Day 1 - Speedy & Uncle Billy arrive at Professor Sanderson's
  camp in PM ("it was long past noon") - Speedy & Terrybubble
  explode out of Yellowstone ("just an hour before sunset") -
  Sizzeroo runs into Loxo shortly before sunset ("the first evening
  star is directly over Your Majesty's head") - Speedy &
  Terrybubble arrive on Umbrella Island ("now it was night") -
  councillor's meeting lasts until nearly sunrise ("we still have
  two months, thirty days, twelve hours and seven minutes")
Day 2 - Bamboula arranges parade ("by nine o'clock ... Umbrellians
  stood impatiently awaiting the signal to start") - they discover
  Speedy & Terrybubble - Kachewka hatches plot before they return
  to palace for lunch - Speedy & Terrybubble spend early afternoon
  with Gureeda - Umbrella Island crashes between Roaraway &
  Noraway Islands - Speedy negotiates with Radj - swims to Roaraway
  at night & sinks water gun
Day 3 - Waddy wakes Speedy at 9:30 AM - he makes Speedy assistant
  wizard that morning
 
Time passes
 
Day 7 - "Several days had passed since Speedy's exciting swim to
  Roaraway"- Speedy finds Sizzeroo crying in the garden - that night,
  Terrybubble learns of Kachewka's plan (season is spring; the
  windows are open at night "to admit the soft May breezes") -
  Terrybubble plots with Pansy & carries Gureeda & Speedy
  off - remainder of night in cave
Day 8 - Loxo captures Speedy & Gureeda in AM - Waddy completes
  anti-giant formula after working all night ("The last star had
  twinkled out, and under the eaves the birds were beginning to twitter
  about another day") - Waddy, Bamboula & Sizzeroo descend on Dorothy,
  Ozma at breakfast ("The morning was so clear and bright that Ozma and
  Dorothy were having breakfast in the Royal gardens") - rescue Speedy,
  Gureeda about noon - party in evening ("lasted five hours and eight
  hundred miles") - Ozma sends Speedy home

From:  "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at m...>
Date:  Tue Feb 12, 2002  4:31 pm
Subject:  Speedy and film details

My recollection is that discussion of "Speedy" was meant to have begun this
week. I haven't finished re-reading it yet, but as a preliminary comment:
Terrybubble the dinosaur is one of the most amusing of Thompson's animal
companion characters -- almost a parody of the others in being so very large
and so very loyal. I also enjoy the way the Greek dithyramb ("a usu.  short
poem in an inspired wild irregular strain") morphs into his delight in the
dythrambic. I don't think Pansy the Watchcat is quite as successful as a
character. RPT really loved wire-haired terriers or wannabes more than cats.
But the idea of a watchcat is enjoyable. Gureeda's bookishness has always
made her a very sympathetic character to me -- maybe a general reaction
among Oz-fans (considering that they all have to be bookish enough to read
Oz fans)?

Terrybubble's coming to life in the geyser might perhaps be taken as an
indication of magic at work while still in the US, although I suppose it's
possible that they geyser only set things going (and glued the bones
together), while the animation process might have started going through a
cloud of magic somewhere in the air.

From:  "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at t...>
Date:  Tue Feb 12, 2002  8:28 pm
Subject:  Re: [Nonestica] Loxo and Gureeda

Ruth:
>My recollection is that discussion of "Speedy" was meant to have begun this
>week. I haven't finished re-reading it yet

I finished it about a month ago, and even left some notes for myself on what
I wanted to comment on when it became the BCF. Now I just hope I can find
where I left them.

To start things out, though, isn't Loxo awfully big, even for a giant? I
don't have the book with me, but I think his head is described as twice the
size of Umbrella Island, or something like that. This might be a bit of an
exaggeration, since a giant that big might have trouble communicating with
people on the ground (or tied to his feet). Nonetheless, a giant big enough
to grab Umbrella Island by the handle would probably ALSO be big enough to
steal Ozma's palace, yet, in KABUMPO, Glinda is sure that no giants in Oz
are big enough to do this. It's doubtful that Glinda would not have known
about Loxo: he was living in the exact center of her domain, and both the
Wizard and whoever compiled the Encyclopedia of Giants that Kachewka reads
know about him. Incidentally, the Wizard mentions in passing that Big
Enough Mountain was "the capital of the Quadling Country." This might have
been a mistake (it was, after all, in the same chapter that refers to the
Magic Picture as the "Magic Mirror"), but, in the absence of any other
evidence, I think I will consider Big Enough to be the pre-Glinda seat of
Quadling government.

Loxo posssesses a magic magnet that he can use to draw anything to himself,
and this is apparently common knowledge, or at least easy to find out (it's
in the Encyclopedia of Giants), yet none of the Ozites has tried to take it
from him. It seems like someone who is known to possess a magical implement
with such a high potential for abuse would have been confronted by the
authorities long before the events of this story, even if he hadn't actually
used it.

>Gureeda's bookishness has always
>made her a very sympathetic character to me -- maybe a general reaction
>among Oz-fans (considering that they all have to be bookish enough to read
>Oz fans)?

Maybe. As far as I can remember, the only characters in earlier books who
were especially fond of books and reading (Fumbo and Ato) drove their
kingdoms to ruin through it, which isn't exactly encouraging to readers.

Nathan

From:  "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at t...>
Date:  Wed Feb 13, 2002  12:23 am
Subject:  SPEEDY and dinosaurs

Now that I've actually found my notes on SPEEDY (although they're rather
cryptic in some places: what was it I wanted to say ABOUT Sizzeroo and
Kachewka's conversation on p. 237?), I guess I'll get things started by
focusing on Terrybubble. He is, of course, a dinosaur, although I'm not
sure he's supposed to represent any particular kind. (Maybe someone else
who knows more about dinosaurs or Thompson could correct me on this point.)
Note that Terrybubble's species was apparently both predator (p. 87) and
prey (to the mogeriths. These "mogeriths" DO correspond to an actual
species: the megalosaurus (as confirmed by Gureeda on p. 141). According to
a book on dinosaurs that I've had since I was a kid (THE DINOSAUR
ENCYCLOPEDIA, by Dr. Michael Benton, published in 1984), this was the first
dinosaur to be named, and the species existed from the early Jurassic
through the early Cretaceous period, which leaves a lot of range in which
Terrybubble could have been alive. The megalosaurus apparently was not
native to North America, however, so how any got to the Valley of Virtula is
beyond me. The picture provided doesn't look much like a lizard, either,
but Thompson was writing back when people tended to think dinosaurs were
reptiles, which primarily resembled lizards.

Of course, many of Thompson's ideas about dinosaurs were pure fancy, such as
living for many centuries each, or speaking English. Then again, when have
we seen a sentient being in Thompson's books that DOESN'T speak English?

Nathan

From:  "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at c...>
Date:  Wed Feb 13, 2002  10:18 am
Subject:  SPEEDY from the rear

SPEEDY was the last novel in the Reilly & Lee series that I read, and to do
so I had to buy a copy at a Munchkin Convention around 1980. I was diligent
about looking for Oz books in public and university libraries, and had been
able to find later, more obscure books. That relative scarcity might imply
that libraries' copies of SPEEDY had been read to death. A number of people
have indicated that it, or Speedy himself, was one of their favorites:
members of this list, Gore Vidal, and Thompson herself, on the radio in
1963.

That last fact comes from Fred Meyer's afterword in the Oz Club's 1992
edition of SPEEDY, which has many other interesting things to say about how
the book came to be. Thompson first mentioned writing about a flying island
in a letter dated March 1933, and Neill had the full manuscript to work on
by December of that year. As many Oz fans were finding OJO in their holiday
gifts, therefore, the new Oz book was well under way. That schedule implies
that to find echoes of the headlines in Thompson's books, we have to look
at the events of the year BEFORE publication.

Fred reports that Neill sketched ideas for drawings on the copy of
Thompson's typescript he'd received--"a rough sketch on nearly every
typewritten page"--and essentially transferred those subjects and poses
unchanged to his final art.

One detail that did change is that Neill originally sketched the men of
Umbrella Island wearing umbrella-shaped kilts around their waists. We might
see a remnant of this in the illustration on page 38, where the skirted
figure on the left seems to have the height, chin, and musculature of
Neill's young men, plus the single queue Thompson assigned the island's
males.

That costume was fine for Waddy, Sizzeroo, Kachewka, and the rest of the
Umbrellian men, but Neill stopped using it right after he drew his first
image of Speedy in that garb. Showing a boy in a skirt simply wouldn't do,
it seems. In his final art Neill put every Umbrellian, including Gureeda,
in pants with no waist decoration.

The physical resemblance of young Speedy and Gureeda is a crucial plot
point, of course. From the earliest chapters Thompson seems to have been
working up to having the two children dressed alike. But in 20th-century
America, it was much easier for a girl to dress in traditional boys'
clothing than the other way around. Thompson could depict Gureeda defiantly
not braiding her hair like other island girls [47], but neither she nor
Neill could dress Speedy in a skirt. Much more about that theme to come.

Fred's afterword points out that SPEEDY is rare for Thompson in that most
of the action is confined to one location--Umbrella Island. Of course, that
location isn't confined to one location. The book's main plot (dealing with
having run into Loxo) and its most dramatic separate episode (confronting
Radj, king of Roaraway) both depend on the island's mobility.

Fred also reports that Thompson's manuscript for SPEEDY referred to Ozma's
Magic Picture. Somewhere in the editing process, that became a "Magic
Mirror" [279]. Reilly & Lee's editorial process seems to have been the
worst kind: introducing mistakes into a manuscript while ignoring errors.

J. L. Bell JnoLBell at c...

From:  "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at c...>
Date:  Wed Feb 13, 2002  11:07 am
Subject:  SPEEDY Big Enough Mountain

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
<<a giant big enough to grab Umbrella Island by the handle would probably
ALSO be big enough to steal Ozma's palace, yet, in KABUMPO, Glinda is sure
that no giants in Oz are big enough to do this. It's doubtful that Glinda
would not have known about Loxo: he was living in the exact center of her
domain, and both the Wizard and whoever compiled the Encyclopedia of Giants
that Kachewka reads know about him.>>

Perhaps because Loxo was so large, Glinda was easily able to confirm during
her trip to the Emerald City in KABUMPO that he'd been nowhere near Ozma's
palace. In other words, Glinda was sure no giants were big enough and had
the opportunity to take the palace.

<<the Wizard mentions in passing that Big Enough Mountain was "the capital
of the Quadling Country." This might have been a mistake (it was, after
all, in the same chapter that refers to the Magic Picture as the "Magic
Mirror"), but, in the absence of any other evidence, I think I will
consider Big Enough to be the pre-Glinda seat of Quadling
government.>>

Here are the Wizard's exact words about Big Enough Mountain:
"It is in the exact center of the Quadling
Country and this mountain, settled by a band
of Emerald City dwellers and planted with
seeds and shrubs brought from the capital,
retained all the verdure and charm of our own
countryside. Later, I understand the giant
Loxo drove off these peaceful settlers and
took the mountain for himself. Your Watch Cat
doubtless mistook the capital of the Quadling
Country for the Emerald City." [281]
The problem in considering this mountain to have been the ancient seat of
Quadling power is that at the same time the Wizard implies people from the
Emerald City were the first to settle there. If so, the Wizard's double use
of the word "capital" could simply signify that Big Enough Mountain was an
outpost of Oz's capital in Quadlingland.

