RUNAWAY (originally
>drafted to be the next in the series, but not published until many years
>later and then in altered form), or MAGICAL MIMICS (the next "official"
>title)? Or something else entirely?

I believe that we originally decided that we would go through the entire FF
in order, and then move on to the Quasi-Famous books, followed by the
Borderlands stories.  This was several years ago, though (possibly even
before RUNAWAY had been published), so thoughts on the matter might have
changed by now.

Ruth:
>The glimpse we get of the (G)Nome Kingdom is so brief that
>it seems that it could as well have been skipped.

Perhaps, but I always like seeing the Nomes and their kingdom.  It's quite 
possible that Neill added in a visit to the Nomes just because their country
would have been in Bucky and Davy's path to Oz.  It does seem like Neill was
working from a map, since he has Bucky mention the Rose Kingdom and Ev on p.
64.  Since there's no indication that the boy and the whale had crossed the
gulf surrounding Roseland, it's likely that Bucky was misreading the map and
the travellers had not passed through that country at all.

>It seems a pity to send
>Number Nine off to warn Kaliko not to hurt the travelers, and then not get
>a
>direct look at what Kaliko would have tried to do or how he reacted to
>being
>interrupted. Kaliko's development as an initially likable fellow, who gets
>stuck with taking over Ruggedo's role in the updating of the "Rinkitnik"
>ms.
>to take place after the change-in-Nome-Kings, made him figure in RPT's
>books
>as an increasingly villainous character, although she usually gave him some
>friendly impulses and some ambivalence over all his actions, both friendly
>and hostile, which made for a fairly interesting character. Maybe Neill
>didn't want to cope with Kaliko's ambivalence.

When examining Kaliko, I think it's important to take into account that his
reaction toward strangers like Bucky and Davy might well differ considerably
from that toward people he knows and who are connected with Ozma, like
Dorothy (WISHING HORSE) and Betsy Bobbin (HUNGRY TIGER).  If we accept that
the RINKITINK Nome King is Kaliko, as the text indicates, then we see that
he is afraid of angering a stronger kingdom (Oz), yet has nothing against
holding the king and queen of a weaker nation (Pingaree) as prisoners. 
Since Bucky and Davy are not royalty at all, and presumably not connected to
Oz, Kaliko would not see any need to treat them with respect.  Overall, I
would say that Kaliko's personality in LUCKY BUCKY is consistent with how
we've seen him before; the cowardice he shows when Number Nine interferes
fits with his fear of Oz, as well as his generally non-confrontational
attitude (as shown when he gives up the throne to Ruggedo without a fight in
GNOME KING).  His personality does, however, seem to be simpler than that of
the more complex, ambivalent character we see in Thomspon's books.  Speaking
of Kaliko, he asks Bucky on p. 124 whether he has "met a mean old fellow
named Ruggedo hanging around outside."  Kaliko must know that Ruggedo had
been transformed into a jug and then a cactus, but he probably also knows of
his former master's constant comebacks, and might have reason to fear that
Ruggedo was trying to return to the Nome Kingdom, as he did in GNOME KING
and PIRATES (and sort of in KABUMPO).

>There's an odd plot-glitch in the timing of the events -- Number Nine in
>the
>morning sees Bucky and the whale enter the Nome Kingdom, leaving Tickley
>Bender behind, and in the afternoon Number Nine goes to look at the art
>project, where he sees the painted Mombi escape. She flees across the
>desert
>and hides in the whale just before the travelers go underground and into
>the
>Nome Kingdom. A little unmentioned magical time-travel, perhaps?

Regardless of how it happens, Nine is unaware that Mombi has entered Davy's
cabin.

>Bucky's decision to stay in Oz seems a bit odd. Orphan though he is, he's
>got an uncle who's been raising him, and there's no indication of hostility
>between them.

Is it ever even specifically stated that Bucky is an orphan?
--
Making something of nothing 'til there's no more nothing left,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 15:49:36 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at compuserve.com>
Subject: LUCKY BUCKY oddities and errors

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
<<Bucky begins the story on his uncle's tugboat, but it isn't specified
whether this uncle his guardian, or even if he is on the boat at the time.
If he is, are we supposed to assume that he died in the boiler explosion?
I would assume not, since Bucky doesn't seem particularly worried about
that possibility.>>

As Bucky flies up from the boat, he looks back and sees a hole in it just
where he'd been lying [18]. That implies the explosion left the rest of the
boat easily recognizable and intact, with the force directed almost
entirely upward. The tugboat was pulling a barge at the time, in the middle
of a busy (wartime?) harbor, so surely there would have been witnesses and
rescuers for anyone thrown into the water.

One oddity is that Neill's fine drawing of Bucky being flung up in the air
on page 17 shows him as lit from below, apparently from the explosion
itself. But I don't think a steam-boiler explosion would produce light.
Other types of explosions would. More speculation about this later.

Bucky indeed doesn't seem worried about his uncle and other shipmates
having died. But he's not worried about getting back to them, either, or
about them worrying over him, as Dorothy was on her early visits to Oz. His
fading wish to go home seems to be based instead on how weird fairyland is
[55].

Assuming that Bucky has natural human emotions, we have to conclude that
Neill's text skips or suppresses mention of them and the reason behind
them, perhaps so as not to upset readers. I can imagine at least three
scenarios:
        a) The boat was indeed destroyed and its crew killed, but Neill
          omitted that news and Bucky's later grief.
        b) Bucky wasn't really that close to his uncle and other relatives,
          and may even have had a hard life, but Neill suppressed those facts
          and Bucky's relief at being away from them.
        c) Bucky, an orphan or runaway with no family, made up the whole
          story about having an uncle with a tugboat.

Incidentally, while Bucky had been ""Lying in the warm sunshine on the
upper deck" [17], he was also wearing a sweater and coat [19]. Perhaps
those were needed for work out on the water. Perhaps this wasn't a New York
summer but one of those days in other seasons when it's warm only in the
bright sun.

<<Davy Jones insists that "[i]n the Emerald City they never heard of a
prison," and Number Nine tells the Gabooches, "There is no prison."  What
about the one that held Ojo in PATCHWORK GIRL?  Considering how rarely this
prison seems to be used, perhaps Davy and Nine aren't even aware of its
existence, or it might have even been shut down in between the two
books.>>

There's a legal distinction between a jail, where people are held pending
trial or for minor offenses, and a prison, to which they are sentenced as
punishment. In fact, prisons as we know them are relatively recent in
British-American traditions. Through the 18th century, suspects were held
in jail for trial, along with debtors and sometimes witnesses. Once
convicted, people were punished through death, physical punishment, fines,
transportation, and/or indentured servitude rather than continued
confinement. The penitentiary where convicted criminals had a chance to be
penitent without physical suffering was a Quaker invention put in practice
in the early American republic. That became the model of our prisons.

In PATCHWORK GIRL Tollydiggle the "jailer" [intermittently spelled
"jailor," at least in the Gutenberg text] and her colleagues refer to her
institution as a "prison." There's a hint that Ozma intends to use it as a
penitentiary:
                Ozma thinks that one who has
        committed a fault did so because he was not strong
        and brave; therefore she puts him in prison to
        make him strong and brave. When that is
        accomplished he is no longer a prisoner

Yet Tollydiggle tells us that process has never been followed:
                "When you are
        tried and found guilty, you will be obliged to
        make amends, in some way. I don't know just
        what Ozma will do to you, because this is the
        first time one of us has broken a Law"

Tollydiggle's "prison" thus functions only as a jail for someone awaiting
trial. Ozma and her deputies mete out correctives to other people in the
following Oz books (the Winkie who was cruel to animals, Mrs. Yoop, Ruggedo
and Kiki Aru, etc.), but they never rely on prison time. And Tollydiggle's
reference to the need to "make amends, in some way," which is harder to do
while locked up, implies that even she doesn't expect the primary
punishment to be imprisonment.

So Oz (or at least the Emerald City) may indeed have no prison as Bucky
understands the term: a place where people are locked up for a long time as
punishment. (And, I still wonder, why is Bucky so concerned about prisons
that he asks about them right out of the blue on page 78?)

As for what Davy and Number Nine say, Davy is of course not personally
familiar with Oz. Nine should be (in LUCKY BUCKY he appears to be
third-in-command in the Emerald City!). But that brings us to the overall
issues of the book's credibility, especially in regard to Nine's
activities. Tollydiggle is still in the city, according to MAGICAL MIMICS,
though that book doesn't mention her job as jailer.

<<We never learn where the Gabooches came from, or why and how they were
turned into wind-blowing creatures and then doorknobs.>>

Are you using the term "Gabooches" to refer to this family in whatever
state they're transformed into? Because I saw it as the generic name for
the bellows-headed birds they were for much of the book.

I'll also throw out the idea that all four siblings are naturally
Gabooches, not people. They show no surprise at coming to life as
Gabooches, though of course not everyone who's transformed in the Oz books
retains a memory of their previous state. When Bucky suspects they might
have been transformed, Flummux doesn't seem to care [161]. As Gabooches,
they're very capable [167, etc.] and don't need food or sleep.

The Gabooches are turned into people by the Turn-Style, and we know two
things about that device:

        1) Its primary use is to change people's clothing or outer appearance,
          not their internal makeup. Has it ever shown the power of
          transformation or disenchantment before?
        2) Nine, who adjusts the buttons for Flummux, shows no suspicion
          that she needs to be disenchanted, and is surprised when she comes
          out as a young girl.

On page 282, Neill tells us that the family had felt ashamed of having been
doorknobs--but they don't feel ashamed of having been Gabooches. They don't
mention a previous existence as humans, or say anything about how they were
transformed into such odd creatures. Is it possible that they were
naturally Gabooches, but adopt handsome human forms for their visit to the
Emerald City? (I admit that I find them a lot more interesting as
Gabooches, which makes me favor this theory.)

<<The paintings on the castle walls include a several magic-workers who
have apparently caused trouble for the Ozites in the past: Aunt Geranium,
Little Blue Schoola, Plush, and Trickolas Om.>>

There were also witches named Curly Ah-Ha-Do and the Thimble Witch, and a
broom named Po [250]. I find this variety of names impressive.

<<There are brief descriptions of these magicians, but very little
indication as to what actually happened during their previous meetings with
the Ozian celebrities.>>

Yes, this lack of information is especially noticeable in the case of Old
Trickolas Om, said to be "their greatest menace" [237]. I also noted the
link between Trickolas's habit of turning people into door-knobs, which
would make an obvious link to the Gabooches' story, but that turns into
just another loose end.

We get a few hints about the real versions of these magicians. Dorothy
paints Old Trickolas, so she must have known his appearance from either
life or books. On page 257 Ozma tells Glinda, "It's been a long time since
we hunted witches together." But the great quantities of nasty
magic-workers Mombi's image and Davy come across show that there are many
left in Oz. Furthermore, Glinda is aware of "the secret lands of several
well-known sorcerers" [257], though whether these are inside or outside the
Deadly Desert isn't clear.

<<In terms of Ozian geography, Neill has the odd habit of referring to the
entire Nonestic region as "Oz."  This even confuses the characters
themselves, as can be seen in this exchange between Davy and Bucky on p.
55:

"No question about it; we are going to Oz."
"Oz?  I thought we were already in Oz!"
"In a way, yes--but mostly no!  Of course, you understand that we are only
on the outside edge.  Everything will be different when we get inside this
really truly wonderland.">>

In addition, on page 155 Davy says, "At last I am in Oz--Real Oz--nothing
else matters." It strikes me that after having Davy tell Bucky early on
that he'd reached Oz, Neill tried to pull back and use the label "mostly"
or "really" for the lands within the Deadly Desert.

Ruth Berman wrote:
<<it's nice to get a look at the Daughters of the Rainbow. (Rather oddly,
this time at a couple of points, Polychrome says that they collectively
*are* the rainbow -- in Baum's portrayal, the Rainbow had some kind of
individual identity, and Polychrome spoke of him as her and her sisters'
father.)>>

Neill also says that Polychrome arranges the "pillars of solid light" that
make up the rainbow [148] and seem separate from her and her sisters. As
Gina Wickwar hinted in HIDDEN PRINCE, there seems to be a great deal to the
rainbow that we mortals can't understand.

J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 15:49:42 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at compuserve.com>
Subject: LUCKY BUCKY as accurate history?

Ruth Berman wrote:
<<On whether Bucky's account of his adventures along the way to Oz may to
some extent be "yarning" -- well, much of it was witnessed (without sound
on the Wizard's equipment, or with sound when Number Nine interferes
directly) by Number Nine.>>

Yet Number Nine's reported actions in LUCKY BUCKY are precisely those that
give us the most reason for doubt. Bucky and Davy's adventures are
outlandish, but Nine's activities are impossible, as Nathan DeHoff and you
both mentioned. He can't meet Davy in the Nome Kingdom before seeing Mombi
escape in time to meet up with Davy before he ever visits the Nome Kingdom.
(Barring time travel, of course, and it would be a huge lapse for a
chronicler not to mention an invention or phenomenon as important as time
travel.)

Ken Shepherd's chronology for LUCKY BUCKY notes another temporal oddity:
"Neill implies that the painting project takes place over a single day, but
Bucky's and Davy's journey covers six days." And on page 255, Number Nine
tells the Wizard he's watched Davy "For the last four days," but he saw the
battle at the volcano five days before [104].

In sum, I argue that the text of LUCKY BUCKY can't be a reliable record of
what Number Nine was up to during Bucky's journey. If we had Nine's own
input, he'd presumably tell a more coherent story--a story which might also
differ in significant respects on what he saw, or didn't see, Davy and
Bucky do.

Neill tells us he stumbled across a "special record of Lucky Bucky with all
the details of his difficulties and hardships," and accepted it as
accurate. I posit that that record reflects Bucky and Davy's claims, but
doesn't include first-hand testimony from Number Nine or others in the
Emerald City or other verification.

Yet another Oz-as-history interpretation could be rooted in American
history. LUCKY BUCKY was published shortly after the US entered a total war
against the Axis. We now know that FDR's government kept a great many
things secret during that time, including infiltration by German spies. The
government also issued cover stories to protect some of its own activities.


If saboteurs blew up a tugboat in the middle of New York harbor (creating
an explosion that emitted light, as shown in Neill's drawing on page 17),
the wartime government may have insisted that Neill not reveal all its
details. That could lead to a narrative full of holes, loose ends, and
relentless cheeriness.

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
<<How accurately should we regard the events recorded in the Oz books?  The
authors often refer to themselves as "historians," and claim that they
received the stories from various sources, often including hearing them
from the characters themselves.  Historians are prone to error, and
characters might be ignorant of some of the facts, or have their own
reasons for distorting them.  On the other hand, if we choose to dismiss a
confusing or inconsistent incident or book, does that lead to a slippery
slope in which we can choose to disregard any part of an Oz book we don't
like?  It's obviously impossible to see every single statement in every FF
book as true, since there are numerous contradictions and inconsistencies,
sometimes even within a single book.  My general take is to regard the
events in the Oz books as basically true, although some of the details
might not be exactly accurate.  Aside from some problems with timing and
Neill's general style, I don't really find LUCKY BUCKY to be especially
difficult to reconcile with the rest of the series.>>

As I've said before, I treat Neill's books differently from the others in
the Reilly & Lee series. The contradictions in or among the others seem
relatively minor compared to the fundamental, pervasive changes that
Neill's books made to Oz and Snow's completely unmade shortly afterward.

My pet Oz-as-history theory on this question is that Neill had access to
images from Oz for his job as Baum's and Thompson's illustrator, but didn't
have their access to verbal news. Therefore, his first two novels are
attempts to put together the events he saw into a narrative, though some
were causally related and some not, some normal for Oz and others
aberrations. His third book was based on similar images plus a written
source (that "special record of Lucky Bucky") that didn't come through
official channels.

Does that let me treat some details in Neill's books as accurate (e.g., a
boy and a wooden whale made a dangerous journey to Lake Quad), others as
accurate but not reflective of normal life in Oz (live houses, trees, and
paintings), and others as ludicrous (Bucky taking the crown from Kaliko)?
It sure does!

But I flatter myself to think that my treatment of Neill's Oz is as
coherent as anyone else's. And it's no less subject to independent
verification--which is to say, not at all. Any reader can choose to believe
what he or she wants. Conceivably, some people might so enjoy the Neill
books that they decide the other historians actually toned down the Emerald
City's weirdness.

J. L. Bell                 
JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Thu, 08 Jan 2004 16:12:42 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at tmbg.org>
Subject: LUCKY BUCKY magic

As I've done with the past few books (I think I have, anyway), I thought I'd
take a look at how magic works in LUCKY BUCKY.  As usual, Neill fills Oz
with magic, including magicians, items, and magically animated beings.  In

fact, LUCKY BUCKY probably contains more magic-workers than any other FF
book, although only a few of them are named.  Davy Jones swims through an
area presumably populated entirely by outlaw magicians.  Rogue witches are

mentioned as possible causes for the bubbles and cat-tails.  Davy insists
(on p. 77) that the worst witches live in the mountains.  The Scarecrow
cites these mountain witches (on p. 217) as the main reason that he had the
Wizard roll up the rivers.  He and Nick Chopper seem to be aware of where
many of these illegal magicians live, yet there has apparently never been an
attempt by Ozma or her friends to bring them to justice.  Perhaps she fears
that taking on too many of them together would be too much of a risk, or she
is willing to ignore them unless she has actual evidence of their doing
something harmful.

As usual, Ozma and her friends have access to a great deal of magic, and, as
in Neill's other books, they seem to be more willing than ever before to use
it to solve their problems.  The Wizard has already removed some of the
rivers from the Munchkin and Winkie Countries, and the Scarecrow suggests
that Davy could be reduced to goldfish size by the same Wizard.  The paint

used to paint the castle walls is magical enough to bring the paintings to
life.  (Perhaps some similar magic had been mixed in with the paint used by
Mr. Smith and Jinjur.)  Number Nine uses unexplained magic to protect Bucky
from the Nomes.  The Wizard clears the streets of people when dealing with 
the painted magicians, and magically animates records at his meeting with
Ozma.

As far as magical items go, the Scalawagons reappear, and Ozma has a special
one that she, the Wizard, and Glinda use to reach the volcano in the
Nonestic Ocean.  Glinda has a "wishing cap" for this ride, but we never
actually see her use it.  It's possible that its magic is instrumental in
shrinking the volcano around Mombi, though.  The Teletable does not appear,
but the Tattlescope seems to serve a similar purpose, and Nine uses the
Ambassadoor to reach the Nome Kingdom.  Ozma uses the Magic Belt to catch
some of the painted magic-workers, but it seems as if she has to get close
to them for the Belt to affect them.
--
Making something of nothing 'til there's no more nothing left,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Thu, 8 Jan 2004 21:31:46 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at compuserve.com>
Subject: LUCKY BUCKY Davy Jones

Neill doesn't worry about the distinction between a whale and a fish,
referring to Davy Jones by both terms. But of course the wooden whale is
not from either natural genus, but an artificial animated creature.

At first Neill says Davy has a "gill" [26], but later he spurts warm water
vapor like a whale [67]. This seems to be part of his system for pumping
out leaks [231]. However, it functions like ordinary mammal breathing.
Neill tells us that after heavy effort to swim upriver, Davy is "breathing
in gasps" [47]. Later he is "drawing a deep breath" [136]. I don't think
other artificial Ozians are said to breathe like this. It highlights Davy's
odd status, in some ways not limited by the needs of us meat creatures but
in other ways acting like them.

