Date: Thu, 02 Dec 2004 16:58:59 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
Subject: [Regalia] ENCHANTED ISLAND David and Humpty

There seem to be some clear similarities between the heroes of Thompson's
two post-FF Oz books.  The last name of one is Terry, and that of the other
is Perry.  Both come from Pennsylvania.  One plays football, and the other
hockey.  On the other hand, David doesn't seem to play any musical
instruments, and I think he comes off as more likeable overall.

Dorothy Maryott's afterword suggests that Thompson had her own home in
Ardmore in mind when writing about David's grandmother's neighborhood. 
Latch's Lane was an actual street in town, and Wister's Woods was named
after another street.  Since Ardmore was a stop on the railroad line that I
used to take into Pennsylvania for graduate classes, I wonder if the
railroad tracks mentioned by David's grandmother on p. 15 are the same ones
I used to ride on.

Thompson's books show an obvious familiarity with and enthusiasm for the
circus.  This is evident both in the sorts of animals she tended to have
star in her books, and in the use of a circus clown as a major character in
COWARDLY LION.  Here, we again see a circus used as a jumping-off place for
an adventure in Oz, but this time, there's a bit of a negative slant to the
circus, with Humpty describing the circus employees as "rogues" who "[have]
done nothing but grunt and screech at me."

As a character, Humpty possesses much of the same doting affection as
another member of his species, the Comfortable Camel, as well as many other
Thompsonian animals.  He accepts David as his master very quickly, and is
quite devoted to the boy.  On p. 18, he tells the boy, "Since you freed me
from that wretched circus, I here, now, and absolutely bestow myself upon
YOU!"  He also has a hint of Kabumpo's loveable grumpiness and sarcasm to
his character, though, right down to uttering one of the Elegant Elephant's
catchphrases on p. 35.

David nicknames the camel "Humpty Bumpty" on p. 17, yet he later introduces
the animal to both Water Lily and Nick Chopper by this name, and Humpty does
not seem to object.

While Humpty tells Lily that he plans to return to his old master, the Shah
of Hah Hoh Humbad, he later decides to stay in Kapurta with Malacca,
apparently with no intention of informing the Shah of his adventures and
plans.  We could, perhaps, assume that Ozma will send a message to the Shah
after Humpty's visit to the Emerald City.

It's interesting that Thompson never really answers the question as to
whether Ozian animals can talk while in the Great Outside World.  He tells 
David on p. 18 that he didn't bother talking to the circus workers because
they didn't talk to him.  Since he apparently didn't try to speak to them,

we really don't know if he could have.  He doesn't speak to David until
AFTER the boy has utilized the wishing button.  On p. 62, King Rupert
suggests that the wish wasn't necessary, but we don't know that for sure.  I
suppose that David wishing that Humpty could talk was a holdover from the
time before ENCHANTED ISLAND was rewritten as an Oz story, with the remarks
from Humpty and Rupert being added in later on.  Another possible holdover

is a sentence on p. 51: "Even the sheep and lambs seemed to be bleating
their surprise and astonishment."  Surely an Ozian sheep would be able to
express its surprise in language a human could understand.
--
I'll still be right where you left me, if you manage to forget me,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2004 11:07:56 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
Subject: [Regalia] ENCHANTED ISLAND communities

I believe ENCHANTED ISLAND is the shortest of the Quasi-Famous books, and
it's certainly shorter than any of the FF.  As such, it feels a little
rushed in some ways.  There's no major conflict in the story.  After the
initial misunderstanding, David is quite willing to return King Rupert's
missing vest button.  The story doesn't have any significant villains.  I
also got the same feeling about some of the small communities in this book
as I did from PURPLE PRINCE, in that Thompson seemed to find it necessary to
have the heroes visit them, even if they hardly do anything while there. 
David and Humpty never make it to their dinner appointment with Queen Else
of Somewhere, and never even get to see the Princess of Little.  (Wasn't
there a character with the same title in Thompson's THE WIZARD OF WAY-UP AND
KING RIPITIK THE TENTH?)  They run away from the Dog Wood after a visit of 
less than two pages, and there's no real indication as to what the country
of Whatnow really is.

James Haff and Dick Martin do a good job at placing the locations from the
story on the map.  They associate the inland sea of Somewhere with the one 
that Mombi crosses in LOST KING.  (By now, there would have been plenty of 
time for the sea to un-gel).  Hah Hoh Humbad and Drumbad are located near
Mudge, the desert kingdom in which COWARDLY LION begins.  (I was actually
considering starting a story in Drumbad at one point.)  The town of Seventon
is placed in the Republic of Macvelt, one of the countries mentioned in THE
QUEEN OF QUOK.  Kapurta's path is shown as a triangle on the second map,
which seems to make sense, but there's no indication given as to how
Rupert's wishing button would have ended up in Pennsylvania.

A few minor observations about the small communities visited in ENCHANTED ISLAND:

The flag of Somewhere (the counterpart to Nowhere in PIRATES, perhaps?) is
"competely covered with sums," one of them being "3-3."  Isn't that a
difference, rather than a sum?  Is (or was) the word "sum" originally used
to indicate any arithmetic problem?

Else describes Dismocolese as "the last dragon in existence." I'd say this
is pretty unlikely, given the number of dragons we meet elsewhere in the Oz
series.  This was probably another holdover from the time before ENCHANTED 
ISLAND was an Oz book.  Along the same lines, p. 50 describes the blue and 
purple sheep of Kapurta as "the only such sheep in existence," which is
interesting, considering that the next Quasi-Famous book published by the Oz
Club (the McGraws' FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN) suggests that most sheep in the
Gillikin Country are purple.  As is usual for the Oz books, I think these
"the only such-and-so in existence" comments have to be taken with a grain
of salt.

I found the nature of the food in Dwindlebury to have a bit of a Carrollian
touch to it.

Thompson's reference to Water Lily as "the Lady of the Lake" on p. 35 
suggests that she might have been thinking of Arthurian legend when creating
the character.

It's interesting that Lily considers a camel to be a person, but not the
frogs who live in Lake Lily.  Maybe she doesn't want human companions so
much as just some new company.
--
I'll still be right where you left me, if you manage to forget me,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Fri, 3 Dec 2004 15:16:11 -0600
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] Enchanted Island etc
 
I see Nathan has gone ahead with discussing "Enchanted Island," and although
I suppose it's possible that Saturday or Sunday may show some comments in
favor of waiting, the absence of "let's wait" comments before suggests that
going ahead is all right with most of the group (maybe even all).

> From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
> Dorothy Maryott's afterword suggests that Thompson had her own home in
> Ardmore in mind when writing about David's grandmother's neighborhood.  <

Hmm -- first edition doesn't have an afterword. I suppose I can wait for the
reformatted editions to come out, and get one of those, and that will
probably have the afterword.

> Thompson's books show an obvious familiarity with and enthusiasm for the
> circus.  This is evident both in the sorts of animals she tended to have
> star in her books, and in the use of a circus clown as a major character
> in COWARDLY LION.  Here, we again see a circus used as a jumping-off place
> for an adventure in Oz, but this time, there's a bit of a negative slant
> to the circus, with Humpty describing the circus employees as "rogues" who
> "[have] done nothing but grunt and screech at me." >

RPT seems to have been following Baum there in assuming that animals do
talk, but that we don't understand the meanings of their sounds, and
additionally assuming that humans' inability to understand animals' "talk"
would be matched by animals' inability to understand what the humans say.
Seems something plausible in terms of what an Oz animal would "hear" if
suddenly transported to our world, although perhaps if Humpty had tried to
listen to the grunts and screeches, he would have become as adept at
understanding them as ordinary camels do. (I assume they do? -- horses and
dogs and cats do, certainly, not to mention primates and dolphins.)

> David nicknames the camel "Humpty Bumpty" on p. 17, yet he later 
> introduces the animal to both Water Lily and Nick Chopper by this name,
> and Humpty does not seem to object. >

Before he starts calling him Humpty Bumpty, though, he calls him Humpty, and
the camel's response is "How did you know my name?" So evidently he happens
to have guessed right on the "Humpty" part, and Humpty doesn't object to the
rhyming version as a nickname.

> It's interesting that Thompson never really answers the question as to
> whether Ozian animals can talk while in the Great Outside World.  He tells
> David on p. 18 that he didn't bother talking to the circus workers because 
> they didn't talk to him.  Since he apparently didn't try to speak to them,
> we really don't know if he could have. <

As noted above, I think Humpty's inability to understand what the humans
said is meant to imply that they couldn't have understood if he'd tried
talking to them.

> He doesn't speak to David until AFTER the boy has utilized the wishing
> button.  On p. 62, King Rupert suggests that the wish wasn't necessary, 
> but we don't know that for sure. <

You're probably right in suggesting that there's a holdover there from a
non-Oz version, but it's not entirely clear. Rupert's comment that "all
animals in Oz can talk" doesn't actually say whether Humpty could have been
expected to be able to talk in the US.