But any reading of this passage presents difficulties. The Wizard is
clearly a partisan of the Emerald City he built ("charm of our own
countryside"). He calls the people from that city "peaceful settlers," but
they may have had no more right to be on Big Enough Mountain than Umbrella
Island has to be flying into people's heads over it ("By right of invention
and wizardry!" Waddy insists [30]).

Loxo may thus be in the position of colonized peoples in the 19th and early
20th centuries. Interlopers with superior technology arrived, took his
land, and harmed him personally. When he pushes them out or demands
compensation, however, they blame him and punish him harshly.

J. L. Bell JnoLBell at c...

From:  "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at c...>
Date:  Wed Feb 13, 2002  11:07 am
Subject:  SPEEDY reading

Ruth Berman wrote:
<<Gureeda's bookishness has always made her a very sympathetic character to
me -- maybe a general reaction among Oz-fans (considering that they all
have to be bookish enough to read Oz fans)?

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
<<Maybe. As far as I can remember, the only characters in earlier books
who were especially fond of books and reading (Fumbo and Ato) drove their
kingdoms to ruin through it, which isn't exactly encouraging to
readers.>>

Thompson even says Gureeda has "read books and books about Oz," like many
of the children reading about her [116].

But I have to agree with Nathan, that SPEEDY doesn't present reading in a
particularly good light. With only a couple of exceptions, it's presented
as feminine inactivity as opposed to Speedy's masculine action. Characters
treat it as a retreat from the real world, a distraction from dangers one
must deal with.

The character who gets the most useful information from reading is
Kachewka, which is hardly putting the habit in a good light [see the art on
51]. It seems significant that neither Waddy nor Thompson seem to consider
Gureeda to be a good candidate to rule Umbrella Island even though she is
the king's only child [262, 298].

More about what reading seems to signify for Speedy in future messages.

J. L. Bell JnoLBell at c...

From:  "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at c...>
Date:  Wed Feb 13, 2002  11:06 am
Subject:  SPEEDY Terrybubble's animation

Ruth Berman wrote:
<<Terrybubble the dinosaur is one of the most amusing of Thompson's animal
companion characters -- almost a parody of the others in being so very
large and so very loyal. . . . I don't think Pansy the Watchcat is quite as
successful as a character. RPT really loved wire-haired terriers or
wannabes more than cats. But the idea of a watchcat is enjoyable.

Terrybubble and Pansy form a close bond after their difficult meeting. Both
animals are substituting for dogs' usual roles: the dinosaur skeleton as a
pet, Pansy as a watch cat. (There are, nonetheless, 13 real dogs on
Umbrella Island [41].) Pansy, of all characters, also functions as this
book's rhymer.

<<Terrybubble's coming to life in the geyser might perhaps be taken as an
indication of magic at work while still in the US, although I suppose it's
possible that they geyser only set things going (and glued the bones
together), while the animation process might have started going through a
cloud of magic somewhere in the air.>>

Just before the geyser bursts, Speedy says, "I only wish I could have seen
a live" dinosaur [76]. Thompson never returns to this detail to tell us
that there was something magical in the air (or water) that brought
Terrybubble to life. It seems to be just a poetic coincidence, like Uncle
Billy on the previous page joking that Speedy could fit in the fossil's
ribcage, where the boy does indeed end up.

Instead, Thompson instead implies that some unknown but natural chemical
process animated that fossilized skeleton. Or perhaps the geyser in
separate processes fused the bones and blasted them into a realm
(Unreality?) where they would come alive. But by writing Speedy's wish she
seems to have been giving herself the option of declaring that
Terrybubble's animation resulted from an inadvertent magical wish, a device
she used in several other novels.

Terrybubble's reanimation is indeed remarkable. The blasting geyser manages
to fuse his bones perfectly in place, to add a wedge of triangular material
to the ribcage so Speedy can't fall out, and to create "two bright and
intelligent balls of phosphorous" as the dinosaur's eyes [77-9]. Those eyes
even light up to create a completely ghoulish monster [87]. (Thompson also
has them "rolling with distress and astonishment," one of her recycled
character details [171].)

Terrybubble comes from the Valley of Virtula, an anagram of "virtual" (and
not a very challenging one, either). But this same valley seems to be part
of what Waddy calls "the realms of Reality" [34]. Speedy suspects that
Terrybubble couldn't remain alive in America [234], yet Thompson says that
Waddy often steers Umbrella Island low over the USA with Terrybubble
peering over the edge, no worse for the experience [298].

J. L. Bell JnoLBell at c...

From:  "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at c...>
Date:  Wed Feb 13, 2002  11:07 am
Subject:  SPEEDY villains

Unlike the villains in many Thompson books, Loxo has a legitimate beef.
He's not the aggressor; he's the victim of an obvious tort. Sizzeroo
strikes the giant with a very large flying island right "between his eyes,"
raising a large lump [31] that's still a "big black and blue spot" days
later [251]. Loxo makes clear that he doesn't care about how the
Umbrellians lead their lives--he just wants fair compensation for his pain
and suffering [39].

Kachewka consults an "Encyclopedia of Giants," which reveals that Loxo has
a magic magnet that makes escape from their deal impossible [51, 53]. Two
hundred pages later, we learn that this magnet is "rusty looking," perhaps
a hint that Loxo rarely uses it on anyone [253]. Loxo is so large he can
pick up Terrybubble "between his thumb and forefinger" [253--and see the
picture on 254]. Yet again Thompson plays the trick of having a big, strong
character (Cowardly Lion, Hungry Tiger, Kabumpo) in the hands of someone
even bigger. But Loxo doesn't have anything in mind more nasty than playing
music out of tune.

That placidity may explain why, as Nathan DeHoff notes, Ozma and her main
supporters haven't done anything about Loxo. As long as he doesn't use his
magic magnet or greatly harm others, simply being huge (indeed, much larger
than other Ozian giants) isn't a crime. The Wizard says Loxo "drove off
these peaceful settlers" from Big Enough Mountain [281], but that may have
been simply his presence, his musicianship, or his appetite rather than
aggressive behavior.

Once Loxo gets the boot-lacers he wants, he's quite happy. He "waved quite
jovially" to the returning Umbrellians and "called cheerfully,...'Thank
you! Thank you very kindly'" [284]. He really isn't a traditional
fee-fi-fo-fum giant. But by the end of SPEEDY Loxo performs two major sins
in Thompson's Oz books: he keeps white children as slaves, and he's rude to
Ozma ["Save your breath, Lady"--285]. So we know he's going down.

The Wizard threatens to use his "powder of petrification" (like the liquid
in PATCHWORK GIRL? the powders he threw on Quiberon in GIANT HORSE?). Ozma
responds that she dislikes violence, though this is hardly violent magic,
and it may be less harsh than the transformations she performed at the end
of PIRATES and OJO. Meanwhile, Waddy is playing a dangerous game, trying to
fool the Wizard into holding off until he can deploy his own magic [286].

Waddy takes advantage of Loxo's good nature by cajoling him into taking the
magic sponge cake "since it's kindly meant" [287]. The giant is suddenly
reduced, like Mogodore and his men in JACK PUMPKINHEAD. But since this
isn't his natural size, he's naturally "frightened." Even though Ozma has
said, "Loxo has his rights, too" [286], once he's down to her size she
kicks him verbally: "larger than you deserve to be," she calls him [290].
Considering that all Loxo wanted was servants to help him dress--something
Sizzeroo's and Ozma's palaces supply for the favored few--this seems quite
unfair. Fortunately, Loxo sneaks off, and we can only hope he fulfills his
hope to marry a dairymaid [290, 292].

Kachewka is the book's other villainous sort. Like Akbad in GIANT HORSE,
he's a thin, long-nosed, sharp-tongued, faint-hearted, pointy-bearded
advisor willing to sacrifice a child from America to save his island
kingdom. He's the type who snaps, "the impertinent little commoner!" [238],
the sort we'd like to stick our tongues out at [207]. He sets Speedy up to
become Loxo's servant--but we don't have a chance to see whether Kachewka
would actually go through with his plan over Sizzeroo's objections.

In fact, turning Speedy over was far from Kachewka's first plan to deal
with Loxo. Early in the book he suggests going over the giant's bruised
head to Ozma and asking her to save Gureeda [57]. Only because of Waddy's
jealous insistence of handling the problem himself does the giant remain a
threat [59]. The wizard is jealous not only of the Wizard of Oz, but also
of "the Grand Grumboleer," as he calls Kachewka [261]. In other words, the
unsympathetic counselor is rational, willing to seek help from the proper
authorities, and concerned about the greatest good for the largest number;
the sympathetic wizard is emotional and acting on purely personal motives.

Perhaps because the "villainy" in SPEEDY is so ambiguous on close
examination, Thompson lets her antagonists off lightly. Loxo shrinks--but
to what might be a happier size. Kachewka retains his post after being
"gently reproved" [293]. No one is transformed, exiled, silenced, melted,
or otherwise harmed in the making of this novel.

J. L. Bell JnoLBell at c...

From:  Dave Hardenbrook <DaveH47 at m...>
Date:  Wed Feb 13, 2002  2:05 pm
Subject:  Re: [Nonestica] SPEEDY and dinosaurs

As a dinosaur enthusiast, I can't ignore this post... :)

Tuesday, February 12, 2002, 9:23:00 PM, Nathan Mulac DeHoff wrote:

NMD> Now that I've actually found my notes on SPEEDY (although they're rather
NMD> cryptic in some places: what was it I wanted to say ABOUT Sizzeroo and
NMD> Kachewka's conversation on p. 237?), I guess I'll get things started by
NMD> focusing on Terrybubble. He is, of course, a dinosaur, although I'm not
NMD> sure he's supposed to represent any particular kind. (Maybe someone else
NMD> who knows more about dinosaurs or Thompson could correct me on this point.)

Just based on his looks, he could be a Prosauropod (an ancestor of the
long-necked brontosaur-types), or possibly a Therizinosaur, though he
doesn't have "Edward Scissorhands" claws -- He got a manicure, maybe.
(Also Therizinosaurs weren't discovered until only a few years ago,
well after _Speedy_ was written.)

NMD> Note that Terrybubble's species was apparently both predator (p.  87) and
NMD> prey (to the mogeriths. These "mogeriths" DO correspond to an actual
NMD> species: the megalosaurus (as confirmed by Gureeda on p. 141).  According to
NMD> a book on dinosaurs that I've had since I was a kid (THE DINOSAUR
NMD> ENCYCLOPEDIA, by Dr. Michael Benton, published in 1984), this was the first

NMD> dinosaur to be named, and the species existed from the early Jurassic
NMD> through the early Cretaceous period, which leaves a lot of range in which
NMD> Terrybubble could have been alive.

I guess I'm not the only one who still has his childhood Dino books --
I still have _The Day of the Dinosaur_ by John Man, which was one of
the first "Dinosaurs were not cold-blooded reptillians" books to come
out (in the mid-to-late 70's). It confirms your stated info. on
_Megalosaurus_, as does the more recent _Predatory Dinosaurs of the
World_ by Gregory S. Paul, which gives 1822 as _Megalosaurus_'
year of discovery, and gives the Middle or Late Jurassic (depending on
which species -- _Megalosaurus bucklandi_ or _Megalosaurus tanneri_)
as the era it lived in. Also according to Paul, _Carnotaurus_ (the
villian of Disney's _Dinosaur_) is in the Megalosaur family as well.