Though Davy's mostly hollow, he never feels hollow: "neither Davy nor the
Gabooches required food" [142]. Similarly, on page 58 Davy tells Bucky, "I
don't feel the cold...But you are made of raw meat." (Raw or not, Bucky
takes off coat even among the Zerons [63]). "The nerves in his wooden
boards were not very sensitive" to tickling [82]. Davy is, however,
susceptible to the Funny Bones's shocks [144].

In one big way, Davy differs markedly from what the Oz books have told us
about the Sawhorse, Jack Pumpkinhead, and other wooden characters. He
sleeps--a lot. Page 71 has Davy "doze off into a snooze." He's soon heard
"murmuring snatches of sea songs in his sleep" [73]. Page 142 tells us that
"Early next morning the restless whale was awake again." In contrast, the
Gabooches "never closed an eye" [157].

For most of the book Bucky manages to keep Davy bulldozing ahead even while
dozing by steering him with his own weight [72]. Eventually the whale's
ability to tire affects the plot as he, "nearly worn out" [230], sinks in
Lake Quad. Davy's no longer able to pump out faster than he's leaking in
[231]. The Wizard's dry river probably kept him from sinking earlier,
though he never notices anything odd about its water [264].

It may be that the problems Davy diagnoses as needing "a few minutes rest"
[233] don't actually mean that he's sleepy but rather that he's in ill
repair. Similarly, what he calls his "wounded eye" [35] is simply a chip
off the varnish. The Tin Woodman patches some of Davy's leaks [235], and
Ozma or someone else magically completes the job [289], so he's all better
by the end of the book.

Davy tells Bucky that he's blunt because "that was the style of
architecture when I was built" [32]--which brings up the question of who
built him and when. Apparently that was long ago because the whale calls
himself a "peaceful old fish" [32]. At some point Davy brought the Dollfins
to their part of the river [47], and for the past "two years" he's been a
pirate vessel [38]. But of Davy's origin we learn nothing, just like the
Gabooches and a lot of other things in Neill's sagas.

There's an obvious link to "Davy Jones's locker," but the book never
follows this up, even when it discusses the whale's closets. So it comes
across as just a coincidence, like the link to the Monkees.

One element of Davy's structure that I hadn't noticed before is that he can
change the length of his jaw: "Extending his lower jaw to its fullest
length, Davy made more room on the deck" [227]. And at one point he even
seems luminescent: in the Nomes' underground realm, "occasional flashes
from Davy's eyes lit the tunnel" [119].

J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 19:56:05 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at tmbg.org>
Subject: RE: Various LUCKY BUCKY matters

J. L. Bell:
><<We never learn where the Gabooches came from, or why and how they were
>turned into wind-blowing creatures and then doorknobs.>>
>
>Are you using the term "Gabooches" to refer to this family in whatever
>state they're transformed into?

I was, but I could certainly be wrong.  The text seems to be a little
unclear as to whether a Gabooch is a wind-producing bird or simply Tom,
Dick, Harry, and Little Sister's family name.

>The Gabooches are turned into people by the Turn-Style, and we know two
>things about that device:
>         1) Its primary use is to change people's clothing or outer
>appearance, not their internal makeup. Has it ever shown the power of
>transformation or disenchantment before?

In WONDER CITY, it turns the chocolate soldiers into toy tin soldiers, which
presumably changes their composition as well as their size.  I believe this
was an addition of the editor.

><<The paintings on the castle walls include a several magic-workers who
>have apparently caused trouble for the Ozites in the past: Aunt Geranium,
>Little Blue Schoola, Plush, and Trickolas Om.>>
>
>There were also witches named Curly Ah-Ha-Do and the Thimble Witch, and a
>broom named Po [250].

There really isn't a clear indication as to whether these other two witches
are animated paintings or actual flesh-and-blood beings.  For that matter,

it's also unclear whether the flesh-and-blood versions of the painted
magicians still exist.  Mombi doesn't (unless you subscribe to the theory
that the Scarecrow and Sir Hokus secretly let her go), but Glinda speaks of
the other witches in the present tense.  On the other hand, Trickolas Om
"had once been their greatest menace" [p. 240], which would seem to imply
that the real Trickolas had been neutralized by the time of LUCKY BUCKY,
although it's possible that he just isn't quite as menacing anymore.

Incidentally, I understand that Trickolas makes an appearance in
BUTTON-BRIGHT OF OZ.  Has anyone read it?

>Though Davy's mostly hollow, he never feels hollow: "neither Davy nor the
>Gabooches required food" [142]. Similarly, on page 58 Davy tells Bucky, "I
>don't feel the cold...But you are made of raw meat." (Raw or not, Bucky
>takes off coat even among the Zerons [63]). "The nerves in his wooden
>boards were not very sensitive" to tickling [82].

Davy's having "nerves" at all seems contradictory to what we know about most
magically animated beings.  On the other hand, GNOME KING has the Scarecrow
insisting that he has no feeling, but the fact that Ruggedo had pinched him
was still annoying.  If he really had no feeling, how would he know that he
had been pinched?  Beings like the Scarecrow presumably have enough of a
sense of touch to know when they are making contact with someone or
something, but not enough to feel pain, or to be ticklish.  Davy seems to be
slightly more susceptible to pain, since, as John points out, he feels the
Crazy Bones' electric shocks.

>In one big way, Davy differs markedly from what the Oz books have told us
>about the Sawhorse, Jack Pumpkinhead, and other wooden characters. He
>sleeps--a lot.

The Gargoyles also sleep, and, like Davy, they are made of wood.

Joe:
>But even a child paying attention would have fixed Nonentic to Nonestic,
>and the time glitch in the book shows yet another proof that no one was
>proofreading these books!

A modern spell checker might change "Nonestic" to "Nonentic," but I would
hope no R&L editor would be that clueless.  The Nonestic's pink color is an
odd addition by Neill, and might have been inspired by Baum's referring to
said ocean as purple in RINKITINK.

>I was an adult by the time I read Neill's other two books, so even
>though they gave much more ink to Jenny Jump and Number Nine than LB
>did, my impressions of the two characters are still largely governed by
>my memories of them in LB - Jenny rescuing the Wizard's black bag from
>Mombi and pushing Oz Cream, and Number Nine being the Wizard's assistant
>(the job I wanted!) and keeping an eye on Bucky's adventures and helping
>a time or two.

As I said back when WONDER CITY was the BCF, I've noticed that some people
here tend to regard Jenny as a pseudo-villainess, which leads me to believe
that they're basing their opinions of her primarily on the pre-lobotomy
character from Neill's first Oz book.  I read the Neill books in reverse
order (LUCKY BUCKY first and WONDER CITY last), so I tend to think of the
heroic Jenny before the angry one.  When does Jenny push Oz cream, though? 
Are you sure you don't have her confused with the Oz cream shopkeeper?

>I'm not sure what to say about Bucky's lack of interest in getting home
>again. He's apparently a bit older than most of the American children
>who come to Oz, if not a lot - he definitely seems more of a young teen
>than a pre-teen in most of his actions and attitudes.

He's twelve, according to a reference on p. 129.  That does seem to be older
than most of the American children who visit Oz.  I think of Betsy Bobbin as
being twelve as well, based on evidence in LOST PRINCESS and GIANT HORSE.

>Peter and Speedy
>in their last appearances, and probably Zeb, seem more the age Bucky is;
>those boys didn't want to stay, but they all seemed to have strong
>feelings for people they'd left behind, and Bucky didn't.

Peter claims to be eleven in PIRATES, but we've discussed this matter
before, and it seems like the evidence points to his being thirteen or
fourteen.  I don't think we're ever given any clear indication as to Speedy
or Zeb's age.
--
Making something of nothing 'til there's no more nothing left,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 16:26:46 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at compuserve.com>
Subject: LUCKY BUCKY son of Gabooch

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
<<>Are you using the term "Gabooches" to refer to this family in whatever
>state they're transformed into?

I was, but I could certainly be wrong.  The text seems to be a little
unclear as to whether a Gabooch is a wind-producing bird or simply Tom,
Dick, Harry, and Little Sister's family name.>>

Page 137 refers to "Dick the Gabooch," which implies it's a term for the
creature. But the very next line speaks of "the little Gabooch girl," not
"the little girl Gabooch," casting a bit of doubt on that reading. It
strikes me as most significant that the term never appears after the
Gabooches become human.

On the other hand, I see that I was wrong about the family not complaining
about their bellows-headed form. On page 271, after turning human in the
Turn-Style, Little Sister claims, "We were real people all the time instead
of being just CREATURES" [271].

Then again, on the next page the whole transformation is reduced to a
matter of outward appearance: "Davy...didn't know them in their fine
clothes. . . . [Bucky apparently says] 'I see we need to be introduced all
over again. Tom, Dick, Harry and Little Sister. We haven't changed. It's
only our new clothes.'" The siblings no doubt have the same personalities
as before, but if they really have been permanently restored to human form,
they've changed a lot more than "only our new clothes."

<<In WONDER CITY, it turns the chocolate soldiers into toy tin soldiers,
which presumably changes their composition as well as their size.  I
believe this was an addition of the editor.>>

Good memory. This passage indicates that the Turn-Style can change some
people's structure away from their current AND original states. Presumably
those soldiers from the chocolate star were deliciously edible for their
whole lives before becoming tin.

If Nine punched in buttons to give Flummux a new outfit like Bucky's, he
might have hit the controls to give her a new little girl outfit--no doubt
a more common order at the Turn-Style Shop than a new Gabooch outfit. And
that setting may have turned Flummux into a little girl.

As long as we're talking about Gabooches, at last year's Munchkin
Convention the Neill family displayed an unpublished pencil drawing of a
Gabooch. I don't think it ended up selling in the auction, but I don't know
if it's still available, either.

J. L. Bell                 
JnoLBell at compuserve.com 

Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 16:26:44 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at compuserve.com>
Subject: LUCKY BUCKY magic

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
<<Glinda has a "wishing cap" for this ride, but we never actually see her
use it.>>

I wonder if Neill was recalling the Golden Cap from WIZARD. I think that's
the only magical "cap" in the series. Wearers use it to make wishes (albeit
only the wishes that the Winged Monkeys can fulfill). And Dorothy left it
with Glinda.

Of course, in WIZARD Baum told us that Glinda was going to turn that cap
over to the King of the Winged Monkeys. Then again, in LAND the Scarecrow
says, "the Winged Monkeys are now the slaves of Glinda the Good, who owns
the Golden Cap," implying she hadn't yet freed the simian servants.

I suspect that when Neill sent the Wizard, Ozma, and Glinda off on their
mission, he wanted to describe each of them bringing some powerful magic:
"The Wizard with his black bag, Ozma with her magic belt, and Glinda with
her..."? [256]

The magical item we link most closely to Glinda is the Great Book of
Records, but that wouldn't help her in this situation, and she wouldn't
take it out of her castle anyway. Not to mention that Neill seems to have
transfered its magic to a "royal book of records" in the Emerald City
[256]. (On the same page, Neill moves Ozma's Magic Picture to "behind the
throne.")

So Neill might have reached way back in his memory of the Oz books for a
wishing cap for Glinda to bring along. Another unusual feature of this
magical garment: Glinda folds it into a "tiny button she wore on her
sleeve" [277].

<<>There were also witches named Curly Ah-Ha-Do and the Thimble Witch, and a
>broom named Po [250].

There really isn't a clear indication as to whether these other two witches
are animated paintings or actual flesh-and-blood beings.>>

The broom complaining about Curly Ah-Ha-Do says, "It took me two years to
find my way home" after that witch stole her. We don't know how long ago
that was, but it was clearly before the painting project. So Curly Ah-Ha-Do
may still be out there, or may have been rendered harmless long ago. She's
not among the only "four witches" who left their paintings [242].

(Davy also gives as "two years" the length of time since the pirates
captured him. Are those durations linked to how it had been two years since
Neill started writing his own Oz books?)

J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 16:26:42 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at compuserve.com>
Subject: LUCKY BUCKY journey

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
<<It's quite possible that Neill added in a visit to the Nomes just because
their country would have been in Bucky and Davy's path to Oz.  It does seem
like Neill was working from a map, since he has Bucky mention the Rose
Kingdom and Ev on p. 64.  Since there's no indication that the boy and the
whale had crossed the gulf surrounding Roseland, it's likely that Bucky was
misreading the map and the travellers had not passed through that country
at all.>>

I'm convinced Neill looked at the TIK-TOK map before he wrote LUCKY BUCKY,
but not at the texts of the Oz books he'd illustrated (at least not
carefully). If we start at the compass in the "Map of the Countries Near
the Land of Oz" and draw a straight line to the Emerald City, that line
crosses the areas labeled "Rose Kingdom," "Land of Ev," and "Dominions of
the Nome King" before reaching the "Deadly Desert."

Those phrases echo what Bucky says on page 64, consulting the map in his
new old coat:
        "we have just passed through the Rose Kingdom
        and are now in the land of Ev. Straight ahead
        is marked 'The Domain of the Gnome King' and
        then--a deadly desert."
There are slight differences in one label ("Dominions/Domain,"
"Gnome/Nome"), but even the changed version is much closer to the TIK-TOK
map than what Neill put on his own diagram on page 61: "Underground Kingdom
of Gnomes."

Within Oz, the connection between the other TIK-TOK map and Neill's action
is less close. Near the desert are two tributaries of a river that leads
past the "Scarecrow's Tower" to the "Lake" near the Emerald City. But the
same river also leads past the "Castle of the Tin Woodman," which Bucky and
Davy don't visit. I suppose Neill might have felt that the rolling-up of
rivers in Oz meant he didn't need to stick to the old map.

There's still the question of how, if Neill was consulting the TIK-TOK map
on lands outside Oz, he called the ocean "Nonentic" instead of (as it's
clearly labeled) "Nonestic." And did he miss the "Deep Canyon" around the
Rose Kingdom? Perhaps that detail was too inconvenient, and the label
"Nonentic" had already appeared in recent Oz books--Nathan?

I should clarify that even my conception of Bucky and Davy's adventures
includes a stop in the Nome Kingdom. What I find hard to believe is that
Bucky took Kaliko's crown, even with Nine's aid (and the book actually says
that coup happens after Number Nine departs [128], though ostensibly he's
still watching [105]).

I think it's more likely, given their power, that the Nomes might have
captured Bucky and put him to work in their mines until Nine came to rescue
him; a longer passage of time between the tugboat accident and his arrival
in the Emerald City (longer than 4-6 days, that is) would help to reconcile
Bucky to not returning to his old life. Or perhaps the whale's passage
through the Nome Kingdom was really as brief as Neill described it.
Whatever happened, however, it seems within character for Kaliko to
indignantly deny the indignity of hiding under his own throne, as I suggest
in the sample chapter I put in the Files section.

Before leaving Kaliko (locked under his throne or not), I must note how
Neill has verbal fun on page 126, quoting the Nome King as saying, "Don't
try any Hoodle Doodle tricks with me," and then aiming "a Rockety-socket
blow" at Bucky.

J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 21:32:18 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at compuserve.com>
Subject: LUCKY BUCKY characters

David Hulan wrote of Jenny Jump and Number Nine:
<at creating characters as Baum or Thompson - he wasn't at all good at plots
(though LB is a considerable improvement over his first two books), and his
prose was frequently awkward, but he had a vivid imagination and was good
at characterization. Number Nine and Bucky are much more distinct as
characters in the writing than their images are in the artwork, in
fact.>>

I agree on the appeal of Jenny (as Neill had left her, and picked her up
again) and Number Nine. Both young people seem real, with weaknesses that
can get them into interesting situations but at the end of the day are
outweighed by their strengths.

Bucky doesn't have such weak points, I think--one reason I find him less
interesting in the exact form Neill described. He's "Lucky" from the very
first page, which rather deflates the suspense about whether things will
work out for him [cf. 19, 21, 42, 167, etc.]. He stumbles onto solutions as
often as he thinks problems through: for instance, "Without any particular
reason, Bucky began to answer the bubbles" [74].

Neill tells us Bucky's "very strong" [22] and "For a boy of
twelve...exceptionally strong" [129]. He seems to make no mistakes as a
pilot. He has only a couple of moments of doubt: first on whether this
world is too weird for him [55] and later feeling shy about entering the
city in his shabby clothes [267]--which Nine quickly fixes [271]. As in
SCALAWAGONS, there's a concern that everyone in the Emerald City have a
job, but the Wizard creates one for Bucky and Davy Jones [287].

Of course, Bucky has many admirable qualities, including bravery and
loyalty to Davy even unto death [78]. But weaknesses and quirks are what
make a character interesting to me. In a way, this is like Davy's rapturous
description of Oz: "where anything you desire you can have by just
wishing." Bucky himself responds, "That seems altogether too easy" [77].
And in terms of a suspenseful plot, it may indeed be.

I don't recall if I thought this way about Bucky when I first read LUCKY
BUCKY, sometime during the Bicentennial. But I certainly felt more
sympathetic toward Number Nine even back then. Nothing against Bucky, but
he didn't seem like he needed me rooting for him so much.

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
<<As I said back when WONDER CITY was the BCF, I've noticed that some
people here tend to regard Jenny as a pseudo-villainess, which leads me to
believe that they're basing their opinions of her primarily on the
pre-lobotomy character from Neill's first Oz book.>>

Whichever version of WONDER CITY we consider, Jenny seems to start out as
an antihero, with clear faults. In the published version with the
Ozlection, she's obviously a rival to Ozma, so it's harder to root for her.
Many readers seem to feel Neill's editor went too far in how, and how much,
she changed Jenny at the end of that book, but even the original seems to
have involved her growing more pleasant over time.

I'd misremembered the final chapters of LUCKY BUCKY as saying that Jenny
went along with Ozma and the Wizard to capture Mombi. In fact, her one big
moment is when she recovers the Wizard's bag. She zooms into the scene like
Supergirl just when Oz needs her [115-7].

Number Nine, on the other hand, plays an even bigger role in this book than
in the earlier ones. He has a long list of duties in and out of the
laboratory [87-9], and even more "during an absence of the Wizard" [266].
My favorite of these tasks is to "to investigate and suppress huffs" [100].
Neill also depicts Nine as controlling enough magic to release and protect
Bucky and Davy from the Nomes on his own.

Neill seems to have given the boy a more mature or perhaps masculine
haircut than he had in the last two books, to go along with his bigger
responsibilities. Jenny makes sure he dresses in green "to the Queen's
taste" rather than his native blue [89; cf. 85]. But does all this make
Nine happy and secure? Of course not! He's not a naturally secure guy. He
suffers from a feeling he's failing:
  * "I know I am not fit to be an assistant" [114]
  * "I've bungled my job" [254]
One improvement for Nine over the previous two books is that he doesn't get
knocked around so much, physically or verbally--at least not until Flummux
gets hold of him [269].

Another character coming back from Neill's earlier books is the clock
outside the Wizard's workshop, here usually called the "hall clock" [e.g.,
105] but later formalized as "Crank Clock" by Jack Snow. He's so much
mellower in LUCKY BUCKY than in SCALAWAGONS that at first I thought it
might be a different timepiece, but I think Neill wants us to believe it's
the same. Maybe in this book he's just not so wound up.

Number Nine, the Wizard's assistant, treats this clock as his own
assistant, asking him to keep watch on the Ozmic Ray and tattlescope. Nine
even cries over the clock when he thinks it's been stopped permanently, but
fortunately the Wizard can use "green peppermint star-dust" to revive him
[252].