> Another possible holdover is a sentence on p. 51: "Even the sheep and 
> lambs seemed to be bleating their surprise and astonishment." Surely an
> Ozian sheep would be able to express its surprise in language a human
> could understand. <

Seems plausible -- although they might be bleating wordlessly in surprise
and astonishment, in the same way that a human might make "Er -- uh --huh"
noises in such a situation?

> James Haff and Dick Martin do a good job at placing the locations from the 
> story on the map.  They associate the inland sea of Somewhere with the one
> that Mombi crosses in LOST KING.  (By now, there would have been plenty of
> time for the sea to un-gel).  Hah Hoh Humbad and Drumbad are located near
> Mudge, the desert kingdom in which COWARDLY LION begins.  (I was actually
> considering starting a story in Drumbad at one point.)  The town of
> Seventon is placed in the Republic of Macvelt, one of the countries
> mentioned in THE QUEEN OF QUOK.  Kapurta's path is shown as a triangle on
> the second map, which seems to make sense, but there's no indication given 
> as to how Rupert's wishing button would have ended up in Pennsylvania.
>

A stray tornado passing by in the other direction?

> The flag of Somewhere (the counterpart to Nowhere in PIRATES, perhaps?) is 
> "competely covered with sums," one of them being "3-3."  Isn't that a
> difference, rather than a sum?  Is (or was) the word "sum" originally used
> to indicate any arithmetic problem? >

The "Webster's Collegiate" indicates "broadly, a problem in arithmetic" as
one of the meanings of "sum" That wouldn't have been the original meaning
(comes from Latin "summe" meaning "highest," so something on the order of
"totality" or "summit" would be the earliest English meaning), but it's one
of the meanings, although not a common one (comes almost last in the Web's
listing, and they go in order of frequency of use). It's rather an
old-fashioned meaning now -- I don't think you'd find an arithmetic class
nowadays being told to work on their "sums," meaning their arithmetic skills
generally, and maybe no when RPT wrote EI, either. But it was probably still
in general use when she was in elementary school.

> Else describes Dismocolese as "the last dragon in existence."  I'd say
> this is pretty unlikely, given the number of dragons we meet elsewhere in
> the Oz series.  This was probably another holdover from the time before
> ENCHANTED ISLAND was an Oz book.  Along the same lines, p. 50 describes
> the blue and purple sheep of Kapurta as "the only such sheep in
> existence," which is interesting, considering that the next Quasi-Famous
> book published by the Oz Club (the McGraws' FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN) suggests
> that most sheep in the Gillikin Country are purple.  As is usual for the
> Oz books, I think these "the only such-and-so in existence" comments have
> to be taken with a grain of salt. >

The general rule seems to be that whenever an Oz Historian says "the only
one" it should be translated as "the only one so far as I remember right
now." I think every time we've found one of these "only one" statements in
Oz books, members of the group have been able to think of some other
examples in other books (even, usually, in books by the same Oz Historian).

> I found the nature of the food in Dwindlebury to have a bit of a
> Carrollian touch to it. >

Yes, it does seem to.
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Fri, 03 Dec 2004 14:21:43 -0700
From: Ivan Van Laningham <ivanlan at pauahtun.org>
Subject: Re: [Regalia] Enchanted Island etc

Hi All--

Ruth Berman wrote:
>
> The "Webster's Collegiate" indicates "broadly, a problem in arithmetic" as
> one of the meanings of "sum" That wouldn't have been the original meaning
> (comes from Latin "summe" meaning "highest," so something on the order of
> "totality" or "summit" would be the earliest English meaning), but it's one
> of the meanings, although not a common one (comes almost last in the Web's
> listing, and they go in order of frequency of use). It's rather an
> old-fashioned meaning now -- I don't think you'd find an arithmetic class
> nowadays being told to work on their "sums," meaning their arithmetic skills
> generally, and maybe no when RPT wrote EI, either. But it was probably still
> in general use when she was in elementary school.
>

It was not perhaps in general use when I was in elementary school, but I
do remember teachers using it as late as fourth grade.  I particularly
remember my first/second grade teacher saying to the entire room
(one-room school), "Time to do sums," and, "I hope you did your sums
last night."  But I don't think it was common then.  This would have
been in the early fifties, in a rural area, in the midwest.

Metta,
Ivan
----------------------------------------------
Ivan Van Laningham
God N Locomotive Works

Army Signal Corps:  Cu Chi, Class of '70
Author:  Teach Yourself Python in 24 Hours

Date: Sat, 04 Dec 2004 22:02:02 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net>
Subject: [Regalia] ENCHANTED ISLAND etc.

I'll gladly adopt the excuse that I expected the ENCHANTED ISLAND
discussion to start on the 15th. In fact, I hadn't scheduled it at all.
I'll try to zip through both YANKEE and ENCHANTED ISLAND. (Ivan Van
Laningham implies I'm actually well ahead of the chat instead of behind,
but I'm darned if I can remember what comments I've posted before.)

One general thought on ENCHANTED ISLAND is how Thompson originally wrote
it as an Ozzy book, but not an Oz book. Like Baum with RINKITINK, JOHN
DOUGH, and SEA FAIRIES, she probably didn't set out to make the story
consistent with what previous books had established about Oz. And that
seems to have affected some of the details.

For instance, the name Humpty is a lot like that of Humpy, an equally
important character in LOST KING; if the books weren't both about Oz,
would there have been a little more breathing room between the two
names? The question of where animals can talk might be different in a
universe separate from that of Thompson's Oz books.

I recall that some seams created as Thompson turned ENCHANTED ISLAND
into an Oz book are pretty clear. When David meets the Tin Woodman, he's
left his shoes and socks behind. He spends a day and night in the tin
castle. Yet when he meets Rupert, and only then, David feels embarrassed
about being barefoot in the presence of a king. So he felt no
embarrassment in front of an emperor?

By inserting the visit to Nick Chopper and a few mentions here and
there, Thompson made her manuscript into an Oz book. But an ancillary
result may be a little more inconsistency and the appearance of one of
the series's most beloved characters serving as an irrelevant episode.

J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at earthlink.net

Date: Mon, 6 Dec 2004 10:25:04 -0600
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] more islanding

Ivan Van Laningham <ivanlan at pauahtun.org> wrote:
> It ["sums" meaning any kind of artihmetic problems] was not perhaps in
> general use when I was in elementary school, but I do remember teachers
> using it as late as fourth grade.  I particularly remember my first/second
> grade teacher saying to the entire room (one-room school), "Time to do
> sums," and, "I hope you did your sums last night." But I don't think it
> was common then.  This would have been in the early fifties, in a rural
> area, in the midwest. >

As you say, probably not common then. But it had been common usage earlier.
A couple of famous examples --
The song "I Can't Do the Sum" from "Babes in Toyland (lyrics Glen McDonough,
music by Victor Herbert) offers a nonsense arithmetic problem in each verse,
e.g., in the 1st verse, "If a steamship weighted ten thousand tons / And
sailed five thousand mles / With cargo large of overshoes / And carving
knives and files / If the masts were almost six feet high / And the bos'n
near the same, / Would you subtract or multiply / To find the captain's
name?" and a chorus of: "Oh! / Put down six and carry two, / Gee but this is
hard to do; / You can think and think and think / Till your brains are numb,
/ I don't care what Teacher says, / I can't do the sum."

And in Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass," the Red and White Queens give
Alice nonsensical problems in addition, subtraction, and division, and
conclude "She can't do sums a _bit!_" Alice demands, "Can _you_ do sums?"
and the White Queen says, "I can do Addition, if you give me time -- but I 
can't do Subtraction, under _any_ circumstances."

The kingdom of Somewhere Else, with its flag of sums, recalls in a more
cheerful vein the kingdom of Rith Metic (in RPT's "Kabumpo"), where
somersaults are a way for Pompa and Kabumpo to get out of doing the Figure
Heads' sums. (In that case, the sums do all seem to be Addition problems.)
Somewhere Else is also a lot more cheerful than the kingdom of Somewhere
Else visited by the discontented travelers in RPT's "Marvelous Travels on a
Wish" (a non-Oz fantasy reprinted this year on the Hungry Tiger website,
originally in the Philadelphia "Public ledger" and included with
considerable abridgement in RPT's "Wonder Book"). The MToaW travelers find
(rather like Lob's guests in J.M. Barrie's "Dear Brutus" who get to live
their lives over on a Midsummer's Eve) that they don't like what they would
be in their other lives Somewhere Else at all.