NMD> The megalosaurus apparently was not
NMD> native to North America, however, so how any got to the Valley of Virtula is
NMD> beyond me.

If you accept my assesment in _Unknown Witches_, there is in fact a
whole tribe of extant dinosaurs (and not just bones, but with skin,
organs, the whole bit!) in the Land of Op, just south of Ev.
Perhaps Terrybubble actually heralds from there orginally and
by some various odd circumstances ended up in the geyser...

NMD> Of course, many of Thompson's ideas about dinosaurs were pure
NMD> fancy...

Just like many of Thompson's ideas about omni-virginal fairy queens...

NMD> ... such as living for many centuries each, or speaking English.

Pretty tame compared to Mister Rogers' speculation that dinosaurs
love tapioca... :)

--
Dave

From:  "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at t...>
Date:  Wed Feb 13, 2002  4:08 pm
Subject:  Re: [Nonestica] SPEEDY from the rear

J. L. Bell:
>That costume was fine for Waddy, Sizzeroo, Kachewka, and the rest of the
>Umbrellian men, but Neill stopped using it right after he drew his first
>image of Speedy in that garb.

Waddy is described as wearing a "voluminous robe" on p. 59, yet the
illustration on the opposite page shows him in rather tight-fitting
garments.

Nathan

From:  "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at t...>
Date:  Wed Feb 13, 2002  4:16 pm
Subject:  Re: [Nonestica] SPEEDY Big Enough Mountain

J. L. Bell:
><<the Wizard mentions in passing that Big Enough Mountain was "the capital
>of the Quadling Country." This might have been a mistake (it was, after
>all, in the same chapter that refers to the Magic Picture as the "Magic
>Mirror"), but, in the absence of any other evidence, I think I will
>consider Big Enough to be the pre-Glinda seat of Quadling government.>>
>
>Here are the Wizard's exact words about Big Enough Mountain:
> "It is in the exact center of the Quadling
> Country and this mountain, settled by a band
> of Emerald City dwellers and planted with
> seeds and shrubs brought from the capital,
> retained all the verdure and charm of our own
> countryside. Later, I understand the giant
> Loxo drove off these peaceful settlers and
> took the mountain for himself. Your Watch Cat
> doubtless mistook the capital of the Quadling
> Country for the Emerald City." [281]
>The problem in considering this mountain to have been the ancient seat of
>Quadling power is that at the same time the Wizard implies people from the
>Emerald City were the first to settle there. If so, the Wizard's double use
>of the word "capital" could simply signify that Big Enough Mountain was an
>outpost of Oz's capital in Quadlingland.

That's probably more likely, although that still leaves the question as to
where the old seat of Quadling power actually was. It's also possible that,
when the Wizard refers to the "Emerald City," he is referring to the
settlement that existed in the central green country before his arrival,
making it possible that the King of the Quadlings did live on Big Enough
Mountain.

Nathan

From:  "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at t...>
Date:  Wed Feb 13, 2002  8:58 pm
Subject:  Re: [Nonestica] SPEEDY villains

J. L. Bell:
>Once Loxo gets the boot-lacers he wants, he's quite happy. He "waved quite
>jovially" to the returning Umbrellians and "called cheerfully,...'Thank
>you! Thank you very kindly'" [284]. He really isn't a traditional
>fee-fi-fo-fum giant. But by the end of SPEEDY Loxo performs two major sins
>in Thompson's Oz books: he keeps white children as slaves, and he's rude to
>Ozma ["Save your breath, Lady"--285]. So we know he's going down.

He also threatens to put Speedy and Gureeda in the soup kettle, but we don't
know for sure that he'd actually do that. As for his threat to Ozma, he
says that he might keep her to sweep out his home, something that Badmannah
would later try to do in YANKEE. In fact, Badmannah kidnaps Ozma with a
drag net with powers fairly similar to that of Loxo's magnet, only he uses
it often, in order to steal from various kingdoms. It seems like Badmannah
is, in some ways, a more evil version of Loxo.

>The Wizard threatens to use his "powder of petrification" (like the liquid
>in PATCHWORK GIRL? the powders he threw on Quiberon in GIANT HORSE?).

I'm assuming it's what he used to petrify Quiberon, and it might be based on
Dr. Pipt's liquid.

>In fact, turning Speedy over was far from Kachewka's first plan to deal
>with Loxo. Early in the book he suggests going over the giant's bruised
>head to Ozma and asking her to save Gureeda [57]. Only because of Waddy's
>jealous insistence of handling the problem himself does the giant remain a
>threat [59]. The wizard is jealous not only of the Wizard of Oz, but also
>of "the Grand Grumboleer," as he calls Kachewka [261].

Kachewka suggests that Ozma and the Wizard of Oz might turn Loxo "into a
pigmy or a goat," and the former is pretty much what Waddy eventually does.
Does this mean that Waddy actually got his idea to shrink Loxo from
Kachewka?

Nathan

From:  "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at t...>
Date:  Wed Feb 13, 2002  11:05 pm
Subject:  Re: [Nonestica] Speedy and capitals

Ruth:
>Nathan DeHoff" <DinnerBell at t...>
> > Incidentally, the Wizard mentions in passing that Big Enough Mountain
>was
>"the capital of the Quadling Country." This might have been a mistake (it
>was, after all, in the same chapter that refers to the Magic Picture as the
>"Magic Mirror"), but, in the absence of any other evidence, I think I will
>consider Big Enough to be the pre-Glinda seat of Quadling government.
<
>
>Sounds possible, although I wonder if "capital" was a slip-of-the-tongue
>(whether considered as the Wizard's or the narrator's mistake) for "center"
>(as he also describes it).

That's a possibility, although it's pretty typical for capitals to be
centrally located. This generally holds true in Oz: the Emerald City is in
the center of the country, the Tin Woodman's castle is described as being in
the center of the Winkie Country in several Thompson books (and shown as
being around there on the TIK-TOK map, although Haff and Martin moved it a
little to the east for some reason), and UpTown is fairly central in the
Gillikin Country.

Nathan

From:  "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at t...>
Date:  Thu Feb 14, 2002  12:42 am
Subject:  SPEEDY and Umbrella Island as a fairyland

On p. 32 of SPEEDY, Thompson writes, "Now I have suspected that the
Umbrellians were of some strange fairy origin, for how otherwise could we
account for a talking cat, a practicing wizard, or the flying island
itself?" While these are good points, why does Thompson have to "suspect"?
Waddy mentions in the next paragraph that Umbrella Island used to lie in the
Nonestic Ocean, close to Pingaree, and isn't every island there part of
fairyland? There could be some argument if you only look at the Baum books,
since Regos has a king who doesn't believe in magic (although he has no
problem when his wife informs him that the Nomes have magical powers), but
Thompson seems to be pretty clear about the difference between the fairy
realms and those of "Reality" (a Thompson term that always bugged me, since
the Ozites and their neighbors are obviously real to themselves, and one
that Waddy himself uses on p. 34).

Although Umbrella Island does have a talking cat, and Terrybubble can talk
when gets there, there's no indication that the cows, sheep, horses, dogs,
goats, and Umbrella Birds living there can, even when the island is flying
over Oz. In fact, if Thompson had wanted to leave open the possibility that
the other animals could talk, she probably wouldn't have singled out Pansy.

In addition to its two talking animals, the Umbrellians seem to have a much
longer lifespan than we do, although whether they live forever is not
entirely clear. On p. 154, Kachewka says, "A mortal lives but a brief
space--seventy years or so--but we Umbrellians go on for centuries. Is it
not better, then, to let a mortal suffer a little discomfort than to subject
your daughter to slavery for a thousand?" This is somewhat confusing, as
Kachewka seems to be distinguishing between Umbrellians and mortals, yet
everyone who doesn't live forever is mortal, and 1000 years isn't forever.
Maybe he simply means that Outside Worlders (or inhabitants of "Reality," if
you prefer to put it that way, which I don't) are MORE mortal than
Umbrellians, who come pretty close to being immortal. (Incidentally,
Gureeda is yet another character with only one parent. If Umbrellians live
so long, why isn't her mother around anymore? Maybe she wasn't a native
Umbrellian, or she deserted her husband at some point?)

The Umbrellians do seem to speak of long periods of time as if they're not
much at all. On p. 262, Waddy says that Speedy "might even marry [the
Princess] in a hundred years or so and succeed your Highness as Ruler of the
Island!" Waddy must think that mortals who come to live on Umbrella Island
would share the natives' long lives, because I don't think most Americans
that old would be in any position to rule a country. The wizard also
laments having to "leave this island, with all its comforts and treasures
and with all the improvements and inventions of a thousand years" (p.  221),
which must mean that these "improvements and inventions" predate the
mechanism that makes the island fly by some time, since Umbrella Island only
started flying seven years previously. (By the way, I wonder if Umbrella
Island was CALLED "Umbrella Island" before it started flying, or if it had a
different name.)

Nathan

From:  "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at c...>
Date:  Thu Feb 14, 2002  10:38 am
Subject:  SPEEDY Terrybubble

What sort of dinosaur is Terrybubble? Prof Sanderson identifies his fossil
as "mesozoic," but all dinosaurs were [72]. But Thompson's report may not
be reliable. She's so vague about Sanderson's expedition that she calls it
"archeological," not paleontological, and jumbles together "prehistoric
remains" (a term usually applied to human artifacts) with fossils from the
"jurassic, triassic, and other unspellable eras" [66].

To explain the dinosaur skeleton, Uncle Billy draws a creature with a flat
head, long neck, short front legs, long back legs, and long, powerful
tail--seemingly some sort a brontosaur. But Speedy declares it "a bit
kangerooish" [74], which implies he sees it rearing on its back legs, and
Terrybubble indeed does walk that way [85]. If the young dinosaur was
indeed slain by a megalosaur [141], that implies he lived in the Jurassic
period as well.

Notably, Gureeda recognizes Terrybubble as a dinosaur, "a prehistoric
monster" from "a big book about them at the palace" [108].  Her book also
contains a picture of a megalosaur [141]. That implies that the same
dinosaurs were known in Nonestica as in the Great Outside World.

Terrybubble remembers having lived 400 years before dying in youth
[81]--does that reflect some 1930s thinking about dinosaurs or a bit of
Thompsonian whimsy? In any event, it fits into a motif of Oz books that
goes back to Dorothy and the Scarecrow: the irony of a child serving as
knowledgeable guide for a bigger companion. Terrybubble expresses this
relationship when he tells Speedy, "You know I cannot get along without
somebody to tell me about life" [174].

Terrybubble has an empty skull with holes in it (one of the taxonomic
hallmarks of dinosaurs), but Thompson tells us, "air does as well as any
other stuff for brains" [85]. That's a bit of a contrast with Baum, who
played throughout his series with the idea of physical brains.

Despite having had every molecule in his bones replaced gradually by
minerals (the process of fossilization), Terrybubble retains many memories.
His first murmurings, trying to figure out where he is and who this voice
in his chest is, remind me of the very confused sperm whale in episode
three of the original HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY.

Terrybubble shows no surprise, however, about being able to talk to
non-dinosaurs. That might imply that in the Valley of Virtula all the
animals could communicate--or that this dinosaur simply takes his new life
as it comes ("Oh, brave new world, that has such people in my chest").