This episode is another place in LUCKY BUCKY where time gets mixed up, and
not just because the clock stops. Nine says, "Old Mombi got him" [252], but
Mombi's only visit to the Wizard's tower was back in chapter 9, which was
days before in Davy and Bucky's timeline.

A few other Neill creations visible in the Emerald City: the bellmen from
SCALAWAGONS are on the job [113, 263]. The Town Cryer from WONDER CITY
appears alongside other officials [265]. Evangeline the dragon pokes her
heads in [87]. And among older Oz characters, Kabumpo is characteristically
jealous of attention being paid to someone bigger than he is [282].

Earlier I mentioned how Neill gave a nice wide variety of names to his
witches, none sounding or even structured like the others. Creating named
characters seems to have been something Neill enjoyed. He introduced more
new named characters in each of his Oz books than any other author before
the McGraws.

J. L. Bell                 
JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 21:32:15 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at compuserve.com>
Subject: LUCKY BUCKY Judy Judy Judy

Joe Bongiorno wrote:
<<even a child paying attention would have fixed Nonentic to Nonestic, and
the time glitch in the book shows yet another proof that no one was
proofreading these books!>>

As long as the name is consistent within LUCKY BUCKY, it wouldn't have been
the proofreader's responsibility to make it agree with the earlier books.
That would have been a line editor's job.

David Maxine has reported on how Neill had reacted to the severe
editing/rewriting of his WONDER CITY manuscript. By LUCKY BUCKY, therefore,
Reilly & Lee may therefore have stopped line-editing his Oz books
altogether, just sending them to the printer. Not good publishing, but
maybe a little more understandable.

<<My only real complaint, however, is with the cover.  Why is Judy Garland
sitting there eating an apple?  Was someone was trying to capitalize on the
success of the film (or was Neill was telling us something about Bucky we
don't know from the text)?  Either way, the person on the cover clearly has
lipstick and breasts!>>

On the jacket Bucky's not eating an apple, but a pie (perhaps an apple
pie). We've discussed the Judy Garland resemblance before, which is indeed
impossible to forget once mentioned, but I'll repeat a point for newcomers:
when LUCKY BUCKY was published in 1942, I doubt anyone thought Garland
could look like that.

Before her "Get Happy" number in 1950's SUMMER STOCK (tacked onto that
movie after she'd taken off two months and thirty pounds), had anyone seen
Garland with short hair and a big-shouldered man's jacket? I don't think
there's a scene like that in any of her 1930s and early 1940s films. Even
when she's a tomboy (PIGSKIN PARADE), she's also a pudgy little girl.

Some Oz fans know a lot more about Judy Garland's career, so I'd be
interested in any light they have to shed on this question. But I think
that historically the resemblance between her image in our minds today and
the LUCKY BUCKY cover has to be total coincidence. (Again, I reject the
time-travel explanation.)

J. L. Bell                 
JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 21:32:12 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at compuserve.com>
Subject: LUCKY BUCKY Davy Jones

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
<<Davy's having "nerves" at all seems contradictory to what we know about
most magically animated beings.  On the other hand, GNOME KING has the
Scarecrow insisting that he has no feeling, but the fact that Ruggedo had
pinched him was still annoying.  If he really had no feeling, how would he
know that he had been pinched?  Beings like the Scarecrow presumably have
enough of a sense of touch to know when they are making contact with
someone or something, but not enough to feel pain, or to be ticklish.>>

The Scarecrow would indeed have to have some equivalent of our nervous
system simply to balance on two feet--not that balancing is ever one of his
strong points. I think you're right that the straw man's nerves stop at the
point of feeling pain or physical discomfort, as we see in the Loons'
treatment in TIN WOODMAN or his fall down 60% of his own stairs in LUCKY
BUCKY [215].

In that case, the Scarecrow's resentment at Ruggedo's pinching must be due
not to pain but disgust that a person would be so malicious. And by voicing
his annoyance, he probably hoped that Ozma and other authorities would put
a stop to the pinching before it affected his friends who could feel pain.
The pinching couldn't have harmed him like fire (a fear he continues to
have in LUCKY BUCKY [286--though there's also smoke coming from his tower's
chimney on page 199]).

Is there any artificial living being as large as Davy in the Oz books? The
Giant with the Hammer in OZMA is big but not alive. Terrybubble WAS alive
at some point. Maybe the Candy Giant in ROYAL BOOK counts. I'm wondering if
being so large might cause Davy to need sleep and feel discomfort when most
other wooden creatures don't. 

The sleeping is the hardest to explain, for me. Davy's complaints about
wounds seem to stem from injured pride in his appearance: he dislikes
having his eye chipped, his sides scraped, etc. Tickley Bender makes his
"squirm" [82], but that might simply be due to the riverhead's power to
move him around through currents. As for the funny bones, Neill says they
actually give Davy more energy: "he was moving at a very rapid speed due to
this borrowed electric power" [145]. If Davy somehow runs on electrical
power (and we all do, at the molecular level), then even without nerves the
bones' shocks could affect him.

<<The Gargoyles also sleep, and, like Davy, they are made of wood.>>

Good point. The Glass Cat also at least pretends to sleep.

At one point in my HIDDEN TREASURE draft I have Trot quiz Davy on this
question:
                Trot noticed the whale's painted eyelids
        were sliding down again. "Davy, how come you
        sleep so much?" she asked. "The Sawhorse an'
        Jack Pumpkinhead an' other folks made of wood
        never sleep."
                Davy blinked slowly, which took a long
        time. "It has something to do with how I'm built.
        My head's formed like the keel of a ship, but
        turned over. So at any minute I'm apt to keel
        over." He happily closed his eyes.
                "That makes no sense!" Trot protested.
                "Well, I don't lose any sleep over it,"
        Davy mumbled.

J. L. Bell                 
JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2004 16:13:49 -0600
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at tc.umn.edu>
Subject: Lucky Bucky & Nomes

David Hulan <dhulan at wideopenwest.com> wrote:
> Subject: Lucky Bucky ... for my sixth birthday, I got LOST PRINCESS,
MAGIC, and the new Oz book for the year, LUCKY BUCKY. Don't remember what
order I read them in, but I'm sure that I'd read LB at least once by the
beginning of 1943. <

The fact that it came out in wartime may be why Neill specified that Bucky
saw the Statue of Liberty on his way up from the explosion and had him meet
Uncle Sam when he got to Oz.

"Joseph Bongiorno" <TheSithEmpire at msn.com> wrote:
> even a child paying attention would have fixed Nonentic to Nonestic, and
the time glitch in the book shows yet another proof that no one was
proofreading these books! <

Neill may have been remembering more about the formation of adjectives from
Latin verbs than Baum had done. non-est-ic is the phrase "it is not" plus an
adjectival ending. "ent" rather than "est" is the form for forming an
adjective from the verb "to be." (Doesn't excuse the proof reader, but
probably explains why Neill mis-remembered the name as he did.)

> Why is Judy Garland sitting there eating an apple [on the cover]?  Was
someone was trying to capitalize on the success of the film (or was Neill
was telling us something about Bucky we don't know from the text)?  Either
way, the person on the cover clearly has lipstick and breasts! <

I think it was J.L. Bell who pointed out an earlier drawing of Peter (or was
it Speedy?) who looked a lot like Judy Garland. I don't think the cover
drawing of Bucky clearly shows either lipstick or breasts, but Neill's
standard drawing-of-a-boy-face often did look a lot like Judy Garland, even
before 1939.

"Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at tmbg.org> wrote:
> Kaliko would not see any need to treat them [boy&whale] with respect.  <

Probably no respect, but it seems a bit odd that he takes what seems (from
Number Nine's reaction) to be some kind of aggressive action instead of
just, say, telling them to hurry up and get out of his kingdom. (Or maybe
what he was really doing was just pushing them back out the way they came,
or the like, and Number Nine was over-reacting instead of, say, coming to
request that that the travelers be allowed to go through, instead of making
it an order.)

> Is it ever even specifically stated that Bucky is an orphan? <

No, but it would seem even odder that Bucky has no doubts about staying in
Oz if he has parents besides the uncle left behind to grieve for him.

Ruth Berman

From: "Brahm" <brahm at ...>
Date: Tue Jan 13, 2004  8:04 am
Subject: Re: LUCKY BUCKY Davy Jones

> Nathan DeHoff wrote: 
> If he really had no feeling, how would he 
> know that he had been pinched?

J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at c...> wrote: 
> I think you're right that the straw man's nerves stop at the 
> point of feeling pain or physical discomfort, as we see in the Loons' 
> treatment in TIN WOODMAN or his fall down 60% of his own stairs in LUCKY 
> BUCKY [215].

Actually we learn very directly in the very second book of the series 
beyond the shadow of a doubt that the Scarecrow has no nerves and 
feels no pain.  

"Conquer," was the reply. "But I will go alone, this 
time, for beatings cannot hurt me at all; nor can lance 
thrusts -- or sword cuts -- or arrow pricks." 

"Why is that?" inquired Trot.  

"Because I have no nerves, such as you meat people 
possess. Even grasshoppers have nerves, but straw 
doesn't; so whatever they do -- except just one thing -- 
they cannot injure me." 

However it is clearly presented throughout the series by Baum that 
somehow, perhaps just by looking, or perhaps by the inherent magic of 
their very existence, that all of the various children of the Powder 
of Life (in Baums books) can percieve when they are touching 
something or being touched themselves, and the means or method has no 
resemblence to the biological nervous system of meat people.  
______________________________________ 

~Brahm 

"It is a long journey, through a country that is sometimes pleasant 
and sometimes dark and terrible."

Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 10:40:43 -0600
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at tc.umn.edu>
Subject: lucky bucky notes

"J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at compuserve.com> on whether the Gabooches are
bellows-birds turnstyled into human shapes, or humans previously transformed
into doorknobs/birds.

Interesting question. I'd thought that the doorknobs were intended to link
up (as Nathan suggested) to the mention of Tricholas Oms as given to
transforming people into doorknobs, with the intermediate shape of
bellows-birds a sign of the difficulty of getting back to the original form
when trying to break an enchantment (like the ostrich in the racist
progression when Baum turns Bilbil into other animals and then a subhuman
Tottenhot before getting up to the not-quite-so-subhuman Mifket shape and
then to Bobo). But it's certainly possible that the bellows-birds are their
original shapes. The name "flummox," meaning " to confuse," might hint that
someone so named is in a confused form and not the original one, maybe. A
quick check of the dictionary tells me that "flummox" (dates to 1837) is of
unknown origin -- although the similarity of the pair makes me wonder if it
started out as a variation on "flummery," which is from the Welsh "llymru"
and originally (c. 1623) means a soft jelly or porridge. The meaning of
"mummery" came along later. Again, the similarity of the pair makes me
wonder if "flummery" got its extra meaning by confusion with "mummery"
(which comes from the French for masking)

"Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at tmbg.org> wrote:
> The Zerons and Slippery Dick seem to be presented as if they're characters
we should recognize, but Neill apparently created them for this book. <

Both of them likewise have punning names, the Zerons being cold as zero (in
this context the difference between Fahrenheit and Centigrade doesn't
particulalry matter), and slippery dick being the name of a kind of fish.
Although the characters are new, Slippery Dick's realm of Soap Hollow in the
Winkie Country would seem to be in the vicinity of Soap Mountain (in the
Winkie Country in "Gnome King") -- maybe because Neill forgot about
Shampoozle as the ruler of Suds and meant Suds and Soap Hollow to be the
same place, or maybe because he meant them to be kindred communities at the
foot of the same mountain.


and back to "J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at compuserve.com> --
Suggestion that the mention of Glinda's wishing cap is a mis-remembering of
the Golden Cap sounds plausible. She might easily enough have had an
unrecorded adventure in which she acquired or constructed a wishing cap, I
suppose. I wonder when it folds down into a button if the cap itself folds
into a button shape and can be attached to her sleeve, or if she has a
hollow button on her sleeve (specifically for such purposes?), and the cap
folds down small enough to fit inside it.

> I'm convinced Neill looked at the TIK-TOK map before he wrote LUCKY BUCKY,
but not at the texts of the Oz books he'd illustrated (at least not
carefully). If we start at the compass in the "Map of the Countries Near the
Land of Oz" and draw a straight line to the Emerald City, that line
crosses the areas labeled "Rose Kingdom," "Land of Ev," and "Dominions of
the Nome King" before reaching the "Deadly Desert." ... There's still the
question of how, if Neill was consulting the TIK-TOK map on lands outside
Oz, he called the ocean "Nonentic" instead of (as it's clearly labeled)
"Nonestic." And did he miss the "Deep Canyon" around the
Rose Kingdom? Perhaps that detail was too inconvenient, and the label
"Nonentic" had already appeared in recent Oz books <

No, Neill's two previous Oz books hadn't mentioned it -- the ocean had last
been visited in "Silver Princess" (and RPT always called it Nonestic). I
suppose, though, that if Neill was thinking in terms of Latin
adjectival-forms-of-verb-roots, he might have misread "Nonestic" as
"Nonentic" even if he did stop to look at the name on the map.  Passing
"through" the Rose Kingdom without crossing the "Deep Canyon" is probably
just carelessness, as you suggest -- but I wonder if the canyon might have
at its base a river (two outlets of a single river, that is), and Davy might
have been swimming up through the Rose Kingdom's surrounding Deep Canyon and
gone "through" it in that sense.

Ruth Berman

Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 14:25:37 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at tmbg.org>
Subject: RE: LUCKY BUCKY magic and journey

J. L. Bell:
>Nathan DeHoff wrote:
><<Glinda has a "wishing cap" for this ride, but we never actually see her
>use it.>>
>
>I wonder if Neill was recalling the Golden Cap from WIZARD. I think that's
>the only magical "cap" in the series. Wearers use it to make wishes (albeit
>only the wishes that the Winged Monkeys can fulfill).

There's also Tattypoo's Thinking Cap from GIANT HORSE, which was lost at
some point during Herby and Philador's journey.  It doesn't grant wishes,
though.

>Of course, in WIZARD Baum told us that Glinda was going to turn that cap
>over to the King of the Winged Monkeys. Then again, in LAND the Scarecrow
>says, "the Winged Monkeys are now the slaves of Glinda the Good, who owns
>the Golden Cap," implying she hadn't yet freed the simian servants.

Regardless, if Glinda had actually made the three requests she intends to
make at the end of WIZARD, she would have no more control over the Monkeys,
unless she were to find some other way to make them serve her.  I doubt
Glinda would purposely enslave them, but it's possible that they would
choose to continue working for her, which I believe they have done in a
story in an early OZIANA.

>There's still the question of how, if Neill was consulting the TIK-TOK map
>on lands outside Oz, he called the ocean "Nonentic" instead of (as it's
>clearly labeled) "Nonestic." And did he miss the "Deep Canyon" around the
>Rose Kingdom? Perhaps that detail was too inconvenient, and the label
>"Nonentic" had already appeared in recent Oz books--Nathan?

I'm not sure what you're asking here, but I believe LUCKY BUCKY is the only
Oz book in which the ocean is called "Nonentic," rather than "Nonestic."  I
don't think the ocean is named in any of Neill's other books, however.
--
Making something of nothing 'til there's no more nothing left,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 15:04:35 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at tmbg.org>
Subject: RE: LUCKY BUCKY characters and Americana

J. L. Bell:
>Another character coming back from Neill's earlier books is the clock
>outside the Wizard's workshop, here usually called the "hall clock" [e.g.,
>105] but later formalized as "Crank Clock" by Jack Snow. He's so much
>mellower in LUCKY BUCKY than in SCALAWAGONS that at first I thought it
>might be a different timepiece, but I think Neill wants us to believe it's
>the same. Maybe in this book he's just not so wound up.

SCALAWAGONS has him obsessed with Number Nine being late for work.  I
suppose this isn't an issue in LUCKY BUCKY.

>This episode is another place in LUCKY BUCKY where time gets mixed up, and
>not just because the clock stops. Nine says, "Old Mombi got him" [252], but
>Mombi's only visit to the Wizard's tower was back in chapter 9, which was
>days before in Davy and Bucky's timeline.

On p. 254, the clock says, "I did, however, have a moment to notice the
figure of a witch who stared into the screen, then laughed wildly." Perhaps
we are meant to assume that Mombi attacked the timepiece THROUGH the
Tattlescope screen, which is kind of odd, but makes more sense than Mombi
having "gotten" the clock when she stole the Black Bag.

>And among older Oz characters, Kabumpo is characteristically
>jealous of attention being paid to someone bigger than he is [282].

Neill might have re-read, or at least been thinking of, the book KABUMPO
when he had the Soldier with Green Whiskers give himself orders, as he does
in that book.  Speaking of the Soldier, his reference to the "only musket in
the Kingdom" [p. 94] is most likely inaccurate, considering the musket tree
in Oogaboo, and probably some other examples I'm forgetting.  Was Grampa's 
gun a musket as well?

>In that case, the Scarecrow's resentment at Ruggedo's pinching must be due
>not to pain but disgust that a person would be so malicious. And by voicing
>his annoyance, he probably hoped that Ozma and other authorities would put
>a stop to the pinching before it affected his friends who could feel pain.

Indeed, that seems to be what GNOME KING suggests, with the Scarecrow's
statement that he has "no feeling" being a slight exaggeration.  I'd say
what he really means is that he cannot feel pain.

>Is there any artificial living being as large as Davy in the Oz books? The
>Giant with the Hammer in OZMA is big but not alive. Terrybubble WAS alive
>at some point. Maybe the Candy Giant in ROYAL BOOK counts. I'm wondering if
>being so large might cause Davy to need sleep and feel discomfort when most
>other wooden creatures don't.

Crunch from COWARDLY LION is pretty big, although probably not anywhere near
as big as Davy.  I think Crunch is identified as being three times the size
of an ordinary man, although that might have only been in the often
inaccurate WHO'S WHO.  Davy, on the other hand, is large enough to house an
entire crew of Pie Rats.

Ruth:
>The fact that it came out in wartime may be why Neill specified that Bucky
>saw the Statue of Liberty on his way up from the explosion and had him meet
>Uncle Sam when he got to Oz.

This is quite likely.  Why someone symbolizing the United States would be
living in Oz is a bit of a mystery, but perhaps it follows from Oz's
position as the premiere American fairyland.

>Neill may have been remembering more about the formation of adjectives from
>Latin verbs than Baum had done. non-est-ic is the phrase "it is not" plus
>an
>adjectival ending. "ent" rather than "est" is the form for forming an
>adjective from the verb "to be." (Doesn't excuse the proof reader, but
>probably explains why Neill mis-remembered the name as he did.)

"Nonentic" is generally used to mean "unimportant," however, and I don't
think that's what Baum was intending when he named the ocean.

>"Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at tmbg.org> wrote:
> > Kaliko would not see any need to treat them [boy&whale] with respect. <
>
>Probably no respect, but it seems a bit odd that he takes what seems (from
>Number Nine's reaction) to be some kind of aggressive action instead of
>just, say, telling them to hurry up and get out of his kingdom. (Or maybe
>what he was really doing was just pushing them back out the way they came,
>or the like, and Number Nine was over-reacting instead of, say, coming to
>request that that the travelers be allowed to go through, instead of making
>it an order.)