"J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net> wrote:
> One general thought on ENCHANTED ISLAND is how Thompson originally wrote
> it as an Ozzy book, but not an Oz book. Like Baum with RINKITINK, JOHN
> DOUGH, and SEA FAIRIES, she probably didn't set out to make the story
> consistent with what previous books had established about Oz. And that
> seems to have affected some of the details. <

Some additional places where the details are affected -- Humpty says that he
was captured inside Oz and was taken to a pier on the edge of the Nonestic
Ocean, where he was loaded onto a sailing ship and brought to America. No
indication of any difficulty crossing the Deadly Desert, and no indication
of where we should suppose the Oz continent to be lurking to allow for
sailing directly from Oz to America. (In most of her Oz books, RPT seemed to
be considering Oz as definitely a world of its own, not part of the Great
Outside World -- and a world, moreover, with room for at least one other
large continent, in "Captain Salt.") I suppose it can reasonably be imagined
that there was a bit of magic involved both for crossing the Desert and for
getting from the seas of the Imagi-nation to the oceans of the Great Outside
World. An odd little question that might be asked, though, is Why? Wouldn't
it be simpler and cheaper to steal (or even just plain buy) camels in the
Asia of this world to sell in America, or to steal Oz camels to sell in
Oz-world markets? What do the US circuses pay them in that has any value
back in the Oz world? Well, perhaps if their magic for transportation is
really easy and reliable, maybe it's no extra trouble to speak of to follow
so wide a trade route, and maybe there are trade goods they can buy in the
US with dollars (gold or gems for Oz-world markets -- although too common
inside Oz? -- or bulkier but still shippable goods such as foodstuffs,
cloths, books, and the like) to turn a dishonest profit.

The geography and staffing of the Tin Woodman's castle seems to have changed
considerably. It would be easy enough for him to have hired Makebel Eva as
castle keeper since the previous visits there in "Land," "Road," "Emerald
City," Patchwork Girl," "Tin Woodman," and "Hidden Valley." (RPT had
mentioned the tin castle in "Gnome King," but "Enchanted Island" was the
first time she'd set a scene there.) The Tin Canyon is surprising, though.
It apparently either surrounds the castle entirely or extends so far to the
sides as to make going around a significant barrier. Did Nick think he ought
to have such a feature for aesthetic reasons and have one installed in the
interim, as the owner of a British estate might put in a ha-ha between the
house and the grounds? Could he have wanted it put in for security reasons?
Either way, isn't it so inconvenient to need those Jumping Sticks to get in
or out that it would be a good idea for him to get rid of it? (It's
apparently not there in "Ozmapolitan," or at least I don't recall that Dick
Martin included any mention of it when they visit there.)

Ruth Berman

Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 10:43:46 -0600
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] dismocolese

Nathan commented on the inaccuracy of Else's claim that Dismocolese is the
last of the dragons and on the Carrollian flavor to Dwindlebury. Else was
probably being accurate as far as she knew, presumably
-- there's no indication that she gets around much. (The general Ozzian
inaccuracy of claims of something as being the only something are a touch
more difficult when the claim is made by the narrative than when made by a
character.) There's also a touch of the Carrollian in Dismocolese's comment
that he is a Fabulous Monster -- not that the phrase isn't used often enough
in other places (or, of course, Somewhere Else), but one that RPT would
surely have known is the discussion between Alice and the Unicorn as to
which of them is a Fabulous Monster. Another famous one is the crack in
Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest" about how Lady
Bracknell is
a monster without being fabulous, which seems unfair, and likely enough RPT
would have known that one, and probably others, too, but Carroll would
certainly have been among the ones likely to come to her mind.

Dismocolese is interesting as being so ambivalent -- sort of like the Hungry
Tiger, except that his conscience doesn't care if he eats meat, but he made
a bargain with Else that he wouldn't, and his conscience evidently tells him
that he should live up to promises.

Ruth Berman

Date: Tue, 7 Dec 2004 11:24:30 -0800 (PST)
From: Alan Wise <alanmacwise at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Regalia] dismocolese

--- Ruth Berman <berma005 at umn.edu> wrote:

> There's also a touch of the Carrollian
> in Dismocolese's comment
> that he is a Fabulous Monster -- not that the phrase
> isn't used often enough
> in other places (or, of course, Somewhere Else), but
> one that RPT would
> surely have known is the discussion between Alice
> and the Unicorn as to
> which of them is a Fabulous Monster.

It's curious to me how often RPT did sound Carrollian
in her Oz work, and yet I don't recall her ever naming
it an an influence.  More obviously she used adventure
tales, comics, the King Arthur legend as sources,
sometimes to the exclusion of the "Americanness" that
made Oz so revolutionary.  Baum, I know, admired
Carroll's creation of Alice and used the model of
forthright heroine in many of his books.  RPT's use of
Carroll seems to be more in the unpleasantness of the
people her protagonists meet.  Even the pace of some
of her books reminds me very much of THROUGH THE
LOOKING GLASS: episodes of punning conversations
linked by lightening fast travel.  ROYAL BOOK seems
typical of this kind of influence on RPT; there's a
lot more nonsense in it: the rolling road, the Pokes,
even Sir Hokus as a derivative of the White Knight.
As she continued writing the series, the more obvious
echoes of Carroll seemed to fade.  I wonder if she,
when beginning her stint as Royal Historian, read
through the Alice books for inspiration, then returned
to it again when she returned to Oz. 

Alan Wise

Date: Tue, 07 Dec 2004 15:49:29 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Regalia] ENCHANTED ISLAND bandits, tin castle, and dragons

I had actually forgotten that we had already chosen a starting date for
ENCHANTED ISLAND.  I'll probably hold off on making any more original posts
about the book until then, although I'll still reply to other people's
comments.

Ruth:
>"J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net> wrote:
>>One general thought on ENCHANTED ISLAND is how Thompson originally wrote
>>it as an Ozzy book, but not an Oz book. Like Baum with RINKITINK, JOHN
>>DOUGH, and SEA FAIRIES, she probably didn't set out to make the story
>>consistent with what previous books had established about Oz. And that
>>seems to have affected some of the details. <
>
>Some additional places where the details are affected -- Humpty says that
>he was captured inside Oz and was taken to a pier on the edge of the
>Nonestic Ocean, where he was loaded onto a sailing ship and brought to
>America. No indication of any difficulty crossing the Deadly Desert, and no 
>indication of where we should suppose the Oz continent to be lurking to
>allow for sailing directly from Oz to America.

Humpty mentions that the bandits were riding "swift desert ponies."  Perhaps
they were somehow bred to be able to cross the Deadly Desert.  If so, the
horses that draw the gypsy wagons to the Fountains of Romany (mentioned in
FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN) might be somehow related to those ponies.

>(In most of her Oz books, RPT seemed to be considering Oz as definitely a
>world of its own, not part of the Great Outside World -- and a world,
>moreover, with room for at least one other large continent, in "Captain
>Salt.")

YANKEE has the title character suggest that Oz is on a level between Earth
and outer space, and there are some hints in the book that Thompson was
thinking along these lines while writing the story.

>An odd little question that might be asked, though, is Why? Wouldn't it be
>simpler and cheaper to steal (or even just plain buy) camels in the Asia of 
>this world to sell in America, or to steal Oz camels to sell in Oz-world
>markets?

If Ozian animals retain their immortality and resistance to disease while in
the Outside World, camels from Oz could easily be worth more money than ones
from Asia.

>The geography and staffing of the Tin Woodman's castle seems to have
>changed considerably. It would be easy enough for him to have hired Makebel

>Eva as castle keeper since the previous visits there in "Land," "Road,"
>"Emerald City," Patchwork Girl," "Tin Woodman," and "Hidden Valley." (RPT
>had mentioned the tin castle in "Gnome King," but "Enchanted Island" was
>the first time she'd set a scene there.)

It's also possible that Makebel had been working there all along, but just
was never in the foreground.  I don't think any members of the Tin Woodman's
castle staff are mentioned by name prior to ENCHANTED ISLAND.  Note that
Makebel does reappear in OZMAPOLITAN, although her name isn't provided
there.

Thompson also has David and Humpty observe how hard it is to look at the Tin
Castle in the daylight, which never seemed to be a problem to visitors in
the Baum and Cosgrove books.

Alan:
>RPT's use of Carroll seems to be more in the unpleasantness of the
>people her protagonists meet.  Even the pace of some
>of her books reminds me very much of THROUGH THE
>LOOKING GLASS: episodes of punning conversations
>linked by lightening fast travel.  ROYAL BOOK seems
>typical of this kind of influence on RPT; there's a
>lot more nonsense in it: the rolling road, the Pokes,
>even Sir Hokus as a derivative of the White Knight.

Dorothy also recites the first verse of "You Are Old, Father William," from
ALICE IN WONDERLAND.

There definitely seems to be some Carrollian influence on Sir Hokus, but I'd
say he also has a fair amount of Don Quixote in him.