Finally, it's worth noting that Speedy isn't much interested in dinosaurs.
"Digging for prehistoric monsters seemed a dull and monotonous
occupation"--which it is in real life but not in most boys' imaginations.
Speedy prefers (shades of Peter) "pirate chests" [67]. Had the cult of the
dinosaur not won over American boys yet? Or did Thompson decide to apply
this attitude to Speedy in order to shape his relationship with Terrybubble
to her liking?

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
<<Note that Terrybubble's species was apparently both predator (p.  87) and
prey>>

Terrybubble indeed briefly lists "hunting" among his other activities. And
he shows a natural facility for chasing cats. If we assume he's a
herbivorous dinosaur, however, we might have to decide he uses "hunting" to
mean searching for the plants he most enjoyed eating.

Dave Hardenbrook wrote:
<<If you accept my assesment in _Unknown Witches_, there is in fact a whole
tribe of extant dinosaurs (and not just bones, but with skin, organs, the
whole bit!) in the Land of Op, just south of Ev. Perhaps Terrybubble
actually heralds from there orginally and by some various odd circumstances
ended up in the geyser...>>

It would have to be a very, very odd circumstance indeed to cause a
dinosaur skeleton from south of Ev to be fossilized and found in Wyoming.

J. L. Bell JnoLBell at c...

From:  "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at c...>
Date:  Thu Feb 14, 2002  10:38 am
Subject:  SPEEDY time and reality

SPEEDY has interesting things to say about how time passes around Oz, both
in the Nonestic region and in the Great Outside World.

On the question of Oz book timing, we learn that it's been two years since
Uncle Billy started building his second skyrocket [66]. The last chapter of
YELLOW KNIGHT tells us he already has that vehicle under construction,
which implies only two years have passed between events in the Oz books
published in 1930 and 1934.

On the issue of how long people outside Oz can live, Kachewka states, "A
mortal lives but a brief space--seventy years or so--but we Umbrellians go
on for centuries." Yet he certainly understands death: he refers to
Terrybubble as "like a death head at a feast" [155]. That implies the
Umbrellians see themselves as somehow in between mortals like us and the
deathless people of Oz.

Similarly, Waddy seems to believe that living on Umbrella Island will cause
Speedy to age more slowly. He imagines the boy and Gureeda marrying "in a
hundred years or so" [262]. At this moment, he's also looking ahead to who
might succeed Sizzeroo as ruler of the island, implying (though not
requiring) that the king will eventually die.

Kachewka anticipates young Gureeda would suffer "a thousand" years of
slavery serving Loxo [154]. Yet he seems unaware that Speedy and Gureeda
wouldn't necessarily age or die once they're in Oz. If he did, his
calculation of what is the least suffering would collapse because he'd be
comparing two infinitudes.

Waddy says that Umbrella Island enjoys the "improvements and inventions of
a thousand years" [221]. Is he referring to his own career or to
predecessors' inventions as well? The island appears to have been flying
for only a little over six years: it's been around seven since Waddy set to
work on the problem, and the giant steerable umbrella took him seven months
to build [34].

Finally, Waddy speaks of "the realms of Reality on the other side of the
rainbow" [34]. We learn about "the dream-like mists and rainbows
surrounding all fairy countries" [295]. Yet Umbrella Island and its
inhabitants seem to travel to Reality, or at least Reality air space,
without suffering any ill effects. Thompson depicts Oz and its neighbors as
less real than the Great Outside World, yet magic working in our world just
fine--both in contrast to many statements by Baum.

J. L. Bell JnoLBell at c...

From:  "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at c...>
Date:  Thu Feb 14, 2002  10:38 am
Subject:  SPEEDY reading

Melody Grandy wrote:
<< > SPEEDY doesn't present reading in a
> particularly good light. With only a couple of exceptions, it's presented
> as feminine inactivity as opposed to Speedy's masculine action.
> Characters
> treat it as a retreat from the real world, a distraction from dangers one
> must deal with.

Or it can be a way to learn to deal with real-life dangers. I learned a lot
on how to deal with people from books. :-)

As for retreat from reality--people think those who want to retreat from
reality are crazy. However, one would have to be crazy to like reality
exactly as it is.>>

My comment above wasn't your learning or reality, or, for that matter,
about mine. It was about how SPEEDY depicts reading compared to other
activities.

When Gureeda wants Speedy to learn about Roaraway and Norraway from a book,
he replies, "This is no time for books. . . . What we need is guns"
[178-9]. No learning there.

Waddy tells Gureeda that Speedy "does not want to read books, my girl, he
wants to LIVE them" [128].

There are other passages like this, contrasting Gureeda's retreat from
action and the immediate situation with Speedy's embrace of them, always
presenting the latter as more admirable and productive. It's a curious
theme for a fantasy writer to play on, but it's hard to ignore.

J. L. Bell JnoLBell at c...

From:  tyler.jones at a...
Date:  Thu Feb 14, 2002  5:38 pm
Subject:  SPEEDY and RINKITINK

Nathan wrote
> the Baum books, since Regos has a king who doesn't believe in magic
> (although he has no problem when his wife informs him that the
> Nomes have magical powers),

I've always wondered about that. How can somebody who lives in Fairyland
not believe in magic? I've come up two ideas.

1. He only believes that HUMANS can't do magic, but other fairy-like
creatures can.

2. His island may be in a magically weak part of the world, or maybe
the people there never studied much magic, so King Gos never really saw
much, and maybe only heard about it from rumor.

> On p. 154, Kachewka says, "A mortal lives but a brief
> space--seventy years or so--but we Umbrellians go on for centuries.

This is similar to a passage in _Pirates_, when the pirate ship is
becalmed, possibly for a long period of time. RPT mentions that this
is nothing to Ato and Sam, who were "liable to go on for
centuries".

Tyler Jones

From:  "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at t...>
Date:  Thu Feb 14, 2002  6:00 pm
Subject:  Re: [Nonestica] SPEEDY time and reality

J. L. Bell:
>Similarly, Waddy seems to believe that living on Umbrella Island will cause
>Speedy to age more slowly. He imagines the boy and Gureeda marrying "in a
>hundred years or so" [262]. At this moment, he's also looking ahead to who
>might succeed Sizzeroo as ruler of the island, implying (though not
>requiring) that the king will eventually die.

In "Umbrella Island in Oz," a story from an OZIANA (1996, perhaps?), Speedy
does return to Umbrella Island, and marries the Princess (and it apparently
doesn't take one hundred years, either, although the story is difficult to
place chronologically, for reasons I'll elaborate on if anyone is
interested), and Sizzeroo retires, allowing them to rule. I don't think
it's specific on whether Speedy becomes King or just Prince Consort,
though.

Nathan

From:  "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at t...>
Date:  Thu Feb 14, 2002  5:56 pm
Subject:  Re: [Nonestica] SPEEDY Terrybubble

J. L. Bell:
>Terrybubble shows no surprise, however, about being able to talk to
>non-dinosaurs.

Speedy DOES show surprise at this, though, saying, "I didn't know you
dinosaurs spoke our language" (p. 88).

Nathan

From:  "John W. Kennedy" <jwkenne at a...>
Date:  Thu Feb 14, 2002  7:00 pm
Subject:  Re: [Nonestica] SPEEDY Terrybubble

"J. L. Bell" wrote:
> Terrybubble remembers having lived 400 years before dying in youth
> [81]--does that reflect some 1930s thinking about dinosaurs or a bit of
> Thompsonian whimsy?

I don't know whether it was seriously proposed by paleontologists, but
it's an easy surmise to make, starting from large tortoises -- and might
also be a natural conclusion from the fact of large size and the
hypothesis of reptilian metabolism.

> Finally, it's worth noting that Speedy isn't much interested in dinosaurs.
> "Digging for prehistoric monsters seemed a dull and monotonous
> occupation"--which it is in real life but not in most boys' imaginations.
> Speedy prefers (shades of Peter) "pirate chests" [67]. Had the cult of the
> dinosaur not won over American boys yet?

Perhaps it came after National Geographic published several articles
rich in reconstructed paintings. I know they bowled me over completely
in the early 50's -- but I'm not quite sure how old those issues were.
(It's odd to see my old friends at the AMNH in their new settings and
poses; I suppose one expects a dinosaur, of all things, to stay the same
forever.)

--
John W. Kennedy
Read the remains of Shakespeare's lost play, now annotated!

From:  "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at c...>
Date:  Fri Feb 15, 2002  9:33 am
Subject:  SPEEDY design and art

Months ago, I said that for JACK PUMPKINHEAD Neill had created a zig-zag
shape of drawing that left room for text at the upper left and lower right
of the page. I thought that's how the pages appeared in the original Reilly
& Lee hardcover, though not in the Del Rey paperback I have. I was wrong;
in the hardcover as well, those drawings appear on otherwise blank pages. I
still suspect Neill envisioned type being set around those drawings, but
the publisher deemed it too expensive. As a result, mysterious blank
corners impinge on what otherwise look like full-page drawings, and several
clever Neill compositions appear twisted and awkward.

The problem for Reilly & Lee in following Neill's vision was probably that
it couldn't predict when in JACK PUMPKINHEAD the text would have to switch
from stretching all the way across the page to filling a half-column. It
would actually have had to lay out the type once, see where lines fell,
calculate the short lines, lay out the type again [oh, the waste and
expense!].

That problem doesn't arise when the thin columns of text appear only for a
predictable number of lines at chapter starts, as in ROYAL BOOK. Knowing of
that possibility, for the SPEEDY chapter openers Neill created an L-shaped
design, with no art above the title but text to the left and below the thin
column. This is far more elaborate than the design he used for OJO. It
produces some squeezed images, but also some that work to great effect: for
instance, Speedy looking down on Yellowstone [63].

Neill drew one interior double-page spread, showing the wise (?) men of
Umbrella Island pondering their plight [44-5]. Since there are no other
spreads like this (unlike in JACK PUMPKINHEAD, where double-page spreads
are a regular part of the art), I wonder if Neill originally conceived of
that art for the endpapers. The image has no familiar or youthful faces and
a sad air, however. The actual endpapers add Speedy, Gureeda, and a few
smiles to the group.

There are only two other full-page drawings: of Kachewka [60] and of Speedy
discovering the power of Waddy's laser [215]. But there are so many of
Neill's standard-size drawings, replacing the middle 15 lines on a 25-line
page, that pairs appear on opposite pages [e.g., 176-7].

It's a bit of a struggle, but Neill manages to give King Sizzeroo and his
chubby advisors Waddy ("250 pounds"--30) and Bamboula ("round and
jolly"--24) distinct features. They all have the braids that seem to
predate umbrellas as distinctions of this island's culture. Thompson says
Sizzeroo has a "braided beard" [17], but with his superior sense of
aesthetics Neill instead draws the king with braided sideburns. But I have
a real problem with the crown that seems to grow out of Sizzeroo's head,
yet move around from picture to picture.

J. L. Bell JnoLBell at c...

From:  "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at c...>
Date:  Fri Feb 15, 2002  9:33 am
Subject:  SPEEDY from the front

The cover of SPEEDY shows its title character, Gureeda, and her father
Sizzeroo, though only readers of YELLOW KNIGHT would recognize Speedy (and
then only from his name; Neill's standard boy's face is no help). The
endpapers show the Umbrella Island VIPs, the color frontispiece an
unrecognizable but intriguing giant arm, and the next two pages
Terrybubble. Not until the dedication page do we see a familiar face:
Ozma's. That mirrors how in the narrative we don't meet any Emerald City
favorites until chapter 18.