That's a possibility, although p. 125 does have the Nome King telling
Quiggeroc to put Bucky to work in a mine.  Kaliko is immediately grouchy and
suspicious toward Bucky and Davy, but this doesn't strike me as being
particularly out of character.  It's only when Bucky insults his kingdom
that he becomes totally hostile.
--
Making something of nothing 'til there's no more nothing left,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

From: "Joseph Bongiorno" <TheSithEmpire at ...>
Date: Tue Jan 13, 2004  11:05 pm
Subject: Re: [Nonestica] Lucky Judy in Oz

J. L. Bell wrote:

<< On the jacket Bucky's not eating an apple, but a pie (perhaps an apple pie). >>

Oops!  You're right!  Don't know why apple
popped into my head, unless in fact I was thinking of apple pie!

<<We've discussed the Judy Garland resemblance before, which is indeed
impossible to forget once mentioned, but I'll repeat a point for newcomers:
when LUCKY BUCKY was published in 1942, I doubt anyone thought Garland
could look like that.

Before her "Get Happy" number in 1950's SUMMER STOCK (tacked onto that
movie after she'd taken off two months and thirty pounds), had anyone seen
Garland with short hair and a big-shouldered man's jacket? I don't think
there's a scene like that in any of her 1930s and early 1940s films. Even
when she's a tomboy (PIGSKIN PARADE), she's also a pudgy little girl.

Some Oz fans know a lot more about Judy Garland's career, so I'd be
interested in any light they have to shed on this question. But I think
that historically the resemblance between her image in our minds today and
the LUCKY BUCKY cover has to be total coincidence. (Again, I reject the
time-travel explanation.)>>

It really is a strange coincidence!  I just can't
figure out why on earth Neill made Bucky look so darned effeminate on the cover
when practically all of the interior drawings of him depict a very masculine
boy!

Joe B.

Date: Tue, 13 Jan 2004 18:39:05 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at compuserve.com>
Subject: LUCKY BUCKY wartime

Ruth Berman wrote:
<<The fact that it came out in wartime may be why Neill specified that
Bucky saw the Statue of Liberty on his way up from the explosion and had
him meet Uncle Sam when he got to Oz.>>

Neill even hints that the "Goddess of Liberty" foresaw the danger Bucky was
in: "She seemed to be looking straight at him and her eyes held an
expression of alarm" [18].

I had remembered LUCKY BUCKY as being more gung-ho patriotic than it
actually is. The Statue of Liberty does make this appearance, and Bucky
looks at her "reverently," but not much more is said about Liberty than
Thompson said about the statue of William Penn in GNOME KING.

Similarly, Uncle Sam appears from chapter 18 on, but there's only one
picture of him and it's not at all star-spangled. The character doesn't
play a big role in what follows. So little is made of him as a symbol of
America that readers could easily lose the allusion, just as most kids miss
the "white horse" comment in OJO, for instance.

What' struck me as most interesting this time around is how Neill actually
undercuts respect for the army--Ozma's army. He shows the Soldier with the
Green Whiskers getting upset that drawings of him "lacked...dignity." He
yells, "Down with treason!" [91] and complains that the Wizard is "Giving,
aid, comfort and grape juice to prisoners!!" [99] LUCKY BUCKY was published
when US society was trying to clamp down on saboteurs, fifth-columnists,
and anyone of Japanese descent. Yet Neill depicted this soldier complaining
of treason as motivated only by his ego. His protest is quickly and rightly
dismissed by Ozma.

The antagonists in LUCKY BUCKY are all (a) people whose homes Davy intrudes
on, and (b) figures created by the Ozians themselves. Of course, there are
many worse villains hiding in the shadows, out of Bucky's sight.

The most gung-ho aspect of LUCKY BUCKY seems to be the original back jacket
flap, on which a letter from Bucky urges kids to buy "Bonds and Stamps"
because "The Nazis and Japs are harder to beat than the Gnomes." I think
Reilly & Lee took this off the book in postwar printings, and Books of
Wonder reprinted it inside.

That flap also has Bucky saying, "I was blown off my fathers tugboat." The
book, of course, says it was his uncle's boat. How do scholars of the Oz
"canon" treat such information on the books' dust jackets, title pages, or
other places beyond the authors' clearly identified texts?

J. L. Bell                 
JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Wed, 14 Jan 2004 20:28:05 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at compuserve.com>
Subject: LUCKY BUCKY Mombi

I thought it was interesting to look at events in LUCKY BUCKY from the
perspective of the painted Mombi. The timing of her (its?) activities
remains dubious, but the geography is very easy to follow. Despite being
able to fly anywhere, despite seeking to hide in place unknown, the Mombi
image simply travels back and forth along the same line of places. (This
graphic will look best in a monospaced font. Arrows and turnarounds are
where the text explicitly mentions the characters passing through a
place.):

EM CITY       LAKE QUAD       WINKIE WILD     EV     VOLCANO
 M-------------------------------->----------, 
                 ,----------------<----------' 
                 '-------------------------------------,
 M-----------------------------------------------------'

And that line is the same that Bucky and Davy travel together:

BD===============<================<==========<=========BD

Out of literally an entire ocean, the Mombi image finds the same small
island that had figured earlier in this story.

This reminds me of how in SCALAWAGONS characters keep stumbling into the
supposedly isolated village of Lollies and Pops and its nearby stream.

In important respects the Mombi image is very different from Mombi as we
last saw her, in LOST KING. The image isn't afraid of water. In fact, "the
sparkle of water on Tickley Bender's head" attracts her [118]. And water
doesn't harm the image, either. Nick finds "the half-drowned, soggy figure
of an old witch" in Davy after he sinks [236].

The Mombi image can also fly, something I don't recall Mombi herself ever
doing, at least without a form of transportation. Interestingly, although
Neill the writer refers to the image as carrying a "riding broom" [113],
Neill the artist draws her as carrying only a staff [112], and not needing
that to fly.

J. L. Bell                 
JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 15:26:45 -0600
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at tc.umn.edu>
Subject: more lucky bucky

It looks as if there won't be a Nonestican digest arriving before the end of
Friday afternoon, so I'll take the opportunity to wish participants a
pleasant Martin Luther King Day (date yesterday, observed Monday). An
acquaintance says she's been typoing it Kind Day all day, and that perhaps
she's trying to tell herself something. If so, sounds like a message worth
repeating.

"J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at compuserve.com> wrote:
> In WIZARD Baum told us that Glinda was going to turn that cap
over to the King of the Winged Monkeys. Then again, in LAND the Scarecrow
says, "the Winged Monkeys are now the slaves of Glinda the Good, who owns
the Golden Cap," implying she hadn't yet freed the simian servants. <

The "Land" reference sounds likely to be mistaken, doesn't it? She needed
the cap to get the Scarecrown, Tin Woodman, and Cowardly Lion back to their
respective realms, and whether she actually gave the Cap back to the Monkeys
after that or broke her word and gave it to someone else to use, the Monkeys
wouldn't be in servitude to her anymore. Perhaps we should blame the
Scarecrow's memory as mistaken on that point. I suppose the Lion might have
decided that he could easily enough go back to the Forest on his own, and
that would leave Glinda with one wish to go, and perhaps no reason in the
years since to use it. Even so, the Golden Cap doesn't sound like something
that would be useful for an errand outside the Deadly Desert (that would be
outside the Monkeys' territory). You're probably right that Neill was
remembering the Golden Cap in assigning a wishing cap to Glinda in "Lucky
Bucky," but I suspect that it works better to assume that it was "really" a
different cap, not previously mentioned.

> (Davy also gives as "two years" the length of time since the pirates
captured him. Are those durations linked to how it had been two years since
Neill started writing his own Oz books?) <

I wonder if Neill had any thought in mind that Captain Salt's pirates might
have got tired of -- well, just offhand, I forget what fate they were
assigned to at the end of "Pirates." But if they got tired of it or escaped
from it a few years later, perhaps they might have eventually hooked up with
Davy and turned to pie-racy.

Ruth Berman

Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 12:06:57 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at tmbg.org>
Subject: Neill's snappy retorts

One thing I noticed upon re-reading the Neill FF books is that each one
contains at least one snappy retort to a common question or comment.  I'm
sure everyone (well, everyone who's read the book, anyway) remembers the
Question Hour from WONDER CITY, especially the "Do you know What?" exchange
("I used to, but he moved to the Emerald City a year ago").  SCALAWAGONS has
the conversation between Ozma and the Bell-Snickle, in which the Snickle is
constantly saying, "You bet!" and Ozma replying with, "No, never."  In LUCKY
BUCKY, Tickley Bender replies to a simple "How do you do?" by asking, "How
do I do what?" [p. 80].  As someone who enjoys puns and sarcasm, I have to
say that I found these to be some of the more amusing moments in the Neill
books.
--
Making something of nothing 'til there's no more nothing left,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

From: "Brahm" <brahm at ...>
Date: Sun Jan 18, 2004  5:12 am
Subject: Re: LUCKY BUCKY Mombi

--- In Nonestica at yahoogroups.com, "J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at c...> wrote:
> The Mombi image can also fly, something I don't recall Mombi herself ever
> doing, at least without a form of transportation. Interestingly, although
> Neill the writer refers to the image as carrying a "riding broom" [113],
> Neill the artist draws her as carrying only a staff [112], and not needing
> that to fly.
>
> J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at c...
 
 
Your recollection is on target.
 
Interestingly enough, Baum's Mombi only/always carried a walking
stick and none of his cardinal wickeds EVER displayed an 'inherent'
power of flight in any format.
 
The three crooked hagged out witches who Blinkie summoned were the
only witches ever shown in the original series to have the ability to
fly at all and via magical brooms AND canes between their legs.
 
i found the flying 'canes' an interesting magical device, a new one
on me indeed.
 
One can read the sole occurrence of this elusive event in chapter 14
of SCARECROW OF OZ.
 
And here are some handy dandy quick care tips for everyones brooms
from our good friends the Wicca:

 
_______________________________________________
 
~Brahm
 
"It is a long journey, through a country that is sometimes pleasant
and sometimes dark and terrible."

Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 14:08:14 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at tmbg.org>
Subject: RE: lucky bucky notes

Ruth:
>Although the characters are new, Slippery Dick's realm of Soap Hollow in
>the
>Winkie Country would seem to be in the vicinity of Soap Mountain (in the
>Winkie Country in "Gnome King") -- maybe because Neill forgot about
>Shampoozle as the ruler of Suds and meant Suds and Soap Hollow to be the
>same place, or maybe because he meant them to be kindred communities at the
>foot of the same mountain.

In my own mind, I explained the similarity by considering Dick to be a
vassal of Shampoozle.

>I suppose the Lion might have
>decided that he could easily enough go back to the Forest on his own, and
>that would leave Glinda with one wish to go, and perhaps no reason in the
>years since to use it.

But then the Lion would have had to cross the Hammer-Heads' mountains on his
own, which he cites as the main reason he needs help getting back to the
forest.  It does seem like Glinda would know a way around these mountains, 
though.  In LAND, Glinda's army marches from her palace to the Emerald City,
apparently without any trouble from Hammer-Heads, Fighting Trees, China
Countries, etc.  It's possible that there was a new road (or path, at least)
created in between the first two books, though.

>I wonder if Neill had any thought in mind that Captain Salt's pirates might
>have got tired of -- well, just offhand, I forget what fate they were
>assigned to at the end of "Pirates."

*************************SPOILER FOR _PIRATES_************************ 
Ozma turned them into seagulls.  Probably a difficult fate to escape, unless
they were to find a magic-worker who could help them with this.  There could
be a story in that: the same magician (Trickolas Om?) disenchants the
pirates and enchants Tom, Dick, Harry and Little Sister.  I think it's more
likely that these are different pirates altogether, though; Davy Jones says
on p. 36 of LUCKY BUCKY that "[t]his ocean is filled with pirates." 
*******************************END SPOILER***************************

J. L. Bell:
>Out of literally an entire ocean, the Mombi image finds the same small
>island that had figured earlier in this story.
>
>This reminds me of how in SCALAWAGONS characters keep stumbling into the
>supposedly isolated village of Lollies and Pops and its nearby stream.

That kind of thing is really pretty common in Oz books, though.  I do find 
it odd, however, that, when Number Nine tells his employer about Bucky Jones
being thrown from a volcano, the Wizard cuts him off to say, "A volcano? 
Where?" (in italics, no less), and is described as "jumping from the bench
in consternation" (p. 255).  It turns out that Mombi is there, but I see no
reason why the Wizard would suspect that prior to actually looking in the
Tattlescope.  The impression seems to be that the Wizard somehow thinks a
volcano is a big deal, despite the fact that we've seen others in the
Nonestic area before (one in Ev in GRAMPA, one in the Nonestic Ocean in
CAPTAIN SALT, and possibly Thunder Mountain from WISHING HORSE).

>In important respects the Mombi image is very different from Mombi as we
>last saw her, in LOST KING. The image isn't afraid of water. In fact, "the
>sparkle of water on Tickley Bender's head" attracts her [118]. And water
>doesn't harm the image, either. Nick finds "the half-drowned, soggy figure
>of an old witch" in Davy after he sinks [236].

Are we supposed to assume that Mombi's image is actually MADE of paint?  If
so, it must be waterproof paint, so there wouldn't be any reason for the
image to worry about water, unless it's a memory that remained from her time
as a living person.

>The Mombi image can also fly, something I don't recall Mombi herself ever
>doing, at least without a form of transportation.

She is described in GIANT HORSE as having ridden a black eagle in order to
kidnap Queen Orin.  That's the only FF instance I can think of where a
living Mombi is airborne.

>Interestingly, although Neill the writer refers to the image as carrying a
>"riding broom" [113],
>Neill the artist draws her as carrying only a staff [112], and not needing
>that to fly.

The texts of both LAND and LOST KING have Ozma using a walking stick, and
neither one gives her a riding broom.  In fact, as far as I remember, the
only flying broomsticks that appeared in the Oz books prior to LUCKY BUCKY
were those belonging to Blinkie's associates in SCARECROW.  HIDDEN VALLEY
has the kites reporting that the WWW flew on a broom to capture them, but
there was no mention of her having such a thing in her only personal
appearance in the series, back in WIZARD.  Rachel Cosgrove might have had
the MGM movie in mind when she wrote that passage.
--
Making something of nothing 'til there's no more nothing left,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

From: "Joseph Bongiorno" <TheSithEmpire at ...>
Date: Sun Jan 18, 2004  4:00 pm
Subject: Re: [Nonestica] Mistakes: Oz-as-Literature/Oz-as-History

J.L. Bell wrote:

<<The most gung-ho aspect of LUCKY BUCKY seems to be
the original back jacket flap, on which a letter from Bucky urges kids to buy
"Bonds and Stamps" because "The Nazis and Japs are harder to
beat than the Gnomes." I think Reilly & Lee took this off the book in
postwar printings, and Books of Wonder reprinted it inside.
  That flap also has Bucky saying, "I was blown off my fathers
tugboat." The book, of course, says it was his uncle's boat. How do
scholars of the Oz "canon" treat such information on the books' dust
jackets, title pages, or other places beyond the authors' clearly identified
texts?

 Personally, from an Oz-as-History POV, I treat it as
publisher error, nonsense or propaganda.  If in fact the Ozian folk
were sending stories through various means (dreams, inspiration, etc.,)
to various authors, those stories still have to be written down and
published by American writers and publishers, men and women with their own
ideas, slants and biases.  As internal errors are
due to a number of varying factors (intentional changes, errors, publisher
intervention or even mistakes on the part of the Ozian storyteller
conveying the tale), even more so should blurbs and advertisements be
considered suspect.  In other words, no, I don't think the
"real" Bucky was advocating the beating of Japs or the buying of
bonds and stamps.  Then again, I also think the "real" Bucky's
adventures, while mirroring very closely the story we have in "Lucky Bucky
in Oz", happened somewhat differently and certainly far less illogically
than Neill mistakenly transmitted to us.  

Joe B.

Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 16:54:16 -0800 (PST)
From: Alan Wise <alanmacwise at yahoo.com>
Subject: Neill's contribution to Oz

I wonder, when I read Neill's Oz books, how much of
his invention comes from using Thompson's books as a
jumping off place.  The frantic pace of his titles
seems to mimic that of Thompson's later contibutions
to the series (especially OZOPLANING), and he appears
most comfortable amidst the zipping action and
abundant puns of later Thompson.  Plus, I think Neill
had an idea of what Oz was like (he had, after all, an
intimate relationship with nearly all the books) and
probably rarely returned to past titles when composing
his own.  Thompson seems to have used previous Baum
books as models, patterning the plots or action after
things that had worked for Baum.  Neill reveals less
of a fanaticist's knowledge of Oz and more of an
appreciation for the ways in which he enjoyed it.
Sometimes he seems more interested in cramming in as
much stuff from Baum and Thompson to please the
readers than in constructing a proper plot.  His
Emerald City, for example, feels more populated and
busier than it ever had previously.  That said, I
think LUCKY BUCKY is the most successful of his three
books precisely because he seems more bound to a
traditional Oz plot.  As we've discussed, the action
of the story suggests that he was at least consulting
the map from TIK TOK, and I wonder if he wasn't
reading some of the older books too.  Bucky, for all
his apparent disinclination to return home, is
involved in the archetypal Oz quest -- trying to reach
the Emerald City -- and Davy fits into the mold of
helpful companion.  Neither of Neill's previous books
quite fit into this pattern: Jenny Jump isn't really
on a quest in WONDER CITY and there really isn't a
central figure in SCALAWAGONS.  Perhaps LUCKY BUCKY is
a more satisfying book because it *feels* more like an
Oz book and less like an extended detour among the
hinterlands of Oz. 

Alan Wise

Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 23:18:33 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at compuserve.com>
Subject: LUCKY BUCKY miscellany

Ruth Berman wrote:
<<The name "flummox," meaning " to confuse," might hint that someone so
named is in a confused form and not the original one, maybe.>>

Neill credits the name "Flummux" to the littlest Gabooch's brothers.  It
first appears when they look around and ask, "Where is the Flummux?" [135]
And on the next page she explains, "These brothers of mine call me Flummux
because I am a kid sister. You know how brothers are." So it looks like a
family nickname rather than a reference to her nature; after all, all the
Gabooches are in the same (transformed?) form.

I see now that "Flummux" isn't parallel to the names Tom, Dick, and Harry,
as I'd read it before; Neill consistently refers to her as "the Flummux."
Of course, when she insists on a new name ("please don't let me hear anyone
call me the 'Flummux'; I'm Little Sister" [271-2]), that name isn't
parallel, either.

<cap itself folds into a button shape and can be attached to her sleeve, or
if she has a hollow button on her sleeve (specifically for such purposes?),
and the cap folds down small enough to fit inside it.>>

Page 277 says she "folded it over and over until it was small enough to
slip into a tiny button she wore on her sleeve," which I think we're meant
to read as the latter explanation.

Incidentally, that same page says Glinda takes off the cap after "a final
look...to make sure their [the bakers'] balloons were working properly."
That implies, but doesn't insist, that she'd used the cap to create those
balloon hats (Nathan DeHoff had wondered if the cap actually played a role
in conquering Mombi).

<might have got tired of -- well, just offhand, I forget what fate they were
assigned to at the end of "Pirates.">>

I believe that in one of her acts of Thompsonian justice, Ozma turned those
pirates into seagulls.