As for Dismocolese, it's interesting that David realizes the dragon would be
afraid of the water.  Is the idea that water is dangerous to dragons
original with Thompson?  It seems to fit with Quox's statement in TIK-TOK
that dragons have fire inside them that keeps them alive, but I can't recall
ever seeing either of these ideas about dragons used outside the Oz books.
--
I'll still be right where you left me, if you manage to forget me,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 08:46:40 -0600
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] fabulous monstrosities

I said that another example of the use of the phrase Fabulous Monster. was
in Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest" about how Lady Bracknell
is a monster without being fabulous, which seems unfair -- but on second
thought I remember that he went for alliteration, and made it a complaint
that she was a monster without being a myth. So it's not quite the same
phrase.

Ruth Berman

Ruth Plumly Thompson, Dick Martin

Date: Wed, 8 Dec 2004 14:53:28 -0600
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] further islanding

Alan Wise <alanmacwise at yahoo.com> wrote:
> It's curious to me how often RPT did sound Carrollian in her Oz work, and
> yet I don't recall her ever naming it an an influence.  More obviously she
> used adventure tales, comics, the King Arthur legend as sources, sometimes 
> to the exclusion of the "Americanness" that made Oz so revolutionary.
> Baum, I know, admired Carroll's creation of Alice and used the model of
> forthright heroine in many of his books. <

Nathan noted the quotation in "Royal Book." The Carrollian material in RPT's
Oz books is mostly not obvious, but it does add up to a lot of stuff. She
had a lot of references to Carroll in her "For Boys and Girls" page on the
"Public Ledger," too, in the years before she started her Oz books.  For
instance, in one of the "Perhappys Chaps" poems (included in the "Sissajig
and other Surprises" collection), there's a line comparing the Perhappsy Cat
to the Cheshire Cat, and the "Book People" party story I reprinted in one of
my Dunkiton pamphlets included Alice among the party-guests..I keep thinking
that I should go through at some point and put this stuff together and write
a little article about it, but I haven't so far thought of a focus for what
such an article might have to say (beyond the simple -- "Hey, look at all
the Carroll references!").

> RPT's use of Carroll seems to be more in the unpleasantness of the people
> her protagonists meet.  Even the pace of some of her books reminds me very
> much of THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS: episodes of punning conversations
> linked by lightening fast travel.  ROYAL BOOK seems typical of this kind
> of influence on RPT; there's a lot more nonsense in it: the rolling road,
> the Pokes, even Sir Hokus as a derivative of the White Knight. As she
> continued writing the series, the more obvious echoes of Carroll seemed to 
> fade.  I wonder if she, when beginning her stint as Royal Historian, read
> through the Alice books for inspiration, then returned to it again when
> she returned to Oz.  >

I dunno if the change from more obvious to less echoes would hold (it
might?), but there are echoes all the way through. For instance, most of the
various underground kingdoms have a touch of Wonderland, especially Downtown
in "Hungry Tiger," but also a bit in the "Royal Book" Silver Islanders,
Garden of Gorba" in "Grampa," Snip's fall down the well taking him to
Blankenburg in "Lost King,"  Subterranea of "Yellow Knight," Handy Mandy's
ride down the inside of Wutz's mountain. (Although not particularly
Wonderlandish, I think, with the Delves of "Kabumpo," or the Torpedo Town of
"Purple Prince," maybe both of them more offshoots of the mining
dwarfs/goblins/gnomes/nomes of so much folklore and fiction.) Baum also has
Wonderlandish falls, for Dorothy in "Dorothy and the Wizard," and Duchess
Bredenbutta in "Mo"/"New Wonderland."

"Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
> I had actually forgotten that we had already chosen a starting date for
> ENCHANTED ISLAND.  I'll probably hold off on making any more original 
> posts about the book until then, although I'll still reply to other
> people's comments. >

The start-date hadn't actually been chosen -- choice between Dec. 1 & 15
might have been leaning to 15, but so far no one has said "Hey, wait up!" so
I think we can just as well be going on discussing.

> YANKEE has the title character suggest that Oz is on a level between Earth 
> and outer space, and there are some hints in the book that Thompson was
> thinking along these lines while writing the story.>

I don't think "Yankee" so much suggests that Oz is somewhere up in the sky
as follows the model of "The "Wizard" in assuming that if you go a long way
up and out you might come down anywhere. (Or are there some more specific
indications of height between ground-level and orbital level in "Yankee"?)
"Enchanted Island" is similar in having a character get from here to there
without known use of magic, but it doesn't have a variation in level -- 
Humpty's account of inside Oz to Nonestic onto a ship and across the ocean
to US would imply all at same level, I think.

> Humpty mentions that the bandits were riding "swift desert ponies."
> Perhaps they were somehow bred to be able to cross the Deadly Desert.  If
> so, the horses that draw the gypsy wagons to the Fountains of Romany
> (mentioned in FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN) might be somehow related to those
> ponies. <

Could be. I'd think some magic would have to go into the breed to let them
withstand the poisonous effects of the Desert (however not-quite-Deadly it
seems much of the time) and maybe to keep their sense of direction going
through the barrier of invisibility (assuming it's still in action, at least
to some extent, considering that some of the Oz books don't have travelers
noticing it at all). But presumably in Oz getting that amount of magic into
the breed would not be particularly difficult.

> Thompson also has David and Humpty observe how hard it is to look at the
> Tin Castle in the daylight, which never seemed to be a problem to visitors 
> in the Baum and Cosgrove books. >

Presumably that would vary a lot depending on the weather, the time of day,
the angle of approach, and maybe the time of year. I heard on the news a
couple of days ago that the new Los Angeles Philharmonic auditorium has been
generating a lot of complaints from drivers and pedestrians about blinding
brilliance, and the owners are getting together with the architect to see if
they can scratch it up enough to make it less blinding, while still keeping
some of the effect of shininess. The same architect also did the U of MN's
art museum a few years back, which is similar in looking as if the Tin
Woodman's castle had been transported to the U of MN (or, as some people
like to put it, An explosion in a tin can factory), but that hasn't
generated any complaints. (Well, except aesthetic complaints from people who
don't like tin can factory explosions. I like it a lot -- but, then, to me
it looks quite Ozzy.) But the location may be such that it isn't in position
to catch drivers or even pedestrians that much. It's high above some of the
traffic patterns, and across the river from the ones where it would be on a
level.

> As for Dismocolese, it's interesting that David realizes the dragon would
> be afraid of the water.  Is the idea that water is dangerous to dragons
> original with Thompson?  It seems to fit with Quox's statement in TIK-TOK
> that dragons have fire inside them that keeps them alive, but I can't
> recall ever seeing either of these ideas about dragons used outside the Oz 
> books. <

Does E. Nesbit have something similar in one of the stories in her "Book of
Dragons"? I don't remember for sure, but think she might. A somewhat similar
effect is in Poul Anderson's "Three Red Hearts and Three Red Lions," where
Holger creates a boiler explosion inside the dragon, killing it, by throwing
water down its throat.

Ruth Berman

Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 19:35:02 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net>
Subject: [Regalia] Thompson and Carroll

Baum, born in 1856, could have encountered ALICE IN WONDERLAND as a
child; it was published in 1865. In any event, he probably remembered
when the book was totally new and novel.

For Thompson, however, ALICE IN WONDERLAND was always an established
classic. She was born 26 years after its publication, meaning that it
might have been a book her parents remembered from their youth. Thus,
for a children's writer of Thompson's generation, to be influenced by
Carroll probably went without saying.

J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at earthlink.net

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 08:51:11 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: [Regalia] further islanding

Ruth:
>I dunno if the change from more obvious to less echoes would hold (it
>might?), but there are echoes all the way through. For instance, most of
>the various underground kingdoms have a touch of Wonderland, especially
>Downtown in "Hungry Tiger," but also a bit in the "Royal Book" Silver
>Islanders, Garden of Gorba" in "Grampa," Snip's fall down the well taking
>him to Blankenburg in "Lost King,"  Subterranea of "Yellow Knight," Handy
>Mandy's ride down the inside of Wutz's mountain.

I seem to recall there being a pretty direct Carroll reference in that scene
of LOST KING.  I don't have either that book or ALICE IN WONDERLAND with me
just now, but I believe both Alice and Snip thought something along the
lines of "After this, I shall think nothing of falling down stairs."

>>YANKEE has the title character suggest that Oz is on a level between Earth
>>and outer space, and there are some hints in the book that Thompson was 
>>thinking along these lines while writing the story.>
>
>I don't think "Yankee" so much suggests that Oz is somewhere up in the sky
>as follows the model of "The "Wizard" in assuming that if you go a long way
>up and out you might come down anywhere. (Or are there some more specific
>indications of height between ground-level and orbital level in "Yankee"?)