Thompson's frontmatter for SPEEDY is significantly different from earlier
books. Instead of a long author's note, she supplied a four-line poem.
Neill filled out that page with a nice big drawing of Terrybubble twisting
himself into the Oz symbol. The book's date (April, 1934, the month in
which a printed copy of the book was submitted to the U.S. Copyright
Office) was moved from its usual place with the author's note to the
dedication. Whether these changes were Thompson's idea or Reilly & Lee's,
they might be a remnant of some hastiness as they finished the book.

J. L. Bell JnoLBell at c...

From:  "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at m...>
Date:  Fri Feb 15, 2002  10:19 am
Subject:  dinos in oz

J.L. Bell: It does seem odd that Speedy thinks of digging up prehistoric
monsters as boring. (Maybe RPT found them boring, or maybe she knew enough
about the process of digging and thought that Speedy would know enough about
it to think digging up anything, even prehistoric monsters, was boring. The
pirate chests he finds preferable would involve digging, too, but probably
not digging so deep or so carefully) I don't know about American boys in the
30s, but British writers at the turn of the century assumed that children
found dinosaurs enthralling -- Grahame's Reluctant Dragon is (implicitly) a
dinosaur, and E. Nesbit has dinosaur statues come to life in "The Magic
Castle."

Ruth Berman

From:  "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at c...>
Date:  Tue Feb 19, 2002  1:27 pm
Subject:  SPEEDY love story, part 1

SPEEDY's love theme is evident even from its cover, which shows Speedy and
Gureeda holding hands and making eyes at each other. It fits into a pattern
that I see Thompson establishing in YELLOW KNIGHT: unlike Peter, whose
adventures confront him with various masculine paths, Speedy keeps being
brought up against forms of femininity. In his first adventure he had to
deal with Marygolden and his expectations for her. In this book he has a
very different experience with Gureeda. In the first case, his notions of
femininity are challenged; in the second, he has to confront his own
attraction to femininity.

Marygolden insists she can do everything Speedy does and, to his surprise,
succeeds. She presents a combination of vulnerability (being newly created)
and ability. He cries when she becomes too old for him and falls in love
with Corum instead. In contrast, Gureeda is knowledgeable instead of naive
and at home instead of homeless, but shy instead of feisty.

The most striking difference between the girls is that when Gureeda tries
to do something physical, she usually fails. And not just ordinary failure,
but failing like a boy would imagine a girl to do, clumsily and tearfully.
To rescue Speedy from a "monster," all she can do is throw chocolates
[111]. Chasing Terrybubble, she trips and starts to "sob hysterically"
[143-4--the word hysteria shares a root with that for uterus, and was
originally an exclusively feminine state]. Thinking about Loxo also makes
Gureeda cry [48, 246] instead of being defiant or thoughtful like Speedy
(and like many of Baum's young heroines).

When Speedy and Waddy are falling toward the ocean, Gureeda starts the
rescue effort, but during the action her only contribution is to wave "both
hands frantically" [171]. Immediately after that, Speedy has to pull her
out of the way of a spear [178]. When they're both slaves of Loxo, Speedy
laces up one of the giant's boots, then has to help Gureeda with the other.
In fact, he ends up doing most of the work while Thompson dismissively says
the princess "helped him as much as she could" [258].

Gureeda is really Reeda [52], just as Speedy is actually William [65]. Both
children got nicknames because of favorite activities. But while Speedy is
bustling and reluctant to sit still [70], Gureeda has the sedentary and
solitary habit of reading.

We talked about SPEEDY's odd attitude toward books last week. Speedy asks
Gureeda, "Why books, when we have all of this to see?" [119] "You're not
going to READ are you?" he demands, "hardly [able to] conceal his
disappointment" [130]. (If that's concealing disappointment, I'd hate to
see when Speedy expresses what he really thinks.) Waddy echoes the point by
explaining to Gureeda that Speedy "does not want to read books, my girl, he
wants to LIVE them" [128]. At least with these two children, Thompson
presents reading as a feminine activity.

Thus, whenever Speedy does participate in Gureeda's reading habits, he's in
some way compromising his own desires and his masculinity. Speedy carries
Gureeda's books for her [131], a traditional schoolboy sign of affection.
And that soon leads--wouldn't the fellows rag him?--to making a daisy chain
for Terrybubble [136]. Soon Gureeda starts to think about how well their
names go together [142].

The crisis with Roaraway and Norraway Islands suspends that budding
romance, however. So I'll pick up this theme in a future message.

J. L. Bell JnoLBell at c...

From:  "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at c...>
Date:  Tue Feb 19, 2002  1:27 pm
Subject:  SPEEDY Speedy and Uncle Billy

As with Peter, whose last name we learn only in his last adventure, SPEEDY
tells us more about Speedy than we learned in YELLOW KNIGHT. His uncle's
name is Will Harmstead. They live not simply on Long Island, but in Garden
City, an actual and fairly large community on the eastern side. The boy's
parents were South Sea explorers who died when he was two, having left him
in New York City with a nurse [65-6].

SPEEDY also hints at losses in Speedy's life, greater even than the text
acknowledges. First were his parents, not mentioned before. Then, it seems,
came the dog he wanted to show Marygolden toward the end of YELLOW KNIGHT;
since in this book he's wishing for a "wire-haired fox terrier" [91], that
first dog has probably died. Finally, Uncle Billy himself seems to have
worked himself into ill health: he's under doctors' orders "to take an
immediate rest" [66].

In YELLOW KNIGHT, Uncle Billy knew how to build a steerable torpedo rocket
that could survive blasting into space and then through the ground, with a
parachute brake of amazing capacity. Yet two years later, he hasn't
succeeded in rebuilding it [66]. Is that because he's trying to improve on
the original model? Or have physical or emotional health problems
interfered? It seems notable that Speedy has learned "scientists...did not
like to be disturbed" [159] and that he spent "the previous summer at camp"
[70].

Of course, Uncle Billy's idea of "immediate rest" is hardly inactive. "As
fond of...outdoor sport" as his namesake nephew, he volunteers for an
expedition to a site that must be reached on horseback and then goes
non-stop [66]. He lets Speedy drink coffee [69--just the thing for a boy
who can't sit still].

Nevertheless, it seems telling that Speedy has so much fun "testing out
magic devices" with Waddy that he delays returning home to his uncle [231].
Speedy used to test Uncle Billy's inventions, but now that's not as fun.
His uncle must have changed either his work habits or his productivity, and
Speedy has found the same fun with Waddy. (In that light, the boy's
interest in bringing home the water gun seems to have a personal as well as
a patriotic meaning.)

Like Dorothy, Speedy eventually has to make a sacrifice for the sake of his
family. In YELLOW KNIGHT, when the boy came home, his uncle was in the
midst of a lab experiment, a test tube smoking. At the end of SPEEDY, Uncle
Billy is "looking mournfully out of the window" [296]. We can
only hope
that whatever problem was bothering him before will resolve.

Another interesting feature of Speedy's character is his modesty. While
Peter seems to relish being the center of eyes on his sports teams or in
the Emerald City, Speedy tries to hide. We see a bit of this in YELLOW
KNIGHT, especially when he asks Ozma for a quiet fadeaway at the end, but
it's much more clear in SPEEDY. The boy feels "uncomfortable and
embarrassed" at the praise for saving Umbrella Island from missile attack
[188], then insists on keeping the Roaraway Island's water gun secret
[224]. Though Speedy has learned the lesson "Polite people usually get
left" [70], he doesn't want to thrust himself into the public eye.

Thompson says Speedy wears a "dark Norfolk suit" [133]. I went looking for
that on the Internet and found this page:

The outfit Thompson names, which involves a thick jacket with a belted
waist, seems to be quite different from the scouting clothes Neill
depicted.

J. L. Bell JnoLBell at c...

From:  "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at c...>
Date:  Wed Feb 20, 2002  12:41 pm
Subject:  SPEEDY love story, part 2

As I argued in my last message, Thompson seems to be using Gureeda's
reading habits as a sign of her femininity while presenting Speedy as a boy
of action. Does this get in the way of their budding relationship?

When Umbrella Island is under threat from Roaraway and Norraway, Speedy
chides Gureeda for wanting him to read. "This is no time for books," he
says, even though the books she hopes to show him are about their new foes.
"What we need is guns" [178-9]. He wants to leave behind the feminine side
she and her books represent and go into action.

Soon men are shooting missiles across the waters. Roaraway and Norraway,
who usually attack each other, both shoot arrows at Umbrella Island.
Bamboula orders the Umbrellians to parashoot back (whatever that means).
Not much damage occurs, but it's all very macho.

Like several of Thompson's other male heroes, Speedy is secretly attracted
to the form of masculinity presented by bellicose villains. He thinks "how
splendid this Sea King [Radj] looked in his high helmet and red armor."
Even while fearing Radj's water gun, Speedy "could not help feeling a
certain admiration for the big, bluff ruler" and gives him a "friendly,
vigorous wave." Despite having just told the king "you do not care much
about good sportsmanship" [195], the boy nonetheless decides the ruler is
"pretty sporting" for making his threat so obvious. The king in turn offers
him the rank of "fifth in command," just as the Nome King offered a
general's rank to Peter [193-200].

In saving Umbrella Island from Radj, however, Speedy moves his romance with
Gureeda forward without even trying. First he speedily puts down the
curtain around the island. Sizzeroo responds, "I've a mind to give you half
the island"--a royal grant which we know often also comes with the hand of
the princess [187].

But the real change occurs when Speedy stops rejecting the femininity that
Gureeda embodies. Waddy insists that he not tell anyone about that water
gun, so what does Speedy do? "He decided to get himself a book from the
castle library" [206]. And on the way there, Kachewka grabs him and hustles
him off to dress just like Gureeda.

On Umbrella Island, Thompson has established, there are only two visible
distinctions between the sexes. Boys wear their hair in a "single braid,"
while girls and women have multiple "plaits" [37]. Males carry umbrellas,
females straight-handled parasols [39]. (Many of the men grow beards or
other facial hair for additional braids.) Therefore, Gureeda can blur the
gender line with an unusual hairdo, while Speedy by putting on what in
America he'd call a ponytail meets her halfway.

Speedy starts this journey by taking "a hot and cold shower." He pulls on
the "satin blouse" and other loose-fitting garb, adds a hair extension, and
starts "surveying himself gayly in the long mirror" [207]. He ends by
tucking a book under one arm [208]. But in his mind Speedy can go only so
far. When Terrybubble tells him, "You look exactly like that Princess
girl," the boy replies, "You mean she looks like me," even though Gureeda
has been dressed this way all along [209].

Speedy's thinking on gender has been shaped by his male peers. He thinks,
"Wouldn't the fellows rag me if they could see this?" [207] And he's
internalized those standards as well. "He could not bear even the thought
of looking like a girl," Thompson tells us. He finally explains to
Terrybubble that "Girls dress the same as boys on this island"--not that
girls and boys dress the same, but rather that girls have adopted male
dress, which defines the norm [209].

But Speedy can quickly relax because it's clear that he and Gureeda, even
when they're both in loose blue satin, are very different. That's not just
a matter of umbrella and parasol. It's a matter of gendered behavior.  "I'm
not half so brave," Gureeda tells Terrybubble. And at that very moment
Speedy decides "that when he grew up and was old enough to marry, he'd
choose a girl exactly like the little Princess of Umbrella Island. Even her
persistent reading habit did not greatly annoy him" [210-1]. Reassured of
his own masculinity, Speedy can acknowledge his attraction to Gureeda, even
at her most feminine.