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
<<On p. 254, the clock says, "I did, however, have a moment to notice the
figure of a witch who stared into the screen, then laughed wildly."
Perhaps we are meant to assume that Mombi attacked the timepiece THROUGH
the Tattlescope screen, which is kind of odd, but makes more sense than
Mombi having "gotten" the clock when she stole the Black Bag.>>

Number Nine did ask the clock to "Keep an eye on this tattlescope until I
get back," back on page 105. [So there's another tattlescope somewhere?]
But I think that if Neill wanted us to think that the Mombi image was being
viewed by the tattlescope and attacked through its screen, he'd have
written that the clock noticed her IN the screen or her looking OUT OF it,
not "staring into" it.

Instead, I think Neill wanted us to interpret this passage as saying Mombi
had both attacked the clock and looked at Davy in the tattlescope during
her brief intrusion into the Wizard's lab on page 113-4. The timing is
impossible, but we already knew that.

In fact, I noticed another temporal oddity related to Nine's intrusion into
the Nome Kingdom. He frees Davy and Bucky from Kaliko on pages 125-8. Later
he throws his voice back to the underground river on page 140 to advise
them on getting out of the whirlpool. These episodes are "hours" apart. Yet
Nine was gone from the Wizard's workshop to the Nome Kingdom for only "A
few minutes" [105], and immediately left the palace to inspect the city.

Ken Shepard's chronology notes some other time cues for Nine's looking in
on Davy. Bucky sleeps in one of Davy's bunks for "Exactly twelve hours,"
[43], getting up at "daybreak" [44]. That means that his encounter with the
bakers and pirates occurred the previous afternoon.

On Number Nine's end, the book says he started watching the whale about the
time Bucky was thrown off the volcano, which came after his lunch with Ozma
and the Wizard and therefore was also in the afternoon. "Late into the
night" Nine continued "watching every move on the wild Nonentic Ocean"
[105]. In other words, he was watching Davy sleep with Bucky sleeping
inside--the least exciting or dangerous part of their journey.

After getting up at dawn, Bucky helps Davy pilot upriver, past the
Dollfins, up to the Zerons, down the mountain, through the bubbles and
willows, to Tickley Bender, and finally into Kaliko's clutches. All that
supposedly happens before Number Nine has lunch, which he eats after coming
back from the Nome Kingdom [105]. The next time we have a time cue for the
whale's journey, he comes out from underground in "early morning"
[140].

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
<<Crunch from COWARDLY LION is pretty big, although probably not anywhere
near as big as Davy.  I think Crunch is identified as being three times the
size  of an ordinary man, although that might have only been in the often
inaccurate WHO'S WHO.>>

I recall posting on the relative sizes of giants for a Regalia message a
while back. Crunch is indeed surprisingly less than mountainous in COWARDLY
LION. Other giants in the Oz books are said to be considerably larger.

<<In LUCKY BUCKY, Tickley Bender replies to a simple "How do you do?" by
asking, "How do I do what?" [p. 80].>>

Tickley Bender takes most of Davy's remarks literally. Like the Funny
Bones, he has a funny name but isn't really funny, able to raise a laugh
only by poking or shocking people.

<<"Nonentic" is generally used to mean "unimportant," however, and I don't
think that's what Baum was intending when he named the ocean.>>

Thanks to both you and Ruth Berman for answering my question about whether
this name had appeared in any book before LUCKY BUCKY. (I dropped your name
on that query because you have such a good memory for that sort of
detail--as you showed with Tattypoo's thinking cap.)

I've never come across the adjective "nonentic," however. I can see the
connection to "nonentity," which does indeed mean someone so unimportant
that we can ignore him or her. But the closest my OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY
offers in the 1885 coinage "nonent," meaning something that doesn't
exist.

J. L. Bell                 
JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Sun, 18 Jan 2004 23:18:34 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at compuserve.com>
Subject: LUCKY BUCKY macho faces?

Joe Bongiorno wrote:
<effeminate on the cover when practically all of the interior drawings of
him depict a very masculine boy!>>

The difference between what we perceive as "masculine" and "effeminate"
might be very narrow--a matter of a few millimeters. LUCKY BUCKY has an
interior line drawing parallel to Neill's cover on page 57, also showing
Bucky in profile from the right, eating a pie. In fact, the boy's hair is
so similarly tousled in both pictures that I think one must be a version of
the other. The inside version has a slightly longer nose and chin. Are
those details all it takes to make this image more "masculine"?

There are a few images, such as Bucky coming up for air above the author's
note, that strike me as not stereotypically masculine. But I wonder about
this experiment: if we took Neill's several pictures of young people (98,
102-3, 106, 116, 160), scanned them, and removed the long and short hair as
gender markers, would we be able to consistently identify the faces as male
or female? For that matter, would we be able to tell one young person from
another?

Months ago someone--you? Mike Conway?--offered a Japanese term for a pretty
young male in art, saying that many of Neill's pictures of boys fit that
model.

J. L. Bell                 
JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 11:05:10 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at compuserve.com>
Subject: LUCKY BUCKY Scarecrow and Tin Woodman

LUCKY BUCKY makes significant characters of the Scarecrow and the Tin
Woodman, or at least quirky Neill versions of them, in a way we haven't
seen for many books. Thompson often used the Scarecrow but seems to have
been less comfortable with the Tin Woodman; his most significant appearance
came in OZOPLANING, which she'd decided would include all the major WIZARD
characters in the Emerald City, and his actions in that book struck some of
us as uncharacteristic.

In LUCKY BUCKY the straw and tin men are a nearly unseparable pair. I don't
think these two men been this closely paired since TIN WOODMAN, in which
they live together and Baum refers to the Scarecrow as the Tin Woodman's
"chosen companion." The drawing of them embracing face to face on page 204
might also be their most physically affectionate picture since their
reunion in LAND.

Neill has the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman tell of their difficulties with
rivers [202]. This seems to echo the LITTLE WIZARD STORY about them, in
which they try to go fishing and end up in various sorts of trouble. In
that tale the tin man sinks straight to the bottom of a river while the
Scarecrow can't dive at all--but it's not so funny when he loses an eye. By
this book, Nick is apparently waterproof enough that two uncles "floated
the Tin Woodman to safety between them" [231]--unless that's an
unrecognized effect of the dry river.

Davy recognizes the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman by sight [208]. Bucky
apparently doesn't know of them at all, implying his life has been deprived
of Oz books [211]. Most curiously, the uncles of Wise Acres have heard of
the Scarecrow, but don't recognize him without his crown [227].

Nathan DeHoff noted that the Scarecrow's corn palace in LUCKY BUCKY has
grown considerably larger than it was in EMERALD CITY: 20 storeys instead
of 5. In the picture on 198, it lacks the statue of the Scarecrow himself
that Baum said topped its turret. Perhaps it really has been built taller.
(Ongoing construction could explain the "coil of wire" someone's left at
the top of the stairs [215].) One detail I like about that art is how the
windows spiral around, hinting at the spiral staircase inside which the
Scarecrow tumbles down.

The Scarecrow says this is "the castle Nick built for me to use while
visiting him" [212]. In EMERALD CITY Nick ascribes the building to "my
Winkies and many other people from all parts of the country," says "every
one helped him build his mansion," and ascribes the design to Jack
Pumpkinhead. Was he modestly downplaying his role in providing this home?
Or is the Scarecrow in LUCKY BUCKY playing up Nick's contribution out of
friendship?

Another new detail: The Tin Woodman says he "had six nieces, years ago.
They all married Tinsmiths" [226]. Since he himself was a woodchopper, does
this mean the family had an interest in tin even before he started losing
limbs? Or perhaps Nick brought these nieces to the Winkie Country after he
became emperor, and they married some of the tinsmiths who helped build his
castle. Why doesn't Nick have these nieces anymore? I suppose that means he
no longer feels avuncular responsibility for them since they're all
married.

The Scarecrow seems of two brains about whether a visitor as big as Davy
could fit into Emerald City society, or even into the Emerald City. "We
can't permit a whale," he protests at first. "There's no place for such an
enormous fish. Will he want the rivers back again?" [205] But within a few
pages he's telling Davy, "Strangers are always welcome here, even the
strangest" [209]. The whale's size is still a problem. The Scarecrow
suggests he be shrunk to four or five inches long [216], and the Tin
Woodman (no stranger to body parts replacement) proposes "a set of strong
tin wheels" [219]. But finally brains and heart kick in, and they come up
with the idea of Davy floating in Lake Quad. 

J. L. Bell                 
JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 11:05:14 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at compuserve.com>
Subject: LUCKY BUCKY magic

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
<<Ozma and her friends have access to a great deal of magic, and, as in
Neill's other books, they seem to be more willing than ever before to use
it to solve their problems. The Wizard has already removed some of the
rivers from the Munchkin and Winkie Countries. . . . >>

I was also struck by how casually the Wizard uses magic in LUCKY BUCKY to
do things that really don't need magic, or that intrude on other people's
lives. Obviously, to regulate the course of all the rivers in the Munchkin
and Winkie Countries, one needs either magic or the Army Corps of
Engineers. But the Wizard also:

  * floats files in and out of his meeting with Ozma [94]
  * floats in the boxes of paintbrushes [101]
  * flies Number Nine with his bag back up to the lab [238]
  * flies up to the lab himself [251]

The Wizard could accomplish all these things through simple physical
effort: carrying a box, for instance, or climbing stairs. In Baum's and
Thompson's books that's how he usually manages things: he's an active
little man, dashing here and there. But Neill tells us that the spell on
page 101, for instance, requires the Wizard merely "wiggled his hand in the
air." No wonder the Wizard's grown more portly in these illustrations!

The Wizard also appears to be more intrusive about how he works magic on
others. As you noted, he makes nearly everyone on the streets of the
Emerald City vanish [240] and then brings them back [244]. Obviously, he
does this to protect them, but there's no indication about what happens to
all those people while they were gone. They don't seem too put out by being
put away, either, which might imply that by now they're used to such
treatment.

In CAPTAIN SALT Ozma was ostensibly claiming Nonestic territories for her
realm. I think LUCKY BUCKY is the first book in which she and her friends
actually bring one of those territories into Oz, clearly without the prior
consent of its inhabitants, the bakers: "Never had one of them supposed
such ruin could have happened to their solid little volcano. Slowly but
surely it was crumbling to destruction under their feet. . . . they clung
desperately together for mutual protection...while their cherished
doughmain melted away" [275].

Apparently, to save the bakers from the pirates (whom they've already
conquered and converted [29]) and the Mombi-image (whom they've driven into
their volcanic crater [256]), their country must be invaded, diminished,
and brought to Oz as a "contribution to the city's new decoration" [278]. I
hope the bakers are happy, but they don't seem to have any say in how the
Wizard works his magic on them. In addition, if any other islanders or
sailors relied on that volcanic bakery for food, they're in trouble now. 

J. L. Bell                 
JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2004 15:59:18 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at tmbg.org>
Subject: RE: Neill's contribution to Oz

Alan Wise:
>I wonder, when I read Neill's Oz books, how much of
>his invention comes from using Thompson's books as a
>jumping off place.  The frantic pace of his titles
>seems to mimic that of Thompson's later contibutions
>to the series (especially OZOPLANING), and he appears
>most comfortable amidst the zipping action and
>abundant puns of later Thompson.

I definitely think Neill was heavily influenced by OZOPLANING, the last Oz
book that he illustrated but didn't write (and, incidentally, a book that
many Oz fans seem to consider one of Thompson's worst).  The Ozoplanes
themselves appear in WONDER CITY, and the Scalawagons were probably largely
inspired by them.  There are also numerous easily thwarted attempts at
invading in Oz in the later Thompson books (especially OZOPLANING) and the
Neill books.

>Sometimes he seems more interested in cramming in as
>much stuff from Baum and Thompson to please the
>readers than in constructing a proper plot.  His
>Emerald City, for example, feels more populated and
>busier than it ever had previously.

That's definitely true.  There are characters he never seems to mention at 
all, though.  As I pointed out back in our SCALAWAGONS discussion, it's
interesting that the four Thompson characters who actually appear in Neill's
books (Kabumpo, Sir Hokus, the Comfortable Camel, and Captain Salt) all end
up living OUTSIDE the Emerald City by the end of the Thompson
administration, yet they seem to be residents of the capital in Neill
(although it's certainly possible they're just making extended visits).  He
never mentions the numerous Thompson characters who DO end up in the Emerald
City (the Doubtful Dromedary, Carter Green, Herby, Benny, Pigasus, etc.).

>That said, I
>think LUCKY BUCKY is the most successful of his three
>books precisely because he seems more bound to a
>traditional Oz plot.

Indeed, I'd say that a large way in which Neill differs from Thompson is
that pretty much all of Thompson's books follow a certain structure: two or
more parties go questing for something, they meet up eventually, visit a lot
of little kingdoms scattered throughout Oz and/or the surrounding lands, and
eventually find what they were looking for), while Neill's books generally
don't follow that form at all.  LUCKY BUCKY sort of does, although the quest
is pretty much just to get to the Emerald City.  Also, Thompson's books tend
to have a lot of characters who make their homes in sub-kingdoms like
Pumperdink, Regalia, Ragbad, etc., while the Emerald City seems to be either
the home base or goal of most of the characters in Neill's books.
--
Making something of nothing 'til there's no more nothing left,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2004 12:41:23 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at tmbg.org>
Subject: RE: LUCKY BUCKY Wizard, Scarecrow, and Tin Woodman

J. L. Bell:
>I was also struck by how casually the Wizard uses magic in LUCKY BUCKY to
>do things that really don't need magic, or that intrude on other people's
>lives. Obviously, to regulate the course of all the rivers in the Munchkin
>and Winkie Countries, one needs either magic or the Army Corps of
>Engineers. But the Wizard also:
>
>  * floats files in and out of his meeting with Ozma [94]
>  * floats in the boxes of paintbrushes [101]
>  * flies Number Nine with his bag back up to the lab [238]
>  * flies up to the lab himself [251]
>
>The Wizard could accomplish all these things through simple physical
>effort: carrying a box, for instance, or climbing stairs. In Baum's and
>Thompson's books that's how he usually manages things: he's an active
>little man, dashing here and there.

In Thompson's books, magical transportation seems to become more common. 
Starting in LOST KING, we frequently see her Wizard using wishing pills to
transport himself and others to various places, while most of his journeys
in the Baum books were accomplished on foot or by Red Wagon.  When the
Wizard uses his wishing pills in the Thompson books, however, it's usually
to transport great distances, not simply to get to a higher floor of a
building he's standing right outside.

>Apparently, to save the bakers from the pirates (whom they've already
>conquered and converted [29]) and the Mombi-image (whom they've driven into
>their volcanic crater [256]), their country must be invaded, diminished,
>and brought to Oz as a "contribution to the city's new decoration" [278].

More pirates could have attacked the volcano, but I still think the bakers
should have had a say in being relocated to Lake Quad.

>In LUCKY BUCKY the straw and tin men are a nearly unseparable pair. I don't
>think these two men been this closely paired since TIN WOODMAN, in which
>they live together and Baum refers to the Scarecrow as the Tin Woodman's
>"chosen companion."

While they're not AS close, SCALAWAGONS generally seems to show them
together, as when they ride in the Red Wagon with Jenny Jump, and the
Scarecrow visits the Tin Castle later in the book.  Giving the Scarecrow an
equivalent position to that of the Tin Woodman, something Baum and Thompson
never did, also seems to suggest that Neill thought of them as a pair.

>Davy recognizes the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman by sight [208]. Bucky
>apparently doesn't know of them at all, implying his life has been deprived
>of Oz books [211].

Yet, on p. 37, Bucky says, "I always thought Oz was a wonderful and friendly
land," so he must have at least heard of Oz in a general way.

>Another new detail: The Tin Woodman says he "had six nieces, years ago.
>They all married Tinsmiths" [226]. Since he himself was a woodchopper, does
>this mean the family had an interest in tin even before he started losing
>limbs? Or perhaps Nick brought these nieces to the Winkie Country after he
>became emperor, and they married some of the tinsmiths who helped build his
>castle. Why doesn't Nick have these nieces anymore?

I'd be interested in learning about the sibling Nick must have in order to
have nieces.  This sibling apparently didn't help Nick in taking care of his
widowed mother, as the Tin Woodman reports having done in WIZARD.

Oh, and just another general note on the book: Neill certainly loves to use
multiple exclamation points!!!
--
Making something of nothing 'til there's no more nothing left,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at ...>
Date: Tue Jan 20, 2004  2:21 pm
Subject: Bucky & Byatt

"Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at ...> wrote:
> I believe LUCKY BUCKY is the only Oz book in which the ocean is called
"Nonentic," rather than "Nonestic."  I don't think the ocean is named in any
of Neill's other books <
 
It doesn't get visited in Neill's other Oz books, and doesn't get a mention,
either. Mo, Ix/No, Hiland/Loland, as introduced in the Borderlands Books,
are all by or near an un-named ocean, and Baum got around to showing that
the Borderlands countries were on the Nonestic Ocean on the "Tik-Tok" map
(although he neglected to include Mo on this map). He also had this ocean
appearing, still without being named, in "Ozma," "Tik-Tok" (the text), and
"Scarecrow." It got its sole named appearance in his texts in "Rinkitink"
(unless the mention in the "Oz Book Fragment," perhaps not actually Baum's
work, counts). RPT's books visited it several times (always as Nonestic,
except in "Jack Pumpkinhead," where the name isn't mentioned). Snow's
"Shaggy Man" also visits it, and the McGraws' "Forbidden Fountain" mentions
it. The fullest descriptions of the Nonestic are in RPT's books, especially
"Pirates" and "Captain Salt," but also a lot in "Gnome King" and "Speedy"
(smaller appearances in others of hers).
 
> "Nonentic" is generally used to mean "unimportant," however, and I don't
think that's what Baum was intending when he named the ocean. <
 
No, Baum meant the literal sense of not-existingness -- but that sense is
also one of the meanings of English "nonentity" (and nonentic, if it occurs
in English -- the dictionary to hand doesn't list it).
 
> On p. 254, the clock says, "I did, however, have a moment to notice the
figure of a witch who stared into the screen, then laughed wildly."  Perhaps
we are meant to assume that Mombi attacked the timepiece THROUGH the
Tattlescope screen, which is kind of odd, but makes more sense than Mombi
having "gotten" the clock when she stole the Black Bag. <
 
I have a feeling that description was inspired by the Wicked Witch's
appearance to Dorothy in the crystal ball in the MGM movie. Judging by the
terror Margaret Hamilton could inspire for many by laughing in green makeup,
I can believe that Mombi might have frightened the Clock into a faint.
 
> Speaking of the Soldier, his reference to the "only musket in
the Kingdom" [p. 94] is most likely inaccurate, considering the musket tree
in Oogaboo, and probably some other examples I'm forgetting.  Was Grampa's
gun a musket as well? <
 
Don't we at this point pretty much have a rule that any time Baum or any
other Oz author says something is the only one of its kind in Oz, the
statement is incorrect?
 
"J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at ...> wrote:
> What' struck me as most interesting this time around is how Neill actually
undercuts respect for the army--Ozma's army. He shows the Soldier with the
Green Whiskers getting upset that drawings of him "lacked...dignity." He
yells, "Down with treason!" [91] and complains that the Wizard is "Giving,
aid, comfort and grape juice to prisoners!!" [99] LUCKY BUCKY was published
when US society was trying to clamp down on saboteurs, fifth-columnists, and
anyone of Japanese descent. Yet Neill depicted this soldier complaining of
treason as motivated only by his ego. His protest is quickly and rightly
dismissed by Ozma. <
 
Interesting point. It would be nice to think that Neill was protesting
wartime hysteria, although in the absence of any clearer linkage, and
considering how often the Soldier was used for comic effect in earlier Oz
books (including both Baum's & RPT's) I suspect the similarity may be
coincidence.
 