I think Yankee himself makes the suggestion early on in the book.  Maybe
around when he and Tompy reach the Welcome Well?  I don't recall exactly.  I
think there's also a mention of Jinnicky's Jinrikisha reaching the "other
level" on which the United States is located.

>"Enchanted Island" is similar in having a character get from here to there
>without known use of magic, but it doesn't have a variation in level -- 
>Humpty's account of inside Oz to Nonestic onto a ship and across the ocean
>to US would imply all at same level, I think.

I suppose you're referring to Humpty's account of how he reached the US,
rather than his return to Oz with David.  The latter obviously DID involve 
some magic, in the form of the wishing button, but we're never told exactly
how it works.  Humpty slides down a tunnel in a cave, and ends up in Oz. 
It's possible that this tunnel would not have led to Oz if David hadn't made
the wish.  Or perhaps it always leads there, but Humpty would probably have
never found it if it hadn't been for David's wish.

>>Thompson also has David and Humpty observe how hard it is to look at the
>>Tin Castle in the daylight, which never seemed to be a problem to visitors
>>in the Baum and Cosgrove books. >
>
>Presumably that would vary a lot depending on the weather, the time of day, 
>the angle of approach, and maybe the time of year.

I have to wonder in what time of year ENCHANTED ISLAND is supposed to take
place.  David's conversation with his grandmother reveals that it's still
"school term," and not yet summer.  A later reference, appearing when David
observes some flowers in the Winkie Country, mentions that it is "summer,
not fall."  When did school usually let out for the summer back when David
would have gone?  I'm inclined to think the story is set in late May or
early June, so that it wouldn't technically have been summer, but it would
have been close enough for summer flowers to have started blooming in our
world.
--
I'll still be right where you left me, if you manage to forget me,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 13:58:34 -0600
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at UMN.EDU>
Subject: [Regalia] more islanding

"J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net> wrote"
> Baum, born in 1856, could have encountered ALICE IN WONDERLAND as a child; 
> it was published in 1865. In any event, he probably remembered when the
> book was totally new and novel. For Thompson, however, ALICE IN WONDERLAND 
> was always an established classic. She was born 26 years after its
> publication, meaning that it might have been a book her parents remembered 
> from their youth. Thus, for a children's writer of Thompson's generation,
> to be influenced by Carroll probably went without saying. >

Perhaps that explains why the Carrollian influence seems to be stronger for
RPT than for Baum -- although there's definitely some Carrolling in both.

"Nathan Mulac DeHoff" xornom at hotmail.com wrote:
> I seem to recall there being a pretty direct Carroll reference in that
> scene of LOST KING.  I don't have either that book or ALICE IN WONDERLAND
> with me just now, but I believe both Alice and Snip thought something
> along the lines of "After this, I shall think nothing of falling down 
> stairs." >

Snip's wording isn't quite exactly that, as I recall, but close enough to
suggest that a memory of "Alice" was definitely in mind.

> Humpty's ... return to Oz with David ... obviously DID involve some magic, 
> in the form of the wishing button, but we're never told exactly how it
> works.  Humpty slides down a tunnel in a cave, and ends up in Oz.  It's
> possible that this tunnel would not have led to Oz if David hadn't made
> the wish.  Or perhaps it always leads there, but Humpty would probably
> have never found it if it hadn't been for David's wish.>

It's a bit like having Benny the statue break through the covering where
there'd been digging in the street and then landing in Oz in "Giant Horse."
Although it also reminds me of "Road to Oz," where there's a change
somewhere along the way from here to there, but the observers can't tell
exactly where it stopped being America and started being Ozworld.

> I have to wonder in what time of year ENCHANTED ISLAND is supposed to take 
> place.  David's conversation with his grandmother reveals that it's still
> "school term," and not yet summer.  A later reference, appearing when
> David observes some flowers in the Winkie Country, mentions that it is
> "summer, not fall."  When did school usually let out for the summer back
> when David would have gone?  I'm inclined to think the story is set in
> late May or early June, so that it wouldn't technically have been summer,
> but it would have been close enough for summer flowers to have started
> blooming in our world.<

Sounds plausible -- can't be fall, as he says it isn't; can't be winter, or
the circus would be in winter quarters in Baraboo and not parading down the
street. So it's spring, and, as you point out, late spring would do for both
school term and summer weather.

Ruth Berman

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 18:51:09 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
Subject: [Regalia] ENCHANTED ISLAND magic buttons

The wishing button is a somewhat interesting creation, but I do find myself
growing a little tired of the wishing magic cliche.  It seems kind of lazy 
in a way, since simply saying "this grants wishes" often seems to me "this
will do whatever it needs to in order to advance the story, without the
limits being clearly defined."  I would imagine that the wishing magic has
limited powers, or else anybody could use it to wish for anything.  It's
possible that the power of such items IS unlimited, and the characters just
don't think to use it for big things (there's certainly precedent for this
throughout the Oz series), but I prefer to think otherwise.  Tyler Jones
spoofed the amount of times wish-granting items show up in the post-Baum Oz
books in "A Generic Oz Story," and even Thompson herself seems to realize
she's placed a lot of them in Oz, what with her mention that "Glinda and the
Wizard of Oz were comparing notes on the many wishing devices scattered
throughout the realm" on p. 70.

Totter Off's suggestion that the second button is an un-wishing button, as
well as his knowledge as to how to make an unwish, suggests that he might
have some knowledge of magic.  Either that, or he's a very good guesser. 
The exact nature of an unwish is never made entirely clear.  It would seem 
that it would only be able to reverse wishes, but Totter's unwish that makes
the island spin around presumably isn't counteracting any previously made
wish.  Would any wish on the second button come true, provided it's spoken 
backwards?  And, if the third button is a birthday button, is the fourth an
un-birthday button?  Seriously, though, we never learn what the fourth
button is for.  This, together with the mention of David's possible return 
to Oz, makes the book cry out for a sequel.  I don't think Thompson was ever
planning on writing one, however, and copyright restrictions make the
publication of a sequel by other hands pretty much impossible (except
possibly as a short story in OZIANA).  Is the reference to Rupert "looking
thoughtfully up at the moon" suggesting that he might want to go there in a
later adventure?  If so, a story about him and David going there, where they
might very well encounter a certain Mr. Tinker, could be interesting.
--
I'll still be right where you left me, if you manage to forget me,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 11:03:15 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: [Regalia] YANKEE palace

J. L. Bell:
>There's a confusing and not totally explained separation of palace
>celebrities from Ozma. (Among those celebrities, incidentally, is Sir Hokus 
>[87]; even Thompson seems to have come to regret dispatching him to
>Corumbia.)

Along these same lines, ENCHANTED ISLAND has the Tin Woodman telling David
and Humpty that the Comfortable Camel lives in the Emerald City, even though
he also moved to Corumbia at the end of YELLOW KNIGHT.  Camy shows up in the
Emerald City in the last chapter, but it would actually make sense for him
to be there even if he still lives in Corumbia, since he might well have
been visiting for the Cowardly Lion's birthday party.  After all, the Lion 
was one of the the first Oz celebrities that Camy and Doubty met after
leaving Samandra.
--
I'll still be right where you left me, if you manage to forget me,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Sat, 08 Jan 2005 22:00:22 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
Subject: [Regalia] ENCHANTED ISLAND presents

Before moving on to FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN, I thought I would make one last
observation on ENCHANTED ISLAND that I don't think anyone else has made.  As
with Tompy in YANKEE, it seems to be quite easy for David to take things
back with him from Oz to the United States.  These things include a golden 
ship's model and a golden doorknob, in stark contrast to how Dorothy never
took any gold or jewels home with her.  Even Peter could only take "real"
gold and pearls to Philadelphia.  For that matter, the wishing button not
only ends up in Pennsylvania, but works perfectly there.  On the other hand,
Humpty seems to think flowers wouldn't survive the trip to the Great Outside
World.
--
I'll still be right where you left me, if you manage to forget me,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2005 22:51:04 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net>
Subject: [Regalia] ENCHANTED ISLAND influences?

As usual lately, I was behind in reading the Oz book under discussion,
and further behind on getting my thoughts together. So once again I'll
futz up the sequence by rushing out some comments when other people
might be finishing the next volume.

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
<<Dorothy Maryott's afterword suggests that Thompson had her own home in
Ardmore in mind when writing about David's grandmother's neighborhood.
Latch's Lane was an actual street in town, and Wister's Woods was named
after another street.  Since Ardmore was a stop on the railroad line
that I used to take into Pennsylvania for graduate classes, I wonder if
the railroad tracks mentioned by David's grandmother on p. 15 are the
same ones I used to ride on.>>

Ardmore is a "Main Line" suburb, right?