This encounter also strengthens Speedy to destroy the king of Roaraway's
water gun. That daring mission plays out on a most masculine battlefield, a
seascape of phallic symbols. We see the huge spurting water gun [look again
at the art on 198], Radj himself ("a tall, red bearded King" [189] in a
"tall red helmet," who speaks "lustily" [192] and stands "angrily erect"
[225]), Waddy's metal melting flash, and the "tall, conical rock" that
Speedy attaches himself to by his pajama cord [220].

There's even a hint of actual phallus, perhaps the first in the Oz series
so far. Speedy the conquering hero goes to bed wearing only a towel. When
he wakes up, Thompson makes sure to tell us how he preserves his modesty:
"he sat up clasping his knees with both hands" [221], "leaping out of bed
with the blue silk coverlet still clutched around him" [222]. Thompson is
clearly keeping something under wraps. (Neill carefully slips Speedy back
into pajamas.) Speedy might "hastily" dress in front of Waddy [224], but he
equally hastily leaves Gureeda's sight to change into his clothes [249].

Thompson thus shows Speedy learning that he can give part of his heart to a
very feminine person without losing his masculinity, either in mind or in
body.

J. L. Bell JnoLBell at c...

From:  "Joseph Bongiorno" <TheSithEmpire at m...>
Date:  Wed Feb 20, 2002  6:43 pm
Subject:  Re: [Nonestica] Speedy on LI

"J. L. Bell" wrote:

<<As with Peter, whose last name we learn only in his last adventure, SPEEDY
tells us more about Speedy than we learned in YELLOW KNIGHT. His uncle's
name is Will Harmstead. They live not simply on Long Island, but in Garden
City, an actual and fairly large community on the eastern side. The boy's
parents were South Sea explorers who died when he was two, having left him
in New York City with a nurse.>>

That was a nice surprise when I first read
that, living about 10 minutes away from Garden City!  I don't know about
back then, but nowadays, it's an area generally populated by the wealthy.

<<Thompson says Speedy wears a "dark Norfolk suit" [133]. I went looking for
that on the Internet and found this page:

The outfit Thompson names, which involves a thick jacket with a belted
waist, seems to be quite different from the scouting clothes Neill
depicted.>> 

Yeah, I hated that scouting outfit.  Isn't Speedy depicted wearing the Norfolk suit in Yellow Knight?  Or am I
thinking of another boy?  No, wait a minute... I might have in mind an older Button Bright in Sky Island.

From:  "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at t...>
Date:  Thu Feb 21, 2002  1:08 am
Subject:  Miscellaneous SPEEDY comments

On p. 32, Waddy mentions that Umbrella Island has had "successful trade with
Pingaree and the nearby Island of Impossipillio." I think RINKITINK
mentions that Rinkitink was the only kingdom that traded with Pingaree at
that point, but that certainly doesn't mean that the two islands couldn't
have established trade after that. Incidentally, I wonder if Impossipillio
might be the island that is apparently misidentified as the Isle of Phreex
at the beginning of RINKITINK and on the TIK-TOK map.

If Umbrella Island is able to fly to the United States, then why does Speedy
seem to think he has to go to Oz first? He brings this up on p. 116, and no
one bothers to point out that the island could take him there without Ozma's
help. Speedy thinks that "[o]nce he set foot in Oz, it would be his plain
duty to relieve as soon as possible the anxiety of Uncle Billy by asking
Ozma to send him and Terrybubble back to the United States" (p. 231), but he
doesn't seem to have any thought of asking Waddy or Sizzeroo to do the same
thing. I can certainly see that Speedy would want to visit his old friends
in Oz before going home, though, so maybe that's part of his reasoning.

Speaking of seeing his old friends in Oz, the only two characters that
Speedy talks to in both YELLOW KNIGHT and SPEEDY are Ozma and Dorothy, and
not for very long in either of these books. He never even makes a request
to visit Corumbia, where his closer friends would have been living, even
though either Umbrella Island or the Magic Belt could have taken him there
and back quickly. I suppose this is similar to how Peter promises to pay an
extended visit to Belfaygor at the end of JACK PUMPKINHEAD, but never keeps
this promise, even though he visits Oz again in PIRATES.

Within the FF, Speedy is the only American visitor to Oz who never visits
the Emerald City. (If you include the IWOC books, Tompy, Yankee, and Emma
Lou could be added to that figure, although the former two DO visit the
palace and meet most of the celebrities, and the latter comes to live in Oz,
where she certainly COULD visit the capital at some point.) For someone who
has visited Oz twice, he has really met a very small number of long-standing
celebrities (Ozma, Dorothy, the Wizard, the Scarecrow, and possibly Sir
Hokus and the Comfortable Camel, if you can count them as "long-standing")
by the end of SPEEDY.

One of my favorite lines from the book occurs on p. 203, when Waddy says,
"I've tried oil, air, pressure and poetry--lubrication, incantation and
even--er--even a few coniferous curses, but still this pestiferous umbrella
won't budge." The combination of scientific methods with more traditional
magic is certainly in the vein of Oz magic in general, such as Coo-ee-oh's
island controls in GLINDA.

On p. 242, Pansy tells Terrybubble, "I've turned the wheel so that the
island is directly over Oz. Don't puncture yourself on a castle spire."
The reference to castle spires certainly implies that she is referring to
the Emerald City (although there are plenty of other spired castles in Oz),
but she doesn't specifically mention the capital. Terrybubble seems to have
gotten the impression that she did, however. On p. 247, the dinosaur
skeleton says, "We ought to come down near the Emerald City, whatever that
is...Pansy turned the island in that direction."

Loxo calls Sizzeroo an "Umbrellephant" on p. 254. Apparently Thompson liked
this word, since she had an Umbrellaphant appear as a character in CAPTAIN
SALT.

Nathan

From:  "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at c...>
Date:  Thu Feb 21, 2002  2:25 pm
Subject:  SPEEDY love story, part 3

As I discussed before, Thompson has the relationship between Gureeda and
Speedy flower right in the middle of the crisis with Roaraway Island. It's
part wartime romance, part hero rescuing the heroine who's inspired him.
After that episode, Speedy starts feeling completely comfortable with
Gureeda, even if for the rest of the book he has to dress just like her.

In fact, what Gureeda symbolizes for Speedy seems to change. She doesn't
seem to embody femininity so much as carefree childhood, in contrast to his
nearly adult responsibilities as an Assistant Wizard. Right after Speedy
thinks ahead to marrying a girl just like Gureeda, Thompson pulls him back
from those mushy grown-up thoughts to "a game of tag" [212].  Later, "He and
Gureeda had jolly mornings. . . . He and Waddy had thrilling afternoons"
[230].

Though imagining "the anxiety of Uncle Billy," Speedy largely ignores that
feeling in the back of his mind. His young life is literally suspended on
Umbrella Island, circling over Oz yet "not quite ready to be rescued"
[231]. He seeks excuses to stay: to find out why Sizzeroo is crying [233],
because "he was entitled to a vacation" [234--wasn't he just at Yellowstone
Park?].

Speedy's reverie is broken by the intervention of two giants. First
Terrybubble puts the kids in his capacious ribcage [242--sleeping
together!]. Then Loxo puts them to work. Once again Gureeda appears
physically awkward or weak--Speedy does most of her bootlacing. But now he
enjoys being at her side. The young people don't play a role in their own
rescue, unfortunately. Even more unfortunately, that rescue brings their
relationship to a (temporary?) end.

During the celebratory banquet traditional at the end of Thompson's Oz
books, Speedy wonders, "Might it not be better to spend the remainder of
his days in Umbrella Island than to return to his more or less humdrum
existence in America?" (This is a boy's whose humdrum existence involves
being a sports stand-out, riding rocket ships, and assembling dinosaur
skeletons.) But he can't keep blocking the thoughts of Uncle Billy,
"anxious, alone, and grief stricken" [293].

Like lots of boys in their first relationships, Speedy can't handle the
emotions of the break-up well. He leaves Gureeda a note promising to return
to her life and her favorite activity: "Some day I'm coming back to read
all the books you were telling me about." Actually, he seems to leave this
note for Ozma to pass on. "Feeling as if he had swallowed a baseball" (a
terrific metaphor for this athletic character), simply disappears from
Gureeda's life [295].

Though Speedy hopes to visit his new friends for a "whole summer," Thompson
hints that a visit in the short term is far-fetched. Terrybubble and Waddy
circle over the U.S., failing to find their friend [298]. But Thompson ends
her book on a hopeful note: sometime in the future, the two young people
will marry. We book readers, like Gureeda, can only hope.

J. L. Bell JnoLBell at c...

From:  "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at c...>
Date:  Thu Feb 21, 2002  2:26 pm
Subject:  SPEEDY illustrations

Here's a miscellany of comments on Neill's illustrations for SPEEDY, keyed
to the page numbers of the Reilly & Lee or Oz Club editions.

33: Nice image of Pansy imitating Waddy.

63: Despites Speedy's costume here, it's not a good idea to wear shorts for
riding out west during the summer.

plate opp. 84: I like how the force of the geyser blast causes
Terrybubble's head to break the drawing frame at the top.

plate opp. 116: Speedy looks uncommonly young and small in this image.

165: Neill has fun making up strange magic tools for Waddy, especially here.

212: Neill shies from making Speedy and Gureeda look as alike as Thompson
says. He gives them different hats and let her curls stick out on the side
instead of drawing just the long boyish queue Thompson described. We can
also see their gender differences in their poses: Gureeda's hands and legs
are crossed while Speedy spreads out, hand planted on his thigh. In the
plate opposite 229, Neill shows Gureeda as the open and demonstrative one,
but Speedy once more has his hands solidly on his hips.

263: Neill draws Waddy pulling Kachewka's nose, but the wizard only
threatens to do this [264].

270: Somehow I think even I could draw a better arm for Ozma than Neill did
on this page.

plate opp. 293: This image of a shrunken Loxo is quite amusing, but it
makes no sense for his clothing to be this size on his new body. According
to other magical size-changing in the Oz books, his clothes should either
cover the landscape or shrink along with him.

J. L. Bell JnoLBell at c...

From:  "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at c...>
Date:  Thu Feb 21, 2002  11:54 am
Subject:  Speedy on LI

Joe Bongiorno wrote:
<<Isn't Speedy depicted wearing the Norfolk suit in Yellow
Knight?>>

In YELLOW KNIGHT, both Thompson and Neill dress Speedy mostly in leather,
for his rocket trip.

J. L. Bell JnoLBell at c...

From:  "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at c...>
Date:  Fri Feb 22, 2002  12:29 pm
Subject:  SPEEDY Umbrella Island and others

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
<<On p. 32, Waddy mentions that Umbrella Island has had "successful trade
with Pingaree and the nearby Island of Impossipillio." I think RINKITINK
mentions that Rinkitink was the only kingdom that traded with Pingaree at
that point, but that certainly doesn't mean that the two islands couldn't
have established trade after that. Incidentally, I wonder if Impossipillio
might be the island that is apparently misidentified as the Isle of Phreex
at the beginning of RINKITINK and on the TIK-TOK map.>>

Interesting points about the other islands. Thompson also situates Umbrella
Island 70 leagues from Ev, which would put Pingaree at about the same
distance. However, since a league has been variously defined, ranging from
3.9 km to 7.4 km, that's not as useful as it first appears in showing the
scale of the Nonestic world.