> [The book-] flap also has Bucky saying, "I was blown off my fathers
tugboat." The book, of course, says it was his uncle's boat. How do scholars
of the Oz"canon" treat such information on the books' dust jackets, title
pages, or other places beyond the authors' clearly identified texts? <
 
Some of Snow's comments in "Who's Who" also add information (or disagree
with details in the books). I don't think there's any general agreement on
how to treat such materials. They've mostly been ignored, but I think that's
as much because the materials are unfamiliar as because of a formal
adherence to a heirarchy of text-beats-prefacing-stuff. (I suspect that
where the materials could lend themselves to being explained into
reconciliation, commentators would just as soon explain them, and where
they'd be hard to reconcile, a heirarchy of text over preface would be
preferred.) In the case of tugboat ownership, I suppose it might be jointly
owned by both brothers, with perhaps the father owning a larger share, but
the uncle more active in running the business? This seems to get us back to
the question of why Bucky doesn't care if his relatives think he's dead,
doesn't it?
 
Ruth Berman

From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at ...>
Date: Wed Jan 21, 2004  10:29 am
Subject: bucky notes

"Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at ...> wrote:
> I explained the similarity by considering Dick to be a vassal of
Shampoozle.<
 
Yes, that would work as an explanation. Although it might work equally well
the other way round or with the two as equal rulers of neighbor communities
(the Sultan has an imposing title, but titles and powers don't necessarily
correspond).
 
> But then [if returning without flight] the Lion would have had to cross
the Hammer-Heads' mountains on his own, which he cites as the main reason he
needs help getting back to the forest.  It does seem like Glinda would know
a way around these mountains, though.  In LAND, Glinda's army marches from
her palace to the Emerald City, apparently without any trouble from
Hammer-Heads, Fighting Trees, China Countries, etc.  It's possible that
there was a new road (or path, at least) created in between the first two
books, though. <
 
The quick-march does sound as if there was a change in the roadways, but
there might well have been a way to go around the mountains Glinda would
have known about even if not as good a road as a marching army needs.
 
> Probably a difficult fate [transformation of pirates] to escape, unless
they were to find a magic-worker who could help them with this. There could
be a story in that: the same magician (Trickolas Om?) disenchants the
pirates and enchants Tom, Dick, Harry and Little Sister.  I think it's more
likely that these are different pirates altogether, though; Davy Jones says
on p. 36 of LUCKY BUCKY that "[t]his ocean is filled with pirates."<
 
Yes, from that it does sound more likely that they're separate bands.
 
> I do find it odd, however, that, when Number Nine tells his employer about
Bucky Jones being thrown from a volcano, the Wizard cuts him off to say, "A
volcano?  Where?" (in italics, no less), and is described as "jumping from
the bench in consternation" (p. 255).  It turns out that Mombi is there, but
I see no reason why the Wizard would suspect that prior to actually looking
in the Tattlescope.  The impression seems to be that the Wizard somehow
thinks a volcano is a big deal, despite the fact that we've seen others in
the Nonestic area before (one in Ev in GRAMPA, one in the Nonestic Ocean in
CAPTAIN SALT, and possibly Thunder Mountain from WISHING HORSE). <
 
Perhaps he has some reason to think that the others are not likely to erupt
any time soon -- if he doesn't know if this one is quiescent or not, the
possibility of an eruption might make the matter worth checking into
immediately.
 
"Joseph Bongiorno" <TheSithEmpire at ...> wrote:
> Personally, from an Oz-as-History POV, I treat ["Bucky" dustflap letter]
as publisher error, nonsense or propaganda.  If in fact the Ozian folk were
sending stories through various means (dreams, inspiration, etc.,) to
various authors, those stories still have to be written down and published
by American writers and publishers, men and women with their own ideas,
slants and biases.  As internal errors are due to a number of varying
factors (intentional changes, errors, publisher intervention or even
mistakes on the part of the Ozian storyteller conveying the tale), even more
so should blurbs and advertisements be considered suspect. <
 
Privileging the text over blurbs and ads (and authors' prefaces and Snow's
"Who's Who") is a reasonable stance, and so is assuming that the non-text
materials are too suspect to use. Using them with caution might be a
reasonable stance, too, but I don't think the issue has been raised often
enough to have established whether there is majority opinion on how to
regard them.
 
Alan Wise <alanmacwise at ...> wrote:
> [Neill] appears most comfortable amidst the zipping action and
abundant puns of later Thompson. <
 
Not but what Baum's action is often pretty zippy and his puns abundant!
 
"J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at ...> wrote:
> Page 277 says ... Glinda takes off the cap after "a final look...to make
sure their [the bakers'] balloons were working properly." That implies, but
doesn't insist, that she'd used the cap to create those balloon hats (Nathan
DeHoff had wondered if the cap actually played a role in conquering Mombi).
<
 
Use of magic headgear to put magic in headgear? Yes, seems likely enough.
 
> Nathan DeHoff wrote:
<<On p. 254, the clock says, "I did, however, have a moment to notice the
figure of a witch who stared into the screen, then laughed wildly."
Perhaps we are meant to assume that Mombi attacked the timepiece THROUGH the
Tattlescope screen, which is kind of odd, but makes more sense than Mombi
having "gotten" the clock when she stole the Black Bag.>>
> Number Nine did ask the clock to "Keep an eye on this tattlescope until I
get back," back on page 105. [So there's another tattlescope somewhere?] But
I think that if Neill wanted us to think that the Mombi image was being
viewed by the tattlescope and attacked through its screen, he'd have written
that the clock noticed her IN the screen or her looking OUT OF it, not
"staring into" it. Instead, I think Neill wanted us to interpret this
passage as saying Mombi had both attacked the clock and looked at Davy in
the tattlescope during her brief intrusion into the Wizard's lab on page
113-4. The timing is impossible, but we already knew that. <
 
Could well be, but it does still leave open the question of what caused the
clock to faint, since there's no mention of Mombi's doing anything to the
clock (you'd think the clock might at least report, "I would have called
out, but then she toppled me over and jumbled my works," or some such).
Could it be that while the witch looked into the tattlescope and saw Davy,
the clock saw her frightening image reflected in the screen (or maybe saw
her through the screen from opposite side), and was frightened enough to
faint?
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Wed, 21 Jan 2004 12:06:31 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at compuserve.com>
Subject: LUCKY BUCKY Neill's contribution to Oz

Alan Wise wrote:
<from using Thompson's books as a jumping off place. The frantic pace of
his titles seems to mimic that of Thompson's later contibutions to the
series (especially OZOPLANING), and he appears most comfortable amidst the
zipping action and abundant puns of later Thompson.>>

This makes sense. When Neill started writing his own Oz books, he had
worked on more by Thompson (19) than by Baum (13). Even if we count other
projects he'd done with those authors, I think Thompson books (20) still
outnumber Baum books (17, counting LITTLE WIZARD STORIES as a single
volume). Plus, Neill had illustrated Thompson's books much more recently,
so they would have been uppermost in his mind.

<<Plus, I think Neill had an idea of what Oz was like (he had, after all,
an intimate relationship with nearly all the books) and probably rarely
returned to past titles when composing his own.  Thompson seems to have
used previous Baum books as models, patterning the plots or action after
things that had worked for Baum.  Neill reveals less of a fanaticist's
knowledge of Oz and more of an appreciation for the ways in which he
enjoyed it.>>

Yes, it seems clear from how she summarizes certain Baum books that
Thompson had reviewed them shortly before she wrote her own: the summary of
PATCHWORK GIRL in OJO, for instance. There are no equivalent passages in
Neill, and more glaring contradictions with Baum, such as Jack
Pumpkinhead's remark about living with Mombi for seven years.

Another influence on Neill the writer, I think, was Neill the artist. For
decades he'd drawn houses in Oz with their windows and doors and ornaments
looking like faces. Baum and Thompson never mentioned that detail, I
believe. But Neill made living houses the center of an episode in WONDER
CITY and included one as well in SCALAWAGONS. (I suppose Davy Jones counts
as a living dwelling all by himself.)

Yet another influence may be the MGM movie that came out just before Neill
started writing. The Wizard spends a lot of WONDER CITY in disguises,
including false whiskers. Davy literally travels over the rainbow to Oz.

<because he seems more bound to a traditional Oz plot. As we've discussed,
the action of the story suggests that he was at least consulting the map
from TIK TOK, and I wonder if he wasn't reading some of the older books
too. Bucky, for all his apparent disinclination to return home, is
involved in the archetypal Oz quest -- trying to reach the Emerald City --
and Davy fits into the mold of helpful companion.>>

Building the plot of LUCKY BUCKY around a journey--ANY journey--probably
helped Neill give his narrative a more unified structure than in his
previous two books. (Apparently the original WONDER CITY brought Jenny to
Ozian countryside first, so she too had to travel to the Emerald City
instead of plopping down inside it right away, but that was only one part
of that book's narrative.)

In one important way, the protagonists' journey in LUCKY BUCKY is unlike
the trips to the Emerald City in any other Oz book. Bucky and Davy Jones
deliberately set out to get into Oz, using a plan and a map to get there.

Starting with WIZARD, most Oz book protagonists suddenly find themselves in
Oz (the WIZARD model) or its outskirts (OZMA), and go where they do just to
survive. Even when they know of Oz and feel welcome there, as Speedy does
in SPEEDY, they don't try to reach it. (If they arrive in Oz, then they
usually head for the Emerald City or some other place of authority.) In
ROAD Dorothy simply travels along a road; although she eventually realizes
it's the road to her home away from home, she didn't plan that journey. In
GNOME KING Peter accompanies Ruggedo in his attempt to invade Oz, and that
seems to be the closest analogy to what Bucky and Davy Jones do in this
book--but Peter doesn't have anyplace else to go, and he's trying to thwart
the invasion plan.

In contrast, Davy leaves his natural habitat to visit much more dangerous
and hostile territories. What would make an acquatic creature traverse a
desert-like valley of bones? The prospect of visiting the Emerald City. To
Davy it's "in the very center of creation" [37]. Oz is "where anything you
desire you can have by just wishing" [77]. And he doesn't seem to be
planning mere tourism. He says that "Everyone who gets there stays forever"
[77], and well before he and Bucky are invited to stay in Lake Quad Neill
tells us of the "safety and happiness awaiting them in the Emerald City"
[190].

Bucky is more wary of the journey, and of the strangeness of fairyland. At
first he decides simply not to be left behind [56], but eventually he
promises that he's willing to "die in the attempt" to reach Oz [78].  The
book ends with Davy anxiously confirming of his young friend, "you like the
place enough to stay here always" [289].

We can see how deliberate this unauthorized immigration into Oz is when we
consider that Bucky and Davy follow a map. Indeed, even before they
discover the map stitched into the old coat [59], "they mapped their
course" by the compass [56]. They also sight the Emerald City through a
"powerful spy-glass" [59, 63]. I've written other messages about how the
appearance of the TIK-TOK maps seems to have influenced the writing of the
Oz books that followed. The journey in LUCKY BUCKY may be the first in
which protagonists set out to follow a map into Oz. 

Given that deliberateness, it's ironic that the author's note at the start
of LUCKY BUCKY Neill tells readers asking "how you can get to the Land of
Oz" that "you have to wait until you are selected." Bucky and Davy DON'T
wait. They take their aspirations into their own hands--or fins.

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
<<As I pointed out back in our SCALAWAGONS discussion, it's interesting
that the four Thompson characters who actually appear in Neill's books
(Kabumpo, Sir Hokus, the Comfortable Camel, and Captain Salt) all end up
living OUTSIDE the Emerald City by the end of the Thompson administration,
yet they seem to be residents of the capital in Neill (although it's
certainly possible they're just making extended visits).  He never mentions
the numerous Thompson characters who DO end up in the Emerald City (the
Doubtful Dromedary, Carter Green, Herby, Benny, Pigasus, etc.).>>

With the exception of Pigasus, no one on the latter list plays a major role
in Thompson's books after his first appearance. I'm not sure any make even
a cameo appearance after WISHING HORSE. Thompson seems to have set them
aside as well.

In contrast, Thompson brings all the members of the first group back in
significant ways, in two cases with books named after them and in a third
with major roles in multiple books. So in thinking back on whom he
illustrated the most, Neill would naturally remember Kabumpo and Captain
Salt and perhaps easily forget they weren't Emerald City residents.

And that's not even getting into the question of whether Kabumpo, Sir
Hokus, and Captain Salt are more popular, interesting characters than those
Thompson creations who make only one major appearance.

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
<though; Davy Jones says on p. 36 of LUCKY BUCKY that "[t]his ocean is
filled with pirates.">>

Indeed, Neill had illustrated Baum's JOHN DOUGH, which included an entire
island of pirates in what we later learn must be the Nonestic Ocean.

J. L. Bell                 
JnoLBell at compuserve.com

From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at ...>
Date: Wed Jan 21, 2004  4:55 pm
Subject: Bucky & Byatt & differences

"Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at ...> wrote:
> I'd be interested in learning about the sibling Nick must have in order to
have nieces.  This sibling apparently didn't help Nick in taking care of his
widowed mother, as the Tin Woodman reports having done in WIZARD.<
 
I don't suppose Nick would consider any children of Nimmie Aimee and Chopfyt
as being sort of honorary nieces (or nephews) of his?
 
Ruth Berman

From: "J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at ...>
Date: Wed Jan 21, 2004  10:39 pm
Subject: author's notes and Oz-as-history

Ruth Berman wrote:
<<I don't think there's any general agreement on how to treat such
materials [information found only in author's notes, jackets, WHO'S WHO,
etc.]. They've mostly been ignored, but I think that's as much because the
materials are unfamiliar as because of a formal adherence to a heirarchy of
text-beats-prefacing-stuff. (I suspect that where the materials could lend
themselves to being explained into reconciliation, commentators would just
as soon explain them, and where they'd be hard to reconcile, a heirarchy of
text over preface would be preferred.)>>
 
Traditional "text-beats-prefacing" presents a challenge when it comes to
analyzing Oz-as-history because often the author's notes at the start or
end of the book are the only statements from Baum and his successors about
how they've heard the stories they retell. Most basically, the explanation
of the radio telegraph reestablishing contact with Oz appears in the
prefatory matter of PATCHWORK GIRL. Isn't that almost a sine qua non of
interpreting the following books as historical?
 
I see some other author's notes as significant. In the one for SCARECROW
Baum seems to promise LOST PRINCESS would be his next book, not RINKITINK.
Neill's note for LUCKY BUCKY tells of finding an unusual account. Perhaps
there are others as well.
 
Occasionally, of course, the author's notes are the most obvious
Oz-as-literature signpost in a book. Baum natters on about storytelling
imagination at one point, I recall. And Thompson may get small details of
her own story wrong because she's apparently writing the note in haste at
the last minute.
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at ...

From: Alan Wise <alanmacwise at ...>
Date: Thu Jan 22, 2004  8:48 am
Subject: Re: [Nonestica] bucky notes

--- Ruth Berman <berma005 at ...> wrote:
 
> Could well be, but it does still leave open the
> question of what caused the
> clock to faint
 
How DOES a clock faint anyway?  On first reading, I
passed over the episode without much thought, but
after the discussion about Davy passing out at the
bottom of Lake Quad, I began to wonder.  The clock is,
I assume, built of wood and glass and metal works,
none of which (Sawhorse, Bungle, Tik-Tok) has ever
needed sleep or fainted before.  Is the clock in a
faint when it has run down?  Or has the sight of Mombi
frightened it so much that its works jammed?
 
Alan Wise

Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 13:16:54 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at compuserve.com>
Subject: LUCKY BUCKY loose ends and details

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
<<I'd be interested in learning about the sibling Nick must have in order
to have nieces.  This sibling apparently didn't help Nick in taking care of
his widowed mother, as the Tin Woodman reports having done in WIZARD.>>

If Nick had only one sibling, and that person was raising six daughters and
an unknown number of sons, that would easily explain why it fell to the
unmarried, fit, productive sibling to support an aging parent. Even if Nick
had more than one sibling but they all had kids, he would have ended up
being the natural parental support.

Ruth Berman wrote:
<appearance to Dorothy in the crystal ball in the MGM movie.>>

Interesting connection--and perhaps another sign of MGM influence.

Here are some other remarks on miscellaneous oddities in LUCKY BUCKY.

The Barrel-bird on page 19 had long struck me as, like the Gabooches, a
creature that might have grown out of Neill's doodling. But this time I
noticed that the text says it's "half full of star dust." Now I wonder if
it's supposed to be some sort of ashcan bird, used for storing the
sweepings of the sky. Also mentioned on this page is a cloud-pusher; later
more show up to keep Davy from falling through the rainbow [153]. As I
recall, these creatures also appeared in WONDER CITY but I believe debuted
in OZOPLANING.

Ona page 32, Bucky suddenly remembers the story of Jonah being swallowed by
a whale. Can anyone think of another Biblical allusion in the Oz books? I
remember some references to Nevercouldnever and other Old Testament figures
in SEA FAIRIES, but even when the Oz authors mention Christian events
(Christmas, Easter, christening), they don't name people or places from the
Christian tradition. In this case, Neill could have had Bucky remember the
story of Pinocchio, which Disney had made into a very successful movie two
years before. That story featured a boy being swallowed by a whale: wooden
boy, real whale, rather than the other way 'round.

Somewhere in American literature is a mention of whales leaping up Niagara
falls. It's a spoof on tourists. Ring any bells? Davy manages to swim up
some waterfalls himself on page 62.

On that same page, Bucky estimates that there's an eight-mile slide down
the mountainside, confirmed as "nearly eight miles" on 69. It takes
"exactly eleven minutes" to make that trip, or 43 miles per hour.
Presumably they go even faster on Slippery Dick's soapy track, but we never
see what his stopwatch read [193].

Later Neill tells us it takes "exactly seven minutes by the great clock in
the north tower to complete one trip" around the Emerald City walls [262].
Even at his unusually fast downhill speed of 43 mph, that would make the
city about 5 miles around or 8 miles square (for 57,000+ people, according
to EMERALD CITY). If Davy was swimming more slowly, as the situation
implies, then the city would have to shrink further. I assume this is
another of the book's temporal slips. (As for that "great clock in the
north tower," that implies a giant clock visible from the ground, though
perhaps it's just the cranky hall clock Nine looks after; that could
explain why the time measurement seems so odd.)

Among the people painting in the Emerald City is an "elderly man in scraggy
clothes" who helps Tik-Tok make sure the gears in his mural work together
[107]. Could this be the mysterious Mr. Tinker, back on Earth?

Neill tells us that "General Jinger [sic] had cows and horses marching with
wooden guns over their shoulders. She was seated on the Sawhorse about to
attack a long row of red, white and blue crows sitting on a high fence"
[108]. I assume that means she's painted herself into her mural, combining
her interests in agriculture and the military. Continuing the oddity of
this book's attitudes toward America in wartime, the general is actually
attacking the red, white, and blue.

Neill says the Nome Kingdom has a sign saying, "NO PLACE FOR FISH,
CHICKENS, Children or Ex-Kings" [121]. We know why Nomes don't like
chickens, and "Ex-Kings" is clearly a reference to Ruggedo. I'm not
surprised that the Nomes wouldn't be any more fond of children than of
anyone else from the surface, and might feel they've suffered too much from
taking in young visitors in the past. But why, besides giving them an
excuse to dislike Davy, would they single out fish?