My edition of ENCHANTED ISLAND doesn't have an afterword about Aunt
Ruth. It sounds like she might have seen the grandmother as a stand-in
for herself, and David as like one of her great-nephews.

David must like writing since he has a "ball-point pen" in his pockets
[26--Trivia: Where does one obtain ball-point pens in Oz?] along with a
penknife [17] and flashlight [19]. He later picks up a pen in Kapurta
[67], and receives yet another at the big party [74]. You'd think David
was thirteen instead of eleven.

Does the afterword say what year (abouts) Thompson wrote this
manuscript? One reason I ask is that the Somewhere episode reminds me a
bit of Norton Juster's THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH, published in 1961. Many of
Thompson's places are apparently inspired by puns, never more so than
those in ENCHANTED ISLAND, but they rarely involve the sort of logical
musing that comes up Somewhere. In addition to the punning on the name
and concept of Somewhere, there are such touches as David and everybody
else not believing in dragons, so Dismo had to slink off there [20].

Other small resemblances: mathematics shapes the Somewhere flag, as it
does the lands beyond the tollbooth. Norton Juster had his Humbug;
Thompson offers the Bee Little, one of the relatively rare insect
creatures in the Oz series. It's not a very close resemblance, but
enough to make me wonder if Thompson was trying to keep up with trends
in absurdist fantasy.

Of course, Juster is more absurdist, and also more careful, than
Thompson. For example, she says that everyone in Somewhere is "Somebody
important"--and then creates a two-class society by giving some of those
somebodies "footmen" to wait on them [25]. And of course the pun of
being "Somewhere" isn't exactly right--we don't say, "I'm going London"
or "You'll find it Mexico."

J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at earthlink.net

Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2005 22:52:12 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net>
Subject: [Regalia] ENCHANTED ISLAND details

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
<<Here, we again see a circus used as a jumping-off place for an
adventure in Oz, but this time, there's a bit of a negative slant to the
circus, with Humpty describing the circus employees as "rogues" who
"[have] done nothing but grunt and screech at me.">>

Thompson also makes a point of Humpty having a "dark-skinned attendant"
[16]. Old ways of thinking die hard.

<and it's certainly shorter than any of the FF. As such, it feels a
little rushed in some ways.>>

Indeed, episode after episode involves David and Humpty simply rushing
away: from Dismo the dragon, from Dwindlebury (for some reason David
assumes that they must escape the park as they started shrinking--which
turns out to be true [32]), from the giant, from Dogwood. They never
seem to fight their way out, sneak their way out, con their way
out--they just run. I suppose they talk and charm their way out of
Lily's embraces, but even in that pleasant episode there's a definite
feeling of escape.

In the Oz Club edition of CAPTAIN SALT, the afterword speculates that
Thompson wrote that episodic book in hopes that it could be serialized
in JACK & JILL. Maybe she imagined ENCHANTED ISLAND the same way. Then
again, she might just have been running out of ideas for her
interstitial episodes.

<<It's interesting that Lily considers a camel to be a person, but not
the frogs who live in Lake Lily.>>

Frogs aren't so huggable.

<take place. David's conversation with his grandmother reveals that it's
still "school term," and not yet summer. A later reference, appearing
when David observes some flowers in the Winkie Country, mentions that it
is "summer, not fall." When did school usually let out for the summer
back when David would have gone? I'm inclined to think the story is set
in late May or early June, so that it wouldn't technically have been
summer, but it would have been close enough for summer flowers to have
started blooming in our world.>>

Several of Thompson's 1930s Oz books take place in May, as I recall.

However, Grandma says she's been "raking leaves" in the garden [15],
usually--though not always--a fall chore. And, unlike previous Thompson
heroes, David says he has to get back to play a winter sport, hockey
[36]. I suspect hockey became big in Philadelphia only when the Flyers
started playing well.

J. L. Bell                 
JnoLBell at earthlink.net

Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2005 22:52:53 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net>
Subject: [Regalia] ENCHANTED ISLAND wishfulness

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
<<The wishing button is a somewhat interesting creation, but I do find
myself growing a little tired of the wishing magic cliche.  It seems
kind of lazy in a way, since simply saying "this grants wishes" often 
seems to me "this will do whatever it needs to in order to advance the
story, without the limits being clearly defined.">>

E. Nesbit and her American acolyte Edward Eager wrote novels about
children discovering a coin that grants half a wish. But of course half
of infinite power is still infinite power. Those stories and others by
Nesbit are part of a long line of stories going back at least to King
Midas that are at least in part about the pitfalls of wishing--about how
even with the power to wish for anything people get themselves in trouble.

Thompson seems to try to echo that sort of lesson when she has Malacca
lecture Rupert on page 62: "Honor and possessions...without honest
effort, bring no happiness" [62]. But five pages later, David and Rupert
are as "proud as if they had built it [the magic fence they wished for]
with their own hands" [67]. So much for doing the hard work when you've
got a wishing device.

One weakness of those stories is that readers who've sampled a few know
what mistakes to avoid. Even the Nesbit and Eager children learn how to
work within their wishing coin's limits. And almost any child who's read
about a genie granting three wishes flirts with the idea of making one
of those wishes be even more wishes. (David Hulan's GLASS CAT addresses
this straight on, but even so his heroes are smart enough to wish for
knowledge of magic they can keep using past their third wish.)

There are some thematic ties to the Oz books in those wishing buttons.
When Malacca proclaims David "a wizard, a small and mighty magician"
[58], that echoes how Ozians greeted the Wizard, Dorothy, Cap'n Bill,
and Jam. Unlike those folks (but like Notta), David really has been
working magic. His decision to go home and give up the magic button and
his friendships in Oz also mirrors Dorothy's choice at the end of WIZARD
and OZMA.

A tightly written novel would offer clues about why the accidental
wishes work EVERY time they do. HIDDEN PRINCE does so, for instance. But
in ENCHANTED ISLAND that's almost the exception. There's no mention of
David touching the button on his collar when he first wishes about
Humpty [16]. (Nor, for that matter, do we know why he's so eager to "go
somewhere" with this camel, which leaves out a lot of potential
psychological depth.)

He undoes his collar when he wishes for the warm wind [40]. He's also
"Clutching the collar of his shirt" when he luckily wishes for the giant
to let Humpty go--but Thompson doesn't provide a reason for him to be
doing that then and not other times. Instead, we get a hint in an odd
place: Else's eyes rest on that button when she says David must be an
important person [21]. Else really should have no way of knowing, yet we
really should have a clue elsewhere.

(A tightly written novel would also not tell us David wrote "a ten-word
note" to his grandmother and then not show us what that note says [26].)

<<Totter Off's suggestion that the second button is an un-wishing
button, as well as his knowledge as to how to make an unwish, suggests
that he might have some knowledge of magic.  Either that, or he's a very
good guesser.  The exact nature of an unwish is never made entirely
clear.>>

Good points. The birthday button seems even more lucky [Rupert: "Do
whatever you do"--73], and even more tailored for the author's immediate
purpose. Indeed, this whole episode is clearly tacked on to provide
enough action to justify a visit to the Emerald City. David has already
enjoyed celebrations, new friends, presents--and then we do that all
over again so the Oz Club could publish the book.

Wishing, unwishing, birthday...unbirthday? There's a Carrollian
possibility. We indeed never learn what the fourth button is for, but
the Wizard uses "magic specs" to determine that it's benign [73].

J. L. Bell                 
JnoLBell at earthlink.net

Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2005 22:53:20 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net>
Subject: [Regalia] ENCHANTED ISLAND timing

Ken Shepherd's excellent chronologies cover only WIZARD and the Reilly &
Lee titles, so we're on our own for ENCHANTED ISLAND. The story covers a
very short timespan, but it's probably much too long for the Kapurtans.
I wonder if Thompson added another day to David's adventure when she
converted her manuscript into an Oz book.

Page 52 says King Rupert put Kapurta into the sky the night before David
met Humpty. The king loses his magic pearl wishing button almost
immediately, because page 15 says that David's grandmother found it in
her garden the morning of the Saturday he goes to the circus. (It also
says she forgot about it by the time she sewed David's collar, implying
she gets up much earlier than he does or has incipient short-term memory
loss.) That same morning, according to page 55, Totter sends the island
turning.

David and Humpty spend the rest of that day together, and then their
first night away from the US in Nick Chopper's castle--an obvious
interpolation of Ozziness. They don't reach the Winding Way that
deposits them on Kapurta until their second day of travel. Pages 57 and
65 imply that Kapurta has been spinning for one day. Technically, that's
correct since the island hasn't been spinning for two days. But it looks
like the Kapurtans ordeal has lasted at least twenty-four hours,
including what must have been a very dark night.

Also, if there was a problem with sheep falling off the island before it
started spinning [52], the Kapurtan economy (and the land below) must
take some real hits over the next twenty-four hours.