We briefly see another region of the (presumably) Nonestic, the area around
Roaraway and Norraway. That's a tropical region: "The ocean felt warm," and
Speedy worries about "tropical fish and strange unknown currents" [218].
At that point Umbrella Island has flown from the Winkie Country "east"
(i.e., west) over the Nome Kingdom to the Nonestic [162]. We should note,
however, that the TIK-TOK map Thompson was using showed the Nonestic Ocean
at only one side. For all she knew, therefore, there was no water to the
left of that chart. She therefore seems to have crowded all her islands
together, as Baum had.

Waddy describes his island's source of wealth just seven years before
SPEEDY as "silk worms" [32]. The Umbrellians (or whatever they were called
then) depended on these lowly worms, much as Pingaree's wealth depends on
pearl-producing oysters.

Oddly, there's no sign of those worms in SPEEDY. Thompson tells us Umbrella
Island has 46 cows, 37 sheep, 22 horses, 13 dogs, goats, and birds [41], as
well as at least one cat (Pansy), small lizard [141], and gopher [144]. It
seems to be a part of the Nonestic region where animals talk since Pansy
does (a great deal), and no one is surprised to hear from Terrybubble,
either. But we don't hear from the worms.

Did the mulberry trees silkworms live on survive after the island took to
the air? Waddy states that in flight "the foliage of our island changed
considerably, becoming rich and tropical" [35]. The flora now seems to be
dominated by umbrella and other shade trees, and Neill adds a thorny bush
bearing several fruits [plate opp. 36] and another bearing roses [plate
opp. 228].

Umbrella Island still seems to have its own economy. Kachewka speaks of
being paid, "and poorly at that" [22]. Sizzeroo seems to have a source of
tobacco [268]. But we don't see anyone else at work besides the military.
Umbrella Island seems to have quite a large military for its population,
and the umbrellas everyone carries serve also as swords and shields [134]
so they can be a sort of militia [181]. Given the island's mobility, the
Umbrellians could presumably be doing a good trade moving goods for other
countries, but they seem to have little contact with the nations below.

Umbrella Island is home to 769 people before Speedy arrives [41]. Thompson
tells us of 23 individuals in the royal procession: king, princess, sixteen
sedan bearers, messenger carrying cat, three counselors, and an umbrella
bearer. But behind them come courtiers, boy and girl brigades,
parashooters, and mounted guards, each group separated by "a company of
bandsmen" [104]. Even though that can be no more mounted guards than there
are horses (22), that still implies a mighty big parade--perhaps one in
every five islanders.

The Umbrellians still wear silk [38, 50, etc.]. Their houses are
"pagoda-like" [123]. Among the plants is a "Chinaberry tree" [201]. And
wearing a queue like other men makes Speedy think, "I look just like a
Chinaman" [208--cf. Uncle Billy on 297: "Where've you been? Looks as if it
might have been China"]. In Thompson's conception, it seems, Umbrella
Island is a version of China, a comparison she also uses with the Silver
Islands of ROYAL BOOK and the Lanternese of YANKEE.

Nonetheless, Neill doesn't draw them as racial caricatures. And Thompson
says, "As a race, the Umbrellians were dark haired, fair skinned, slender
and handsome" [38]. (There's also a stereotypical "grinning black boy" to
hold the "great umbrella of state" over the elite's heads [103, 110]. He
doesn't seem to be part of the Umbrellian "race.") Waddy uses Christmas as
a landmark [203], reminding us what Thompson presented to her readers as
normative life.

J. L. Bell JnoLBell at c...

From:  "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at c...>
Date:  Fri Feb 22, 2002  12:29 pm
Subject:  SPEEDY war

The episode with Roaraway and Norraway is in some ways among the most
frightening in any Oz book because the warriors aren't simply comic. I
don't see direct parallels with any events in 1933, when the book was
written, or just before, but oddly it's echoed by developments since.

Speedy's first instinct to Umbrella Island's new neighborhood is an arms
build-up: he wants "guns," [179], "bombs or cannon or air ships" [183]. But
by lowering Waddy's magical metal curtain from the island's great umbrella,
he produces the sort of perfect missile shield a fairy country makes
possible. The arrows from both Roaraway and Norraway are powerless against
it, even when shot from cannons [182] or tipped with fire [225].

Speedy then embarks on a diplomatic mission. At first "overcome at so much
responsibility" [190], he soon fits right in to his new role; he feels
"extremely proud of [using] the word 'conference'" [192]. He also handles
the diplomat's task of concealing his own country's weakness [195-7].

Like Theodore Roosevelt or the League of Nations, Speedy first tries to
make peace between Roaraway and Norroway in order to preserve the security
of his own island. Among his ideas is sublimating their rivalry into
"athletic contests or things like that," which Radj calls "another sort of
war"--a sentiment apropos of this Olympic period [194-5].

Radj's reply anticipates what Eisenhower would call the military-industrial
complex: "Stop the war and throw two thousand men out of work?" [193]
Thompson hints that the people of Roaraway have too much time on their
hands: "Our island provides without labor for all our needs," says their
king [194].

Radj then shows off his water gun, obliterating a small island,
frighteningly like a Cold War A-test [199]. Radj refuses to use the weapon
on his main rival (again, like the Cold War powers)--though his reason is
not wishing to preserve life but wishing to preserve the economic value of
the war. Speedy doesn't seem to recognize one of the lessons of deterrence
when he thinks, "It was pretty sporting of [Radj] to tell us about his gun
before using it" [200]. A threat of future damage is often more effective
than actually following through.

Then comes Speedy's derring-do in chapter 14, the most impressive
combination of young bravery and athleticism that Thompson had created
since Reddy sneaked into the Bigwigs' city in HUNGRY TIGER. Thompson
heightens our interest at the end of chapter 13 by mysteriously referring
to "the dangerous and desperate thing that he himself must do" [216].  Also
impressive is that Speedy is foresighted enough to perceive likely danger:
he sees that the gun will kick up terrible waves when it sinks, and
prepares himself [220].

Waddy's magic ray that melts metal seems like the lasers that scientists
would invent after WW2, but probably more like other magic rays that sci-fi
writers had invented before. It makes "a loud, clattering noise" (like a
saw?) as it cuts through the metal chains [219]. Interestingly, the same
ray also provides light for Speedy as he makes his way to the water cannon
[218].

Speedy is no pacifist, simply destroying Radj's weapon and trusting in
Waddy's shield. As soon as he can, he draws a picture of the water gun so
"Uncle Billy could make one just as powerful for the United States Navy."
Speedy even thinks about joining the Navy [227], despite having just been
elevated from wizard's assistant to Assistant Wizard.

Speedy imagines commanding "a fleet of battle ships equipped with these
tremendous and powerful new water guns" [228; cf. 294, 298]. He even dreams
of "rocket planes [and] water guns" [241]. That's more than adolescent
symbolism (which is not to say Freud wouldn't have an easy interpretation).
Thompson seems to be presenting such armaments as rational, admirable
preparation in a world that contains rulers like Radj.

J. L. Bell JnoLBell at c...

From:  "John W. Kennedy" <jwkenne at a...>
Date:  Fri Feb 22, 2002  3:56 pm
Subject:  Re: [Nonestica] SPEEDY war

"J. L. Bell" wrote:
> Waddy's magic ray that melts metal seems like the lasers that scientists
> would invent after WW2, but probably more like other magic rays that sci-fi
> writers had invented before. It makes "a loud, clattering noise" (like a
> saw?)

Or any of the "ray" weapons in the "Flash Gordon" serials?

--
John W. Kennedy
Read the remains of Shakespeare's lost play, now annotated!

From:  "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at c...>
Date:  Sun Feb 24, 2002  7:40 pm
Subject:  SPEEDY travels

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
<<If Umbrella Island is able to fly to the United States, then why does
Speedy seem to think he has to go to Oz first? He brings this up on p.
116, and no one bothers to point out that the island could take him there
without Ozma's help.>>

I think the key to this mystery is that Speedy is sure that Terrybubble
wouldn't remain alive in America [234]. By the same rule, Umbrella Island
might crash and the Umbrellians suddenly die out like the hundreds-year-old
people they are. Even if Speedy's not sure about that, such consequences
would be so horrible that he might not want to take even a small risk
(especially if he's enjoying himself so much more than at home). On the
other hand, Speedy knows from experience that Ozma can return him to New
York without difficulty.

Though Thompson says Umbrella Island flies over America [298], she never
says it lands (thus making unarguable contact with "Reality") or actually
takes anybody up its rope ladder. So in this circumstance we don't really
know where the borderline between fairyland and the Great Outside World
lies. Of course, that borderline was usually more hazy for Thompson than
for Baum.

<<Within the FF, Speedy is the only American visitor to Oz who never visits
the Emerald City. . . . For someone who has visited Oz twice, he has really
met a very small number of long-standing celebrities>>

This seems to be linked to Speedy's shyness and/or his worry about Uncle
Billy. In both his adventures, he wants to get back to Garden City as soon
as he meets Ozma.

<<He never even makes a request to visit Corumbia, where his closer friends
would have been living>>

Wouldn't that require telling Gureeda he wanted to visit an old girlfriend?

J. L. Bell JnoLBell at c...

From:  "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at c...>
Date:  Sun Feb 24, 2002  7:40 pm
Subject:  SPEEDY war

John W. Kennedy wrote:
<<> Waddy's magic ray that melts metal seems like the lasers that scientists
> would invent after WW2, but probably more like other magic rays that sci-fi
> writers had invented before. It makes "a loud, clattering noise" (like a
> saw?)

Or any of the "ray" weapons in the "Flash Gordon" serials?>>

Do you mean Ming's rays all made a clattering noise? Or that they were
among the "rays that sci-fi writers had invented"?

J. L. Bell JnoLBell at c...

From:  "John W. Kennedy" <jwkenne at a...>
Date:  Mon Feb 25, 2002  7:42 am
Subject:  Re: [Nonestica] SPEEDY war

"J. L. Bell" wrote:
>
> John W. Kennedy wrote:
> <<> Waddy's magic ray that melts metal seems like the lasers that
> scientists
> > would invent after WW2, but probably more like other magic rays that
> sci-fi
> > writers had invented before. It makes "a loud, clattering noise" (like a
> > saw?)
>
> Or any of the "ray" weapons in the "Flash Gordon" serials?>>
>
> Do you mean Ming's rays all made a clattering noise? Or that they were
> among the "rays that sci-fi writers had invented"?

BZZZZCLATTERZZZZZZZZZCLATTERZZZZZZZZZSNAPZZZZZZZZZZZZCLATTERZZZZZZZZ

--
John W. Kennedy
Read the remains of Shakespeare's lost play, now annotated!