There are a couple of signs that Neill imagined the Winkie landscape to be
nearly uniformly yellow. He speaks of "golden ripples" in a Winkie lake
with water like "liquid gold" [155]. Later he makes a big deal of the
landscape's "endless fields of corn" [230]. For real yellow he should have
the Winkies plant rapeseed.

Thompson used the checkers cry "King! King! Double King!!" at least twice
in her books (once with a two-faced king, once when the Cowardly Lion was
impersonating a king). Here it finally comes up in the context of checkers
[173].

Davy's passage through the territory of the evil magicians, seeing them and
feeling scared but not saying anything to spoil the fun of Bucky and the
thunderbugs he so evidently identifies with, is one of my favorite passages
of the book. Neill does a nice job in setting up the incident by letting us
know the magicians there nearly enslaved the powerful Mombi-image, and then
in describing it on 186-7. And his illustration (the one original to LUCKY
BUCKY) works well, too.

On page 248, the Wizard gets "a slice of pepper cheese from the royal
refrigerator...on a special green bread." I've had green bread in my
refrigerator, too, but you don't see me pleased about it! Actually, what
caught my eye about this passage was that in WONDER CITY pepper cheese was
what allowed Jenny to catch Siko Pompus. 

On page 287 Neill lists "Queens, Duchesses, Countesses and high ranking
girls from Ozma's court." That's too long a list for the girls we know
already; we've met only one duchess (Jenny) and no countess that I recall.
So these are presumably those shadowy human courtiers mentioned as early as
WIZARD. Two are finally named in RUNDELSTONE.

J. L. Bell                 
JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 13:16:57 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at compuserve.com>
Subject: LUCKY BUCKY art

Ruth Berman made some astute remarks about the art in LUCKY BUCKY a few
days back. Like her, I like the endpaper portraits of the Wizard and Ozma
and many other individual drawings. While Neill's style had simplified late
in his career (a change shown starkly by his decision to include an older
two-page artwork in this book), he could still pull off some nice effects.

The frontmatter art hints at several aspects of the journey to come. We see
Bucky falling into water on the half-title page and surfacing above the
author's note. A Gabooch on the copyright page and a Dollfin over the table
of contents hint at oddballs coming up. Jack painting the all-important
"This Book Belongs to" sign both fits that page's theme and forecasts the
Mombi plot. The dedication page illustration of plants and pots with faces
doesn't seem to fit with the text, but is very characteristic of Neill and
therefore appropriate for a message to his granddaughters.

It's interesting that Neill drew two different versions of Bucky and Davy's
first conversation, over each character's shoulder, and that Reilly & Lee
decided to put them on opposite pages [34-5]. The firm did something
similar with Nine and the clock [252-3].

I like the glimpse of Nome artisans at the top of 119, which fits with the
description of them on 121.

The borrowed art of the sorcerers on 184-5 may have inspired Neill's
mention of cat-tails as people enchanted by witches back on 161. There are
lots of cat-tails in the center of that spread. We seem to have some sort
of international convention of magicians on the right, and more barbarian
sorts on the left. As Ruth noted, Neill did an update of this scene with
Davy, Bucky, and the thunderbugs sailing though the dangerous landscape for
188-9. Less detail and fine draftsmanship, but in many ways even scarier. I
suppose the human/insect combination may be one of the "spy-ders" mentioned
on page 187.

The drawing on page 218 of a Gabooch distended is presumably what these
curious birds look like when they're threatening someone. Other birds puff
up their feathers, but these actually get ready to puff.

It takes more than a glance to interpret the picture of Aunt Geranium
turning invisible on page 243, I think. Then again, it's hard to show
invisibility in visual art. On page 247 the Wizard meets the 22 painted
versions of himself. Considering how he went around the Emerald City in
disguise in WONDER CITY, it seems only fair for him to get a hair-raising
surprise from meeting the Wizard(s) when he least expects it.

The picture of Ozma on page 281 seems to be a variation on the slinky/sexy
Ozma Neill drew in the 1920s. But to me this one's expression makes her
come across a little too like a GYPSY stripper talking about her scepter
(gotta have a gimmick). Again, I like how she looks on the endpaper
instead: just as pretty, less a tease.

J. L. Bell                 
JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Thu, 22 Jan 2004 21:03:04 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at compuserve.com>
Subject: LUCKY BUCKY explanations

Ruth Berman wrote:
<<> I explained the similarity by considering Dick to be a vassal of
Shampoozle.<

Yes, that would work as an explanation. Although it might work equally well
the other way round or with the two as equal rulers of neighbor communities
(the Sultan has an imposing title, but titles and powers don't necessarily
correspond).>>

A number of readers dislike how Ozma appears to accept slavery in some
parts of her realm (e.g., Herku). The Sultan of Suds has slaves made of tar
soap when the Patchwork Girl passes through his kingdom in GNOME KING. Some
might therefore choose to believe that by LUCKY BUCKY Ozma had deposed
Shampoozle and freed those people, and that Slippery Dick is the elected
leader of the same territory.

<<In LAND, Glinda's army marches from
her palace to the Emerald City, apparently without any trouble from
Hammer-Heads, Fighting Trees, China Countries, etc.  It's possible that
there was a new road (or path, at least) created in between the first two
books, though. <

The quick-march does sound as if there was a change in the roadways, but
there might well have been a way to go around the mountains Glinda would
have known about even if not as good a road as a marching army needs.>>

Once Glinda had formed an alliance with the Scarecrow, she may have felt
safe enough to clear the way for a better road between her castle and the
Emerald City. When the city's ruler was a wizard she didn't trust, and
other wicked rulers lived north of her castle as well, she may not have
wanted there to be an easy route to her home.

<<Could it be that while the witch looked into the tattlescope and saw Davy,
the clock saw her frightening image reflected in the screen (or maybe saw
her through the screen from opposite side), and was frightened enough to
faint?>>

So the Mombi-image's face was ugly enough to stop a clock?

Though it's not how I read the text, I don't think we can rule out the
Mombi-image coming through the screen. It has, after all, walked off a flat
surface before, and creatures have stepped off screens in Oz at least since
Prof Wogglebug went around naked.

Whatever we each decide what happened (and when), it's clear Neill's verbal
description wasn't as clear as it should be.

J. L. Bell                 
JnoLBell at compuserve.com

From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at ...>
Date: Sat Jan 24, 2004  1:26 pm
Subject: RE: [Nonestica] LUCKY BUCKY Neill's contribution to Oz

 

Ruth:
>"Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at ...> wrote:
> > I'd be interested in learning about the sibling Nick must have in order
>to
>have nieces.  This sibling apparently didn't help Nick in taking care of
>his
>widowed mother, as the Tin Woodman reports having done in WIZARD.<
>
>I don't suppose Nick would consider any children of Nimmie Aimee and
>Chopfyt
>as being sort of honorary nieces (or nephews) of his?
 
Probably not, based on his reaction to Chopfyt in TIN WOODMAN.  It's an
interesting possibility, though.
 
J. L. Bell:
>Yes, it seems clear from how she summarizes certain Baum books that
>Thompson had reviewed them shortly before she wrote her own: the summary of
>PATCHWORK GIRL in OJO, for instance. There are no equivalent passages in
>Neill, and more glaring contradictions with Baum, such as Jack
>Pumpkinhead's remark about living with Mombi for seven years.
 
SCALAWAGONS does have Dorothy, Betsy, and Trot reminiscing about their
respective first trips to Oz, but those are hardly long plot summaries of
WIZARD, TIK-TOK, or SCARECROW.
 
>Another influence on Neill the writer, I think, was Neill the artist. For
>decades he'd drawn houses in Oz with their windows and doors and ornaments
>looking like faces. Baum and Thompson never mentioned that detail, I
>believe.
 
I'm pretty sure they didn't, but Denslow also drew the houses in that
manner, so Neill was probably influenced by the WIZARD art.
 
>Yet another influence may be the MGM movie that came out just before Neill
>started writing. The Wizard spends a lot of WONDER CITY in disguises,
>including false whiskers. Davy literally travels over the rainbow to Oz.
 
In a chapter called "Over the Rainbow," no less.
 
>Given that deliberateness, it's ironic that the author's note at the start
>of LUCKY BUCKY Neill tells readers asking "how you can get to the Land of
>Oz" that "you have to wait until you are selected." Bucky and Davy DON'T
>wait. They take their aspirations into their own hands--or fins.
 
Considering how Neill uses the term "Oz" to describe all of the Nonestic (or
Nonentic) territory in this book, it's possible that the "selection"
pertains to Bucky's original flight to the Nonestic Ocean, rather than his
crossing the Deadly Desert, although it is a convenient coincidence that
they happen to meet Polychrome on the edge of that desert (essentially a
plot element recycled from PURPLE PRINCE, when you get right down to it).
If there is any "selection" going on, though, it raises the question of who
is doing the selecting.  Lurline immediately comes to mind, although why she
would want Bucky in Oz is a mystery.
 
>Nathan DeHoff wrote:
><<As I pointed out back in our SCALAWAGONS discussion, it's interesting
>that the four Thompson characters who actually appear in Neill's books
>(Kabumpo, Sir Hokus, the Comfortable Camel, and Captain Salt) all end up
>living OUTSIDE the Emerald City by the end of the Thompson administration,
>yet they seem to be residents of the capital in Neill (although it's
>certainly possible they're just making extended visits).  He never mentions
>the numerous Thompson characters who DO end up in the Emerald City (the
>Doubtful Dromedary, Carter Green, Herby, Benny, Pigasus, etc.).>>
>
>With the exception of Pigasus, no one on the latter list plays a major role
>in Thompson's books after his first appearance. I'm not sure any make even
>a cameo appearance after WISHING HORSE.
 
I'm pretty sure Herby is specifically mentioned as one of the people fleeing
the Emerald City in OZOPLANING.
 
>Nathan DeHoff wrote:
><<I think it's more likely that these are different pirates altogether,
>though; Davy Jones says on p. 36 of LUCKY BUCKY that "[t]his ocean is
>filled with pirates.">>
>
>Indeed, Neill had illustrated Baum's JOHN DOUGH, which included an entire
>island of pirates in what we later learn must be the Nonestic Ocean.
 
Those pirates are retired, although not above demanding tribute from anyone
who comes to their island.  The Pie Rats in LUCKY BUCKY become honest
bakers, and the PIRATES crew is turned into seagulls, while their captain
enters the service of Ozma.  While we don't know whether the people of Regos
and Coregos do any more looting and pillaging after the events of RINKITINK,
they certainly suffer a major setback with the death of their rulers and
Prince Inga freeing their foreign slaves.  The general rule seems to be that
pirates in Oz (and related) books end up retiring or being otherwise
neutralized as threats.
--
Making something of nothing 'til there's no more nothing left,
Nathan
DinnerBell at ...

From: "J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at ...>
Date: Sat Jan 24, 2004  9:14 pm
Subject: Nick's nieces

Ruth Berman wrote:
<<I don't suppose Nick would consider any children of Nimmie Aimee and
Chopfyt as being sort of honorary nieces (or nephews) of his?>>
 
Wouldn't they count as his own half-children from an earlier relationship?
 
(If people can have half-sisters and half-brothers, why not half-children?)
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at ...

From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at ...>
Date: Mon Jan 26, 2004  11:47 am
Subject: Re: [Nonestica] Digest Number 1028

"J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at ...> wrote:
> Yet another influence may be the MGM movie that came out just before Neill
started writing. The Wizard spends a lot of WONDER CITY in disguises,
including false whiskers. Davy literally travels over the rainbow to Oz. >
 
Likely enough to be some MGM influence in the rainbow -- but RPT's Prince
Tatters made a similar journey, and Neill-as-artist had always loved
Polychrome and the rainbow, with some of his most striking drawings of them
as early as "Road" and "Sky Island." Neill  invented the "daughters of the
rainbow," drawing them in "Road" (the text has Polychrome going back into
the rainbow, but doesn't mention sisters for her there), and Baum picked up
on the detail and put it into the text in "Tik-Tok" and "Tin Woodman," as
well as "Sky Island."
 
Nathan DeHoff commented on the absence of the Doubtful Dromedary, Carter
Green, Herby, Benny, Pigasus in Neill's books, and JLB wrote:
> With the exception of Pigasus, no one on the latter list plays a major role
in Thompson's books after his first appearance. I'm not sure any make even a
cameo appearance after WISHING HORSE. Thompson seems to have set them aside
as well. <
 
Pretty much, although the Doubtful Dromedary gets a mention in "Handy
Mandy," and Pigasus gets mentions in "Captain Salt" and "Handy Mandy."
 
> Traditional "text-beats-prefacing" presents a challenge when it comes to
analyzing Oz-as-history because often the author's notes at the start or end
of the book are the only statements from Baum and his successors about how
they've heard the stories they retell. Most basically, the explanation of
the radio telegraph reestablishing contact with Oz appears in the prefatory
matter of PATCHWORK GIRL. Isn't that almost a sine qua non of interpreting
the following books as historical? >
 
Yes, you'd think that that one pretty much has to be accepted as "real"
(besides, it has a delightful full-page Neill illo -- not so striking in the
b&w version, where all the sparkling little letters flying in the air got
lost, but a lot of fun in color).
 
Ruth Berman

From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at ...>
Date: Tue Jan 27, 2004  11:21 am
Subject: Re: [Nonestica] Digest Number 1029
 
Alan Wise <alanmacwise at ...> wrote:
> How DOES a clock faint anyway?  On first reading, I passed over the
episode without much thought, but after the discussion about Davy passing
out at the bottom of Lake Quad, I began to wonder.  The clock is, I assume,
built of wood and glass and metal works, none of which (Sawhorse, Bungle,
Tik-Tok) has ever needed sleep or fainted before.  Is the clock in a faint
when it has run down?  Or has the sight of Mombi frightened it so much that
its works jammed?  <
 
Even without entirely losing consciousness, perhaps either running down or
jamming would discombobulate the Clock enough to cause a disruption of
thought that the Clock would interpret as the same thing as a faint? (cf.
JLBell's "face ugly enough to stop a clock" crack.)
 
"J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at ...> wrote:
> The Barrel-bird on page 19 had long struck me as, like the Gabooches, a
creature that might have grown out of Neill's doodling. But this time I
noticed that the text says it's "half full of star dust." Now I wonder if
it's supposed to be some sort of ashcan bird, used for storing the
sweepings of the sky. Also mentioned on this page is a cloud-pusher; later
more show up to keep Davy from falling through the rainbow [153]. As I
recall, these creatures also appeared in WONDER CITY but I believe debuted
in OZOPLANING. <
 
Yes, it does seem to be a sort of live ashcan, doesn't it? There's a picture
of what is pretty clearly a Barrel Bird as Peter flies through the sky at
the start of "Gnome King." Neill had Sky Sweepers in "Runaway," and that
seems to be an alternate name for his Cloud Pushers.
 
> On page 32, Bucky suddenly remembers the story of Jonah being swallowed by
a whale. Can anyone think of another Biblical allusion in the Oz books? I
remember some references to Nevercouldnever and other Old Testament figures
in SEA FAIRIES, but even when the Oz authors mention Christian events
(Christmas, Easter, christening), they don't name people or places from the
Christian tradition. <
 
I don't recall any (maybe Nathan will). "Sea Fairies" also has a reference
to "Jonah's whale," in the barnacles' song. Is there a reference in
"Tik-Tok" to the Great Dragon's line as going back before the Flood? Noah
gets a mentions in the short story "The Laughing Hippopotamus." There's a
reference to the wisdom of Somon in "Zixi" (when Bud makes what seem like
wise judgments).
 
> Later Neill tells us it takes "exactly seven minutes by the great clock in
the north tower to complete one trip" around the Emerald City walls [262].
Even at his unusually fast downhill speed of 43 mph, that would make the
city about 5 miles around or 8 miles square (for 57,000+ people, according
to EMERALD CITY). If Davy was swimming more slowly, as the situation
implies, then the city would have to shrink further. I assume this is
another of the book's temporal slips. (As for that "great clock in the
north tower," that implies a giant clock visible from the ground, though
perhaps it's just the cranky hall clock Nine looks after; that could
explain why the time measurement seems so odd.) <
 
If it's the cranky hall clock -- perhaps its workings are still out of order
after the fright Mombi gave it?
 
> Among the people painting in the Emerald City is an "elderly man in
scraggy clothes" who helps Tik-Tok make sure the gears in his mural work
together [107]. Could this be the mysterious Mr. Tinker, back on Earth? <
 
Probably could be -- although I thought it was Shaggy Man.
 
> Continuing the oddity of this book's attitudes toward America in wartime,
the general is actually attacking the red, white, and blue. <
 
Interesting point.
 
> Neill says the Nome Kingdom has a sign saying, "NO PLACE FOR FISH,
CHICKENS, Children or Ex-Kings" [121]. We know why Nomes don't like
chickens, and "Ex-Kings" is clearly a reference to Ruggedo. I'm not
surprised that the Nomes wouldn't be any more fond of children than of
anyone else from the surface, and might feel they've suffered too much from
taking in young visitors in the past. But why, besides giving them an
excuse to dislike Davy, would they single out fish? <
 
Maybe worried that roe count as eggs?
 
> Thompson used the checkers cry "King! King! Double King!!" at least twice
in her books (once with a two-faced king, once when the Cowardly Lion was
impersonating a king). Here it finally comes up in the context of checkers
[173]. <
 
Also used in a couple of RPT's stories -- one is in the "Sissajig and other
surprises" collection.
 
>The frontmatter art hints at several aspects of the journey to come. We see
Bucky falling into water on the half-title page and surfacing above the
author's note. A Gabooch on the copyright page and a Dollfin over the table
of contents hint at oddballs coming up. Jack painting the all-important
"This Book Belongs to" sign both fits that page's theme and forecasts the
Mombi plot. The dedication page illustration of plants and pots with faces
doesn't seem to fit with the text, but is very characteristic of Neill and
therefore appropriate for a message to his granddaughters. ,,, <
 
Interesting set comments on the artwork.
 
Ruth Berman

From:  "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at t...> 
Date:  Tue Jan 27, 2004  3:46 pm
Subject:  RE: [Nonestica] LUCKY BUCKY oddities

J. L. Bell:
>The Barrel-bird on page 19 had long struck me as, like the Gabooches, a
>creature that might have grown out of Neill's doodling.

A barrel-bird, or a creature that looks very much like one, is shown flying
above Ruggedo's Island in an illustration in GNOME KING.

>Also mentioned on this page is a cloud-pusher; later
>more show up to keep Davy from falling through the rainbow [153]. As I
>recall, these creatures also appeared in WONDER CITY but I believe debuted
>in OZOPLANING.

Actually, I think they were an original creation of Neill's, and did not
appear in any of Thompson's books.

>Later Neill tells us it takes "exactly seven minutes by the great clock in
>the north tower to complete one trip" around the Emerald City walls [262].
>Even at his unusually fast downhill speed of 43 mph, that would make the
>city about 5 miles around or 8 miles square (for 57,000+ people, according
>to EMERALD CITY). If Davy was swimming more slowly, as the situation
>implies, then the city would have to shrink further. I assume this is
>another of the book's temporal slips.

This part of the book always confused me anyway. Did Davy's river run up to
the city gate, around the entire city, or into the city? And was it
supposed to have remained there after the events of the book?

>Among the people painting in the Emerald City is an "elderly man in scraggy
>clothes" who helps Tik-Tok make sure the gears in his mural work together
>[107]. Could this be the mysterious Mr. Tinker, back on Earth?