Even with the extra night in Oz, David arrives home at the same time as
the "daily paper" [77]. (Thompson, former newspaper editor, was still
loyal to the medium.) In the original manuscript, therefore, the
adventure could have taken just about 24 hours from the time Grandma
finds the button to when David returns. But when would that leave her
time to find his message in a bottle [77]? And indeed how did she find
that bottle if David threw it into the sea and she lives in suburban
Philadelphia?

J. L. Bell                 
JnoLBell at earthlink.net

Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2005 22:55:10 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net>
Subject: [Regalia] ENCHANTED ISLAND art

I recall someone commenting years back that when ENCHANTED ISLAND first
appeared, some people thought Dick Martin hadn't expended his usual
energy on illustrating the book.

Martin managed to use a lot of art twice. Every piece of the cover art,
front and back, also appears inside in a similar, if not identical, form.

He also seems to have saved time by rendering several silhouettes: on
the frontispiece and title page, then pages 25, 39, 47, 66. Some of
these work rather nicely (particularly David and Humpty under the
umbrella tree), but it still saved Martin time.

And there's not that much imagination evident in the art. Every time I
saw a detail I thought was imaginative, such as the ruffs on farmer John
B. Smell and his chicken [29] or the carved heads on David's four-poster
bed [63], that art turns out to have been drawn just as Thompson
described [29, 66]. He also managed to render Rupert's "conical castle"
[50, 59].

To be fair to Martin, this book is so short it offers less to
illustrate. One trick he used to make the book seem longer was blank
pages on the verso of a full-page illustration, as if those were plates
that had to be tipped in.

And there are a few nice images in Martin's late, loose style. I like
the art for "This Book Belongs," but isn't the book backwards? The image
on page 14 would probably make a fine bookmark. Maybe originally it was.

J. L. Bell                 
JnoLBell at earthlink.net

Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2005 14:59:05 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: [Regalia] ENCHANTED ISLAND details

J. L. Bell:
>(A tightly written novel would also not tell us David wrote "a ten-word
>note" to his grandmother and then not show us what that note says [26].)

I had supposed that it was the message that David thinks up on p. 19
("Carried off by a camel.  Home soon.  Letter follows."), but that's only
nine words long.  Maybe he added "Grandmother" to the beginning of this. 
Regardless, it's a typical Thompsonian bit of writing to say how many words
are in a particular note, speech, or sentence, but not what the words are. 
She does the same thing when Jinnicky is whispering to the title character
in JACK PUMPKINHEAD.  There's also something similar when Dorothy wishes on
Wish Way in ROYAL BOOK, but we DO learn what the words were that time.

>In the original manuscript, therefore, the adventure could have taken just
>about 24 hours from the time Grandma finds the button to when David
>returns. But when would that leave her time to find his message in a bottle 
>[77]? And indeed how did she find that bottle if David threw it into the
>sea and she lives in suburban Philadelphia?

The impression given by Else is that this is a bit of magic that always
works, even if there's no real reason for it to do so.  Where David's
grandmother finds the bottle is a mystery, though, since I don't think there
are any rivers that close to the Ardmore area.  The Schuylkill is a
significant distance to the north, and the Delaware to the west.  Maybe it 
was in a local pond or something.  I'm reminded of Thompson's story "The
Flask with the Golden Stopper," in which a flask thrown into the River Dee 
in Konodore ends up in the Delaware, where a Trenton boy finds it, but
Stephen Dower finds the flask while fishing, and I doubt David's grandmother
would have been doing anything like that.

>Ardmore is a "Main Line" suburb, right?

Yes, it is.

>David must like writing since he has a "ball-point pen" in his pockets
>[26--Trivia: Where does one obtain ball-point pens in Oz?] along with a
>penknife [17] and flashlight [19]. He later picks up a pen in Kapurta [67], 
>and receives yet another at the big party [74].

Speaking of writing, I thought it was a nice touch that Nick Chopper writes
his note to Makebel Eva on a tin memorandum pad with a pen knife.

>Does the afterword say what year (abouts) Thompson wrote this manuscript?

It says the story was written in the early fifties, and submitted to JACK
AND JILL in 1960 and 1962 (and rejected both times).  So it's unlikely there
was any Juster influence on the manuscript, unless that was added in when
she revised it for Oz Club publication.

>Several of Thompson's 1930s Oz books take place in May, as I recall.

I know COWARDLY LION and SILVER PRINCESS definitely do, and I'm probably
forgetting some others.  There's a reference to a maypole in JACK
PUMPKINHEAD, but I don't think there's any actual indication that it takes
place in May.
--
I'll still be right where you left me, if you manage to forget me,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2005 11:53:38 -0600
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] Somewhere Else

"Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com> and J. L. Bell: both wrote a good
deal on details of "Enchanted Island." Enjoyed both. I'd agree with Nathan
in doubting that Juster could have been an influence, in spite of the
resemblances. The Bee Little in Somewhere Else is something like Juster's
Humbug, but it's also like RPT's Dissatisfied Bug, taking Beren off to
Somewhere Else in "Marvelous Travels on a Wish." (This originally appeared
as a serial in her "Public Ledger" page, and was reprinted in an abridged
form much later in her collection "Wonder Book." Hungry Tiger Press
--

-- recently reprinted it as installments of
their "Tiger Tales" on their website.) Her earlier Somewhere Else is a much
less pleasant place than Else's kingdom, with a much more satiric view of
the folly of wishing to be there. (In both there's the idiomatic problem
John mentioned, that "I wish I were somewhere else" isn't quite exactly
parallel to the way you'd express a wish to be in or at a place.)
Incidentally, the earlier version has a lot of interesting political satire
on the then-current situation of a 3-party election going on, with the Bull
Moose party a serious contender. This side got left out of the book, but the
Hungry Tiger version has it.

I meant to start commenting on "Forbidden Fountain" today, but was away over
the weekend, and forgot that I set it out in a conpicuous place to pick up
when I got back, so -- of course! -- couldn't find it last night to start-
re-reading. But mulling it over this morning I'm pretty sure that I remember
now where I put it, so I should be able to start commenting tomorrow.

Ruth Berman

Date: Wed, 19 Jan 2005 10:45:40 -0600
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] wish-granting gizmos

"J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net> wrote (re: Nathan
DeHoff's comment that a wishing button like the one in "Enchanted Island" often seems
to him a gimmick to do whatever needs doing to advance the story, without the
limits being clearly defined)
> E. Nesbit and her American acolyte Edward Eager wrote novels about
> children discovering a coin that grants half a wish. But of course half of 
> infinite power is still infinite power. >

Eager wasn't quite that acolytely. Nesbit's "The Story of the Amulet" tells
how that group of children discover a half of an amulet. It doesn't grant
half-wishes, though. It grants wishes to go to different places and times,
thus allowing the children to search for the other half (and the whole
amulet will grant them their heart's desire). In "Half Magic" Eager
extrapolated from the idea of half an amulet to come up with the idea
(original with him, I think) of an item that would grant only half a wish.
Eager was very much intending to write Nesbit-like stories and did often
follow her lead very closely, as in "Knight's Castle" (the sequel to "Half
Magic") where the children augment their toy castle with a city built out of
things around the house and the castle-city complex comes to life, like the
city Philip builds in Nesbit's "Magic City." But Eager's imitativeness still
leaves room for a fair amount of originality.

> Wishing, unwishing, birthday...unbirthday? There's a Carrollian
> possibility. We indeed never learn what the fourth button is for, but the
> Wizard uses "magic specs" to determine that it's benign [73].
>

Possibly RPT wanted to leave herself a convenient opening for a sequel, in
case she found she felt like writing one later? Dunno if she might have had
unbrithdays in mind, but it sounds like a possibility she'd have enjoyed.

Ruth Berman

Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 19:32:13 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net>
Subject: [Regalia] Re: ENCHANTED ISLAND roots and branches

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
>>(A tightly written novel would also not tell us David wrote "a ten-word 
>>note" to his grandmother and then not show us what that note says [26].)
>
> I had supposed that it was the message that David thinks up on p. 19
> ("Carried off by a camel.  Home soon.  Letter follows."), but that's only
> nine words long.  Maybe he added "Grandmother" to the beginning of this. 

Or "David" at the end. But not, mathematically, both.

> Regardless, it's a typical Thompsonian bit of writing to say how many words
> are in a particular note, speech, or sentence, but not what the words are. 
> She does the same thing when Jinnicky is whispering to the title character 
> in JACK PUMPKINHEAD.  There's also something similar when Dorothy wishes on
> Wish Way in ROYAL BOOK, but we DO learn what the words were that time.

And she doesn't use the prophecy in GRAMPA to its best effect, either.

> Speaking of writing, I thought it was a nice touch that Nick Chopper writes
> his note to Makebel Eva on a tin memorandum pad with a pen knife.