From:  "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at c...>
Date:  Mon Feb 25, 2002  1:44 pm
Subject:  SPEEDY magic

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
<<One of my favorite lines from the book occurs on p. 203, when Waddy says,
"I've tried oil, air, pressure and poetry--lubrication, incantation and
even--er--even a few coniferous curses, but still this pestiferous umbrella
won't budge." The combination of scientific methods with more traditional
magic is certainly in the vein of Oz magic in general, such as Coo-ee-oh's
island controls in GLINDA.>>

Yes, that's also a line I noted with pleasure. Trying "oil" and
"lubrication," as well as "air," makes sense since Waddy's problem is
something opposed (in different ways) to air and oil: "water in the works"
[181]. The danger of water might also explain why Umbrella Island needs an
umbrella. Among Waddy's other tries, "poetry" and "incantation" seem
allied. I'm not sure what "coniferous curses" would be--"Fir
yew!"?

Later Waddy uses "an electric oven" to bake up his potion for Loxo [260],
and many of the devices Neill draws for him that look like instruments from
a particularly mad scientist's lab [158, 161, 165]. Having grown up with an
inventor, Speedy knows the etiquette of the lab. But he also has
unrealistic hopes: "I thought magical instruments never got out of order."
Waddy replies, "Magic instruments and more delicate and perishable than any
other kind" [180].

Another reason that Speedy may take so well to Waddy's workshop is that it
greatly resembles Chinda the Seer's room, where he tarried in YELLOW
KNIGHT. That was a "great glass-enclosed room" atop a spiral staircase,
equipped with a "tall telescope" [chap 16]. Waddy's workshop seems to be a
larger version of the same. There are "400 silver steps" up to it, its
"walls were entirely of glass," and it contains a "rotating telescope"
[157].

Speedy's visit to Waddy's workshop lets Thompson establish some new facts
about Umbrella Island, just in time to exploit them in the following
chapters. There are three ways to steer the island and at least five men
trained to do so [162, 170], not just the king we see in chapter 1 or the
cat who takes the wheel later. The island can be shielded and anchored in
the sea [164]. Thompson doesn't seem to have considered the mechanics of
landing the island on land, however, and that doesn't come up in the plot.

Waddy miscalculates something elementary when testing Terrybubble's
umbrella: "it had been constructed to bear a much heavier weight" than one
fat wizard and one slim boy [166]. His error leads to the crash landing in
the Nonestic, which in turn damages the transportation magic. That doesn't
give me complete confidence in Waddy's wizardry.

One difficulty in plotting any later Oz book is that if protagonists simply
alerted Ozma to their troubles, they'd soon be in much better shape.
Therefore, authors must come up with plausible ways to prevent their
characters from doing that. Around this time Thompson was using jealousy
among wizards as a way to keep people out of the Emerald City. The action
in PURPLE PRINCE depends on Kabumpo and then Jinnicky not wanting to tell
Ozma and the Wizard their troubles.

Here it's Waddy who sees the Wizard as a rival. He also "did not like
anyone to watch...while he was using his magic tools" [160]. He insists on
Speedy keeping the Roaraway water gun secret from everyone else on Umbrella
Island [204]. Thompson has Pansy say, "These wizards are worse than the
women" when it comes to their rivalries [59].

But eventually Sizzeroo has to seek help from the Emerald City. To find
Speedy and Gureeda, Ozma calls for the Wizard's search light [280-1], the
third time in five books this magical tool plays a role. This time it seems
unnecessary since the Wizard has already identified the spot of green in
Quadlingland where Loxo is holding the children. Nevertheless, the Wizard
uses it to guide Waddy, who may be grinding his teeth every time he hears
an instruction from his Ozian rival.

SPEEDY may reveal a new fact about the searchlight: how fast it travels.
Umbrella Island follows the light "at a rate of almost a hundred miles an
hour" [282]. Since this is an emergency, Waddy is presumably flying as fast
as possible. Later we learn that the Umbrella Island can travel 800 miles
in five hours, or 160 mph [293]. That means its speed to Big Enough
Mountain was limited by the searchlight, which was presumably moving at its
fastest rate. Of course, Thompson may not be differentiating clearly
between ground speeds and air speeds.

At the end of SPEEDY, Thompson once again shows the Magic Belt transporting
someone slowly, not instantly. Speedy "dropped lightly as a feather through
the dream-like mists and rainbows surrounding all fairy countries" [295].
As at the end of YELLOW KNIGHT, Speedy returns to the old leather sofa in
Uncle Billy's house.

J. L. Bell JnoLBell at c...

From:  "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at t...>
Date:  Mon Feb 25, 2002  7:56 pm
Subject:  Re: [Nonestica] SPEEDY magic

J. L. Bell:
>Waddy miscalculates something elementary when testing Terrybubble's
>umbrella: "it had been constructed to bear a much heavier weight" than one
>fat wizard and one slim boy [166]. His error leads to the crash landing in
>the Nonestic, which in turn damages the transportation magic. That doesn't
>give me complete confidence in Waddy's wizardry.

Why he thinks it is a good idea to test the umbrella over the ocean is also
a mystery.

>One difficulty in plotting any later Oz book is that if protagonists simply
>alerted Ozma to their troubles, they'd soon be in much better shape.
>Therefore, authors must come up with plausible ways to prevent their
>characters from doing that. Around this time Thompson was using jealousy
>among wizards as a way to keep people out of the Emerald City. The action
>in PURPLE PRINCE depends on Kabumpo and then Jinnicky not wanting to tell
>Ozma and the Wizard their troubles.

Although, once the Wizard does get involved, his magic doesn't seem to help
all that much. Kabumpo and Randy could have asked Ozma to bring Jinnicky to
Pumperdink, though, which would have cut out about half of the book.

Nathan

From:  "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at c...>
Date:  Tue Feb 26, 2002  5:42 pm
Subject:  SPEEDY miscellany

Here's a variety of small comments about SPEEDY.

One of the "rules" of screenwriting rule says that there's no plot that
can't be improved by adding a ticking clock. In this case, Thompson sets a
clock ticking in her first chapters as Loxo demands a boot-lacer in three
months. Ironically, we never get to the end of that period.

In the ongoing debate about who eats whom in the Oz books, SPEEDY provides
a little more evidence. Pansy the watch cat clearly tries to eat a goldfish
she finds in the castle pond; the fish looks very much alive in Neill's art
[19]. Kind-hearted Sizzeroo insists on throwing it back [20]--which doesn't
bode well for what Pansy would have done on her own.

Speedy clearly hasn't met Cap'n Bill--his metaphor for being inactive is to
"sit here all afternoon like a one-legged sailor" [70].

Waddy calls Terrybubble "an old Whiffenpoof" [128]. Thompson wrote four
years before Rudy Vallee would record "The Whiffenpoof Song" for the first
time, bringing that term for a college singing group to a wider audience.
Originally "whiffenpoof" dates from the same period as "wogglebug," and
meant a similarly nonsensical insect.

Thompson declares that "Gureeda for a girl had a surprisingly active funny
bone" [147]. That's an especially odd comment for a humorous writer who
happens to be female.

Thompson says Dorothy was "next to the Scarecrow the most popular person at
court" in the Emerald City [271]. I seem to recall Baum saying something
similar, but I don't recall where. What keeps Dorothy from the top spot?
One quality might be expecting to get her way a little more.
Thompson says Dorothy "couldn't help feeling a bit envious of Speedy's new
position" on Umbrella Island [291]. The implication is that Dorothy envies
Speedy being a wizard, but she's shown no lasting interest in learning
magic herself. Perhaps she's really jealous of the friendships and
admiration he's won in a land where she's just a stranger.

Finally, some quotable lines from Thompson or her characters--

57: "Kachewka answered himself to save time and argument."

174: Terrybubble: "Can't I snort a little when I'm happy?"

188: Pansy: "You were there and the boy was here, which makes him a hero
and you a there-o."

189: Waddy: "I see you never forget what you remember."

222: Waddy: "A King never breaks his word."

275: Scarecrow: "They are fat and therefore jolly." (But even he doesn't
believe this nonsense.)

J. L. Bell JnoLBell at c...

From:  "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <DinnerBell at t...>
Date:  Tue Feb 26, 2002  10:55 pm
Subject:  Re: [Nonestica] SPEEDY miscellany

J. L. Bell:
>Originally "whiffenpoof" dates from the same period as "wogglebug," and
>meant a similarly nonsensical insect.

So "wogglebug" actually predates Baum? Where and when was it used prior to
LAND?

>Thompson says Dorothy was "next to the Scarecrow the most popular person at
>court" in the Emerald City [271]. I seem to recall Baum saying something
>similar, but I don't recall where.

The beginning of Chapter 23 of RINKITINK calls the Scarecrow "the most
popular person in all Oz, next to Ozma." Chapter 5 of EMERALD CITY,
however, says that "the little girl [Dorothy] was quite an important
personage in Oz, and the people thought she had brought them good luck, and
loved her next best to Ozma." Maybe the Scarecrow surpassed Dorothy in
popularity in between EMERALD CITY and RINKITINK, or maybe these statements
by Baum and Thompson should be taken with a grain of salt.

Nathan

From:  "Tim Tucker" <zardoz1967 at y...>
Date:  Tue Feb 26, 2002  11:48 pm
Subject:  BCF: On Bamboula and other musings

Some random thoughts:

Rereading "Speedy," the name Bamboula
jumped out at me.  "Bamboula" is the title of a piano piece from
the mid 1840s by the American composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk.  The liner
notes on my recording give its subtitle as "Danse des Negres" and
describe it as using "cakewalk rhythms."  This would imply that
RPT was somehow familiar with it, or at least the dance type, even if it was
just enough for the odd name to stick in her mind.  I have to admit, after
listening to the piece, there is little of Bamboula the piano piece (very
romantic and Lisztian) in Bamboula the character.  (BTW, has anyone
discovered if Louis F. Gottschalk of "Tik-Tok Man" fame was related
to the earlier composer?)

I wonder if RPT had reread "Dorothy and the
Wizard" before starting this book?  My mind started immediately
drawing connections between the Umbrella Islanders and the Braided Man. 

Since I have a pet cat, Pansy strikes me
as an unconvincing feline.  Her personality is very uncatlike. 
To me, she doesn't hold a candle to either Eureka or Bungle.  I also
noticed that Neill didn't draw braided hairs on the tips of Pansy's ears,
though I can't imagine any cat sitting still long enough to have its ears
braided. 

Geology is not my area of expertise, but has
anyone ever heard of a phosphorescent geyser?  It makes me suspect that it
is unnatural.  In addition, I believe, to being the source that brought
Terrybubble to life, shouldn't the "scalding spray" have seriously
burned Speedy when he was caught in the explosion? 

Also, did umbrellas used to be more elaborate
contraptions 70 years ago?  The description on p. 134, with its pockets,
hooks and fold out seat, makes it sound like Thompson was basing it on
something real. 

Just to satisfy my curiosity, can anyone
with a R&L color plate edition tell me if the color plates in the IWOC
are opposite the same pages as in the original?

More ruminations to follow...

Tim Tucker

From:  "John W. Kennedy" <jwkenne at a...>
Date:  Wed Feb 27, 2002  2:38 pm
Subject:  Re: [Nonestica] BCF: On Bamboula and other musings

>
Tim Tucker wrote:
> Rereading "Speedy," the name Bamboula jumped out at me.  "Bamboula" is
> the title of a piano piece from the mid 1840s by the American composer
> Louis Moreau Gottschalk. The liner notes on my recording give its
> subtitle as "Danse des Negres" and describe it as using "cakewalk
> rhythms." This would imply that RPT was somehow familiar with it, or
> at least the dance type, even if it was just enough for the odd name
> to stick in her mind.

Apparently once better known than it is now. There are thousands of
hits on "Bamboula" in Google.