Perhaps, although my first thought was that it was the Shaggy Man.

>Neill says the Nome Kingdom has a sign saying, "NO PLACE FOR FISH,
>CHICKENS, Children or Ex-Kings" [121].

This sign was reminiscent of the one in WISHING HORSE, which read, ""Back
door of the Gnome King's Underground Castle. No dogs, babies or chickens
allowed. No gold fish wanted. No peddlers or snailsmen need apply. Keep out
and stay out. This means YOU."

>We know why Nomes don't like
>chickens, and "Ex-Kings" is clearly a reference to Ruggedo.  I'm not
>surprised that the Nomes wouldn't be any more fond of children than of
>anyone else from the surface, and might feel they've suffered too much from
>taking in young visitors in the past. But why, besides giving them an
>excuse to dislike Davy, would they single out fish?

Well, fish also lay eggs, so that could have something to do with it. The
WISHING HORSE sign mentions goldfish, but that, combined with the reference
to peddlers and "snailsmen" (people who sell snails?) seems to me to suggest
that it's an indication that Kaliko isn't interested in buying goldfish, not
that Nomes have any particular dislike for them.

The Nomes' desire to eat Davy is kind of odd. Although we frequently see
Nomes eating various rocks, metals, and minerals that humans would not be
able to digest, there's no indication that they can eat wood. Or are we
meant to assume that the Nomes don't realize Davy is made of wood?

>Thompson used the checkers cry "King! King! Double King!!" at least twice
>in her books (once with a two-faced king, once when the Cowardly Lion was
>impersonating a king).

The Patchwork Girl also says it in LOST KING, and it's the title of one of
Thompson's short stories, reprinted (if I remember correctly) in OZ-STORY
and SISSAJIG AND OTHER SURPRISES.

>On page 248, the Wizard gets "a slice of pepper cheese from the royal
>refrigerator...on a special green bread." I've had green bread in my
>refrigerator, too, but you don't see me pleased about it! Actually, what
>caught my eye about this passage was that in WONDER CITY pepper cheese was
>what allowed Jenny to catch Siko Pompus.

Perhaps pepper cheese was a favorite of Neill's.

>On page 287 Neill lists "Queens, Duchesses, Countesses and high ranking
>girls from Ozma's court." That's too long a list for the girls we know
>already; we've met only one duchess (Jenny) and no countess that I recall.
>So these are presumably those shadowy human courtiers mentioned as early as
>WIZARD. Two are finally named in RUNDELSTONE.

This passage is somewhat ambiguous, as it's not clear whether the words
"from Ozma's court" refer to the entire list, or just to the "high ranking
girls." Since there doesn't seem to be more than one Queen at Ozma's court,
perhaps Neill means the latter, in which case some of these Queens,
Duchesses, and Countesses could be visiting from other parts of Oz, perhaps
to see the unveiling of the castle wall paintings.

Is there a reference somewhere to Jenny's official title being "First
Duchess of Oz"? If so, it could indicate that she is the first person given
that title by Ozma. It could also just mean that she is the highest ranking
among multiple duchesses, though.

><<Could it be that while the witch looked into the tattlescope and saw
>Davy,
>the clock saw her frightening image reflected in the screen (or maybe saw
>her through the screen from opposite side), and was frightened enough to
>faint?>>
>
>So the Mombi-image's face was ugly enough to stop a clock?

Something the Shaggy Man's brother feared his face would do if his
enchantment weren't broken.
--
Making something of nothing 'til there's no more nothing left,
Nathan
DinnerBell at t...

From:  "J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at c...> 
Date:  Tue Jan 27, 2004  12:03 pm
Subject:  LUCKY BUCKY oddities

Alan Wise wrote:
<<How DOES a clock faint anyway? On first reading, I
passed over the episode without much thought, but
after the discussion about Davy passing out at the
bottom of Lake Quad, I began to wonder. The clock is,
I assume, built of wood and glass and metal works,
none of which (Sawhorse, Bungle, Tik-Tok) has ever
needed sleep or fainted before. Is the clock in a
faint when it has run down? Or has the sight of Mombi
frightened it so much that its works jammed?>>

Some possible precedents from the series:
  1) Tik-Tok stops working when his springs are unwound. Perhaps the
    sight of Mombi makes the clock come unwound, too--the encounter leaves him
    not wounded but unwound. But I like the alternate idea that the clock's
    works jam: he's scared stiff.
  2) Clocker in PIRATES keels over when Pigasus eats the little bird
    in his head. The clock in LUCKY BUCKY also seems unusual in being alive,
    and may thus have some animating element inside. (Come to think of it,
    where has Clocker been since PIRATES, anyway?)
  3) Davy in this book and, as Nathan DeHoff noted, the Gargoyles in
    DOROTHY & WIZARD are both said to sleep even though they're wooden.

There are also remarks that the Glass Cat sleeps, though I assume she's just
lazing around like a cat. So there are a few unexplained exceptions to the
rule about what sort of creatures lose consciousness, and this clock might
just be another one.

Whatever has happened to the clock, it needs a magical restorative: "green
peppermint star-dust" [252]. That might imply the trouble is some curse or
magical attack from Mombi, beyond a simple clockmaker's repair. Then again,
this might just be another example of Neill's Wizard doing something
magically which people could handle naturally.

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
<<I'm pretty sure it's always "Unc" within the FF, which makes sense, since
it's short for "uncle." On the other hand, I believe the character's name
is listed under "Unk Nunkie" in WHO'S WHO.>>

The one mention of him in WISHING HORSE says "Unk Nunkie," at least in the
digital version. But what I was remembering, I realize now that I've
stopped being too lazy to look it up, is the disagreement between "Unc
Nunkie" in the text and "Unk Nunkie" in Neill's hand-drawn lettering at the
start of PATCHWORK GIRL. The "Unk" spelling is much bigger, and probably
caused later authors looking back briefly to think it was the standard.

<<> I'm not sure any make even
>a cameo appearance after WISHING HORSE.

I'm pretty sure Herby is specifically mentioned as one of the people
fleeing the Emerald City in OZOPLANING.>>

You're right: the text mentions an unnamed "Medicine Man." In addition to
this cameo disappearance from the capital, someone also alludes to him in
HANDY MANDY. Nonetheless, it seems like no coincidence that the Thompson
characters who reappear most often in her books also tend to reappear in
Neill's. They probably got the most fan mail, too.

J. L. Bell JnoLBell at c...

From: "John W. Kennedy" <jwkenne at ...>
Date: Wed Jan 28, 2004  10:40 am
Subject: Re: [Nonestica] Digest Number 1029

Isn't it first necessary to consider the mode of the clock's life?  Is 
its mechanism relevant (as, apparently, with Clocker), or irrelevant (as 
with Victor Columbia Edison)?

--
John W. Kennedy
"But now is a new thing which is very old--
that the rich make themselves richer and not poorer,
which is the true Gospel, for the poor's sake."
-- Charles Williams.  "Judgement at Chelmsford"

From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at ...>
Date: Wed Jan 28, 2004  5:38 pm
Subject: RE: [Nonestica] LUCKY BUCKY oddities

Ruth:
>Neill had Sky Sweepers in "Runaway," and that
>seems to be an alternate name for his Cloud Pushers.
 
I'm pretty sure the Sky Sweepers also appear in WONDER CITY, unless I'm
thinking of the similar Sky Scrapers.  I don't think they're intended to be
the same as the Cloud Pushers, though.  The Cloud Pushers push clouds across
the sky, while the Sky Sweepers and Scrapers clean weather debris out of the
sky.
 
> > On page 32, Bucky suddenly remembers the story of Jonah being swallowed
>by
>a whale. Can anyone think of another Biblical allusion in the Oz books? I
>remember some references to Nevercouldnever and other Old Testament figures
>in SEA FAIRIES, but even when the Oz authors mention Christian events
>(Christmas, Easter, christening), they don't name people or places from the
>Christian tradition. <
>
>I don't recall any (maybe Nathan will).
 
I can't remember any offhand.
 
>Is there a reference in "Tik-Tok" to the Great Dragon's line as going back
>before the Flood?
 
I just searched an online version of TIK-TOK for the word "flood," and it
did not appear in that context.
 
J. L. Bell:
>         2) Clocker in PIRATES keels over when Pigasus eats the little bird
>in his head. The clock in LUCKY BUCKY also seems unusual in being alive,
>and may thus have some animating element inside. (Come to think of it,
>where has Clocker been since PIRATES, anyway?)
 
The end of PIRATES suggests that Clocker is going to live in the Emerald
City from then on, but it's possible that the Wizard sent him back to
Menankypoo after replacing his bad works with good (if he was actually able
to accomplish this feat).
 
>I'm pretty sure Herby is specifically mentioned as one of the people
>fleeing the Emerald City in OZOPLANING.>>
>
>You're right: the text mentions an unnamed "Medicine Man." In addition to
>this cameo disappearance from the capital, someone also alludes to him in
>HANDY MANDY. Nonetheless, it seems like no coincidence that the Thompson
>characters who reappear most often in her books also tend to reappear in
>Neill's.
 
Kabumpo is also a major character in the McGraws' FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN, and
Sir Hokus is mentioned in their MERRY GO ROUND.
--
Making something of nothing 'til there's no more nothing left,
Nathan
DinnerBell at ...

From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at ...>
Date: Wed Jan 28, 2004  5:48 pm
Subject: Re: [Nonestica] Maguire, Snow, and living clocks

One thing I forgot to mention when talking about the clock from
LUCKY BUCKY in any earlier post is that there are also living clocks in Fix
City.
--
Making something of nothing 'til there's no more nothing left,
Nathan
DinnerBell at ...

Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2004 21:47:15 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at compuserve.com>
Subject: LUCKY BUCKY walk-ons

Nathan DeHoff wrote of Neill's cloud pushers:
<<>As I
>recall, these creatures also appeared in WONDER CITY but I believe debuted
>in OZOPLANING.

Actually, I think they were an original creation of Neill's, and did not
appear in any of Thompson's books.>>

Ah, yes, it was the spikers outside the ozoplane in OZOPLANING and a cloud
pusher outside one in WONDER CITY. Thanks for the reminder.

Both you and Ruth Berman mentioned the assumption that the "elderly man in
scraggy clothes" who helps Tik-Tok paint was the Shaggy Man. That hadn't
occurred to me since I don't think of the Shaggy Man as "elderly." And as
for "scraggy" clothing, that would be something like "rough-hewn" or (I
just looked this up, so I've learned half a new word) "scrawny."

Sad to say, Neill might have forgotten a lot about the Shaggy Man by 1942.
He hadn't illustrated the character for many years; Thompson didn't seem to
know what to do with many of Baum's human men. She even appropriated
"Shaggy" as the nickname for Shagomar in OZOPLANING.

J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

From: "J. L. Bell" <JNolbell at ...>
Date: Wed Jan 28, 2004  9:47 pm
Subject: Nick's nieces

Lisa Katz wrote:
<<Just to clarify a non-Oz point, half-sister or half-brother implies a
shared genetic bond. In other words, half-siblings have one parent (mother
or father), biologically or genetically, in common. There is no such thing
as half-children or we would all be half-children.>>
 
I coined the term "half-children" to express the Tin Woodman's possible
relationship to Chopfyt's children. Chopfyt is approximately half Nick
Chopper, so his children are arguably half the Tin Woodman's. Obviously,
that situation can't occur outside a fairyland.
 
The folks I've read speculating about Chopfyt's children have thought that
they must be genetically born of either Nick Chopper or Captain Fyter. And
biologically, that would have to be true. But I suspect that, as a
Victorian, Baum wouldn't have dared to get so deep into the biology of sex.
His writing about Jack Pumpkinhead in LAND and Chick in JOHN DOUGH shows he
got a kick out of redefining parenthood.
 
And as long as this message is on the topic of ancestry, I'll slip this in.
Ruth Berman wrote:
<<Is there a reference in "Tik-Tok" to the Great Dragon's line as going
back before the Flood?>>
 
Can't find one.
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at ...

From: "Atticus242" <atty993 at aol.com>
Date: Thu Feb 5, 2004  3:50 pm
Subject: Re: Various LUCKY BUCKY matters

--- In Nonestica at yahoogroups.com, "Nathan Mulac DeHoff"
<DinnerBell at t...> wrote:
> There really isn't a clear indication as to whether these other two witches
> are animated paintings or actual flesh-and-blood beings.  For that matter,
> it's also unclear whether the flesh-and-blood versions of the painted
> magicians still exist.  Mombi doesn't (unless you subscribe to the theory
> that the Scarecrow and Sir Hokus secretly let her go), but Glinda speaks of
> the other witches in the present tense.  On the other hand, Trickolas Om
> "had once been their greatest menace" [p. 240], which would seem to imply
> that the real Trickolas had been neutralized by the time of LUCKY BUCKY,
> although it's possible that he just isn't quite as menacing anymore.
>
> Incidentally, I understand that Trickolas makes an appearance in
> BUTTON-BRIGHT OF OZ.  Has anyone read it?
 
I've been too busy to respond to this before now, but I've read
BUTTON BRIGHT (by Harry Mongold, 1979), and Trickolas, as the
primary antagonist, plays a major role. Mongold depicts him as a
trickster with a sort of carnivalesque type of villainy. It's a
decent story, and, as with Mongold's other Oz book, THE SAWHORSE OF
OZ (1981), markedly complex in terms of plot machinery.
 
Atticus

From: "J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at ...>
Date: Sat Mar 13, 2004  12:44 pm
Subject: origin of "flummox"

As a last look back at LUCKY BUCKY and the gabooches, here's an
etymologist's report on the origin of the word "flummox."
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at ...
 
++++++++++++++++
 
WORLD WIDE WORDS          ISSUE 383          Saturday 13 March 2004
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Sent each Saturday to 18,000+ subscribers in at least 120 countries
Editor: Michael Quinion, Thornbury, Bristol, UK      ISSN 1470-1448

     <TheEditor at ...>
-------------------------------------------------------------------
7. Q&A
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Q. Thanks for creating an excellent site, which is very useful and
interesting. However, "flummox" isn't there and everyone seems
flummoxed as to its origins. Any ideas? [Rob Stallard]

A. Neat. ...

[Ed.: Read the rest at:]

Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 10:37:43 -0700 (PDT)
From: Scott Hutchins <scottandrewhutchins at yahoo.com>
Subject: [Regalia] Lucky Bucky in Oz

I read the first eleven chapters yesterday while I was doing my laundry, and as
much as I could in the evening before I got tired.  If any of you recall
my match a director to an Oz book they could make into a good film game from
Nonestica, for Lucky Bucky, I'd say Werner Herzog for multiple reasons, the
most obvious being _Fitzcarraldo_, though the Bruno S. films also factor in.

So far, this is my favorite of the Neill books, but it has some severe
weaknesses, which are my principal observations at this point.

1).  Neill isn't very good with the beginnings.  In all three books,
he starts the action very quickly with too little time for his characters and
setting, although at the beginning of this book, he moves toward a rather
poetic setup with the Statue of Liberty, but does not follow through. 
This isn't so bad as is the fact that although he does give us some background
information on Bucky Jones, even halfway through the novel I don't feel I know
him as well as I know most other child protagonists of Oz books by this
point.  I was rather surprised to learn he was only 12 (mentioned when he
is in the Gnome Kingdom), since he seems to act more like a teenager.  So
far, in proportion to her prominence in the story, Flummox seems to be the most
well-developed character.

2.) Particularly for, or perhaps because he is an illustrator, Neill seems
particularly unable to use words to show rather than tell.  Two of the
most prominent places that this is a problem are Bucky's conflict with the
bubbles, dispatched with in two uninteresting paragraphs, perhaps because he
felt meaningless conversation would be less amusing, but being told about it
seems to be the least amusing; the other is Jenny Jump's two paragraph, undetailed
battle with the magic Mombi.

3.) This book seems to have lacked any editing at all--"Sir Hokus
Pokus," "Jennie Jump" (misspelling, and inconsistently spelling
his own character's name!), "General Jinger," in terms of name
misspellings.  Worse is the claim that expands Jack Pumpkinhead's
servitude to Mombi from one night to seven years.  The Sawhorse's retort
seems particularly badly written; it reminds me of exchanges in a book I wrote
in 4th grade called _Zerio I:  The First Adventure_, which was a flagrant
Transformers rip-off with some Oz influences, in case you're wondering. 
Of course, the Sawhorse would have memories of Mombi, though primarily in her
form as the gryphon.

4.) Mombi behaves like a caricature of herself, which, given the context, would
be brilliant if it seemed like it was intentional.  Neill just seems to
think he has brought back the real Mombi, when for this Mombi to actually be
Mombi doesn't make a lot of sense.  My own writing has Nikidik wish Mombi
into his immediate presence with his wishing pills, which seems to me a more
psychologically acceptable way to restore the real Mombi to life.

Some Oz commentator said, "either a rainbow supports a wooden whale or it
doesn't."  Oddly enough, I didn't have a problem with the rainbow sagging
under the whale being illogical, given the magical context.  One of my Oz
novels explores, although not as the main plot, the idea of how much magic
Polychrome possesses (considerable) and how well she knows how to use it
(intermediate).

I found the illustrations in the book were quite variable, some are quite good,
and the book design placing the embroidered map where it does is excellent and
an indispensable part of the story.  I thought his illustrations of Kaliko
were very poor, and even his illustration of Polychrome meeting Bucky, which
looks good on first glance, but seems less good the more I look at it. 
That Neill had not much longer to live when he did these seems somewhat
apparent, but that could be a teleological reading-into them.

I liked the idea of the O.C.W. public works project, but 1942 seems quite late
in terms of parody.  Far different from Baum's citation in _Dorothy and
the Wizard in Oz_ that the Oz national anthem is "The Oz Spangled
Banner," which was something of a political comment rather than a
prescience at the time, as there was no official national anthem until 1931,
but a movement to make an existing patriotic tune into one, in which Baum
favored the one that won.  As an aside, I think Philip Phile's "Hail Columbia,"
written for Washington's inauguration and perhaps the strongest major contender
that didn't win, is a really cool song and it's a shame that by today it has
become the least well known of all its competitors.

As I said, despite these misgivings, it still seems to me to be Neill's
strongest narrative and I look forward to reading the remainder of it.

Scott




Scott Andrew Hutchins

"I think one of the main faults in cinematography comes from the fact that
people never consider a variety of ways of launching a film, and force young
people to do old people's work and take on old habits, or otherwise their films
will stay in a trunk and never come out."--Jean Cocteau, trans. Robin Buss

Date: Wed, 29 Jun 2005 22:05:27 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net>
Subject: [Regalia] Re: Lucky Bucky in Oz

Scott Hutchins wrote:
> If any of you recall my match a director to an Oz book they could make into
a good film game from Nonestica, for Lucky Bucky, I'd say Werner Herzog
for multiple reasons, the most obvious being _Fitzcarraldo_, though the
Bruno S. films also factor in.
>

There's definitely a resemblance between FIZTCARRALDO and the scenes of
getting the big wooden whale over the rainbow and other tall obstacles.

LUCKY BUCKY strikes me as unusual among the Oz books in that the heroes
set out to travel to Oz without having been there before, and having no
claim to live there. They aren't simply trying to survive or trying to
get to their original home, with Oz as a safe haven or stop along the
way. Instead, they're trying to better their situation by, apparently,
sneaking across the border.

J. L. Bell                 
JnoLBell at earthlink.net