Yeah, I liked that, too.

> It says the story was written in the early fifties, and submitted to JACK
> AND JILL in 1960 and 1962 (and rejected both times).

Thanks for the info! That indeed rules out a PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH
influence. And it makes it more likely that Thompson conceived of the
story as a serial, with a series of quick-paced adventures instead of a
defined quest (as in, say, KABUMPO).

Ruth Berman wrote:
> it's also like RPT's Dissatisfied Bug, taking Beren off to
> Somewhere Else in "Marvelous Travels on a Wish." (This originally appeared
> as a serial in her "Public Ledger" page, and was reprinted in an abridged
> form much later in her collection "Wonder Book." Hungry Tiger Press --
>

-- recently reprinted it as installments of installments of
> their "Tiger Tales" on their website.) Her earlier Somewhere Else is a much
> less pleasant place than Else's kingdom, with a much more satiric view of
> the folly of wishing to be there.
> Incidentally, the earlier version has a lot of interesting political satire
> on the then-current situation of a 3-party election going on, with the Bull
> Moose party a serious contender. This side got left out of the book, but the
> Hungry Tiger version has it.

And thanks for the info that Thompson had used some ENCHANTED ISLAND
motifs before--a long time before.

J. L. Bell                 
JnoLBell at earthlink.net

Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 19:35:15 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net>
Subject: [Regalia] Re: ENCHANTED ISLAND presents and presence

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
> Before moving on to FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN, I thought I would make one last
> observation on ENCHANTED ISLAND that I don't think anyone else has made.  As
> with Tompy in YANKEE, it seems to be quite easy for David to take things
> back with him from Oz to the United States.  These things include a golden
> ship's model and a golden doorknob, in stark contrast to how Dorothy never 
> took any gold or jewels home with her.

I think David gets especially loaded down with stuff because Thompson
felt a need to add a new climax to her non-Oz manuscript. Indeed, she
even gives him a briefcase embossed with his initials because he has so
many souvenirs to carry home. That comes on top of Thompson's more
liberal treatment of what American kids can bring home from Oz.

  > On the other hand,
  > Humpty seems to think flowers wouldn't survive the trip to the Great Outside
  > World.

He says, "they'd wilt and fade soon as you hit outer space on your way
home" [46]. So ENCHANTED ISLAND seems to follow the hints in YANKEE that
Oz is somewhere above the surface of Earth, beyond the atmosphere. And
Kapurta, oddly enough, above Oz--but also above metro Philadelphia.

I think Humpty's journey to Somewhere Else--with David's wish, their
first run together, the apparent "hours" in the tunnel, the launch out
of the tunnel like a ski jumper, and finally the touchdown "light as
feathers" [20]--has to be magical in some large part, prompted by
David's wish. In which case, it's not a reliable set of hints on where
Oz is geographically or cosmologically compared to Pennsylvania.

J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at earthlink.net

Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 20:36:55 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net>
Subject: [Regalia] ENCHANTED ISLAND echoes

Echoes of previous Oz books in ENCHANTED ISLAND:
* Thompson makes Humpty roll his eyes, like so many of her animals and
grotesques [18]. He combines the fawning devotion of the Comfortable
Camel with the blustery talkativeness of Kabumpo--even lying casually in
a way that leaves David "shocked" [30-1]. My favorite phrase from the 
book is Humpty's evaluation of Totter as "an old Wart of the first warter" [65].
* Jerry Giant grabs Humpty like a toy [40], as Crunch does to the
Cowardly Lion [does anyone accept the name "Cowy"?], the Bigwig girl to
the Hungry Tiger, and Nandywog to Kabumpo. Thompson seems to like the
idea of these big animals meeting someone much bigger.
* The Dwindlebury farmer is David's size [28], like Baum's original
Munchkins, but unlike most of Thompson's ordinary humans.
* Also like many Baum Ozians, that farmer's never seen the type of
animal accompanying the young hero [28]. (On the other hand, Malacca
Maloo of Kapurta knows the smell of camel [57] and admires Humpty's pelt
[58], but has never ridden one before [59].)
* Mrs. Sew and Sew makes an appearance--from GRAMPA? [70] (There's also
a seamstress in GNOME KING, and I sometimes mix them up.)

Among the differences between ENCHANTED ISLAND and most of the Oz series
is that Rupert's father Ibenurt (as in "I've been hurt"? "I'll be
inert?") has quite unOzzily died [50].

In his map for the book, James Haff puts Hah Hoh Humbad and its neighbor
Drumbad in the same corner of Munchkin country where Mudge is [13].
However, Lily has heard of Humpty's Shah from a "bluebird on his way
south" [35]--coming from the opposite direction from Hah Hoh Humbad.

The "rascally bandits riding swift desert ponies" who kidnap Humpty [19]
may therefore be Mudgers--they certainly have experience preying on
neighbors and capturing animals. Humpty says, "After a miserable trip, I
was...loaded aboard a vast vessel docked at a pier on the edge of the
Nonestic Ocean." He and the camel-nappers had to cross the Deadly Desert
somehow, so that trip could have been miserable indeed.

J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at earthlink.net

Date: Sat, 22 Jan 2005 20:39:12 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net>
Subject: [Regalia] ENCHANTED ISLAND overreading and underdressing

I know I was entering adolescence when I first read ENCHANTED ISLAND, a
time when boys stereotypically think of sex nearly all the time except
when they're thinking of sex, but I still think the book has more than
the usual Ozian hints of, well, sex.

In chapter 6, David and Humpty fall in Lily's lake. Thompson describes
the little water nymph's "glistening golden hair" and "lovely legs," but
not a word about her being covered by anything else [36]. Even if we
assume Lily's wearing some sort of clothing, Thompson is quite clear
about her appeal to David. Humpty teases the boy about being attracted,
and David, only eleven, "was so embarrassed by this question that he
dove under water and came up rosy-faced and dripping" [35-6].

In Rupert's castle there's a scene I've written of before, when "David
undressed slowly, examining himself carefully in the long mirror to be
see whether he had stretched back to the proper size and weight" after
shrinking in Dwindlebury [65]. A mirror can't tell him whether his whole
body has shrunk or grown together; it can only tell him how parts of his
body look in proportion to each other. And since David's wearing
"shorts" [40] and thus presumably a short-sleeved shirt, he can see his
limbs without undressing.

So what part(s) of his body is this boy "examining" to make sure "he had
stretched back"? And why, when he's feeling so comfortable with King
Rupert, does David bolt his bedroom door [67]? At the very least, in the
way she describes her hero's actions Thompson tacitly acknowledges (as
also when Speedy wraps a blanket around himself in SPEEDY) that boys
have body parts that their clothes and bedroom doors keep private. Baum,
who came of age in Victorian America, never hinted at such things.

Thompson may have been thinking about David undressing--at least a
bit--all along. He first takes off his loafers and socks in Somewhere
Else [26]. Thompson then neglects to tell us when he put them back on
before he strips them off again right after meeting Lily [40]. Perhaps
Thompson was planning the moment when David wishes these garments back
[65], and set the stage for that moment twice.

J. L. Bell                 
JnoLBell at earthlink.net

Date: Tue, 25 Jan 2005 15:56:23 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: [Regalia] ENCHANTED ISLAND and FORBIDDEN FOUNTAIN echoes

J. L. Bell:
>Among the differences between ENCHANTED ISLAND and most of the Oz series is 
>that Rupert's father Ibenurt (as in "I've been hurt"? "I'll be inert?") has 
>quite unOzzily died [50].

Yes, it's more common in the series for a prince's father to have abdicated
for some reason, as is the case with Randy's and Reddy's fathers.  I do find
it interesting how many Ozian royals seem to have only one living parent,
though.  Rupert, Randy, Reddy, Pretty Good, Gureeda, and even Ozma herself 
have fathers (whether actually appearing or simply mentioned), but no known
mothers.

>In his map for the book, James Haff puts Hah Hoh Humbad and its neighbor
>Drumbad in the same corner of Munchkin country where Mudge is [13].
>However, Lily has heard of Humpty's Shah from a "bluebird on his way south"
>[35]--coming from the opposite direction from Hah Hoh Humbad.

Humpty himself mentions that his old homeland is in the Munchkin Country,
however, so it's unlikely that the bluebird was coming directly from Humbad
anyway.  I think it's more likely that the bird was on its way BACK to
Humbad from some other place.

>The "rascally bandits riding swift desert ponies" who kidnap Humpty [19]
>may therefore be Mudgers--they certainly have experience preying on
>neighbors and capturing animals.

Quite possibly, although that raises the question as to how they got out of
Mudge proper without losing their heads.  Or was Humpty camel-napped BEFORE
Ozma and Glinda instituted this law in Mudge?
--
I'll still be right where you left me, if you manage to forget me,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org