Day 1 - Scarecrow departs EC in late evening
Day 2 - Scarecrow crosses Munchkin River; reaches beanpole late evening ("by
  the second evening"); slides down beanpole - Dorothy & Lion depart EC
  ("the morning after the party"); reach Scarecrow's tower (Winkie country)
  by mid-morning; night in front of Pokes
Day 3 - Scarecrow (Chang Wang Woe) resumes throne of the Silver Islands - Dorothy &
  Lion meet Sir Hokus; party meets Candy Giant; night in Fix City
Day 4 - Dorothy's party takes road from Fix City
Day 5 - Scarecrow defeats King of the Golden Islands ("Two days had passed") 
Day 6 - Dorothy's party meets the deaf shepherd ("on the second day" after
  leaving Fix City)
Day 7 - Return of Honorable Offspring ("the second morning after the great
  victory"); Scarecrow & Happy Toko chained to piller at night - Dorothy's
  party meets Comfortable Camel & Doubtful Dromedary ("for three days they
  had wandered"); reunited with Scarecrow
Day 8 - Abdication of Chang Wang Woe

Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1999 21:03:49 -0600
From: d.godwin at minn.net (David Frank Godwin)
Subject: Oz & RPT
 
Gehan wrote:
>I STRONGLY disagree with RPT for many reasons.She has cahnI don't see that
>as being any more difficult than how the Son of God, who
>existed before the creation of the world, could become a neonate who was
>raised by a Galilean carpenter. Not saying that I believe the latter,
>either, but billions of people have; Ozma could have had a very similar
>transition in her life.
ged the World of
>Oz which Baum created.
 
My idea is that RPT's books have to be approached as a separate body of
work from Baum's. That is, RPT's Oz is only loosely LFB's Oz. That doesn't
mean that her books aren't worth reading. I really enjoyed many of them.
But my chief complaints against her (other than Notta Bit More, whom I
place in the same shoot-on-sight category with Barney) is that she
"Europeanized" Baum's unique American fairyland, and sometimes she just
gets too silly for my tastes. I can't quite shake the feeling that, after
all, Oz is in the Great American Desert (on a different plane of reality,
if you like), the Pacific is the Nonestic, and California is Ev (on a
_very_ different plane of reality). The Nome King is lurking under Mt.
Shasta. Well, that's the _feel_ of the Baum books anyway, and RPT threw in
countless little dukedoms and principalities to make Oz into a Grimm-style
version of the Holy Roman Empire. This approach finally reached its climax
in the Neill books with dragons roaming the EC.
 
I heartily disliked _Royal Book_ (except for the cover), which I consider
outrageously non-canonical (not to mention the fact that it harshly
stereotypes the Chinese). _Cowardly Lion_ was a bad trip. But I really
liked some of the others, including _Silver Princess_ (despite its absurd
put-down-the-slave-revolt-'cause-ole-massa-is-a-good-guy scenario toward
the end). Nevertheless, this is RPT's Oz, not Baum's. I think the work of
almost all the FF authors - and non-FF authors as well, for that matter -
has to be read as being strictly self-referential and _not_ as a logical
development of LFB's works. Snow is the most faithful to Baum, but even he
committed the howler of emptying out the Nome King's tunnel. In other
words, non-Baum Oz books have to be appreciated (if at all) on their own,
not with reference to how well they align with LFB's vision. This is
especially true, IMHO, of Neill's books, which are almost OK on their own,
but can only cause prolonged shrieks of horror if you expect him to conform
to anything that has gone before. (Has anyone but me detected a strange
bathing-suit fetish in Neill's written work?) Incidentally, I like Jenny
Jump, but I hate her turn-style.
 
As far as canonicity is concerned, don't forget that the first few LFB
books contain enough contradictions to keep apologists (us) busy for years.
 
FWIW, I really did not like _Hidden Valley_, and I found Percy contrived
and obnoxious. The main effort at characterization seems to be to have him
address everyone as "kiddo" or "pal." But just think - a giant rat. Ish. I
had to ignore him as much as possible in order to appreciate _Wicked
Witch_. OTOH, I did like _Forbidden Fountain_ pretty well. The McGraws have
to be the best writers/novelists of the post-LFB Royal Historians. I didn't
much like the basic concept of _Merry Go Round_, and I didn't care much for
View Halloo, but the book was very well written and the ending was superb.
 
Royal Historians. Reminds me of the Poets Laureate of England. Some of them
wren't really very good poets. Same thing.
 
- David G.

Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1999 
From: d.godwin at minn.net (David G.)
Subject: Royal Book of Oz
 
****SPOILER _Royal Book_ and _Visitors_ SPOILER**** It states in _Royal Book_
that the Scarecrow "received the spirit of the Emperor Chang Wang Woe" when he
was placed on the magic bean stalk.

According to some, this is supposed to account for the fact that he, unlike
every other scarecrow in Oz, is alive. But WWiz plainly states that he first
became aware when the farmer painted an ear on the sack that was to become his
head and heard himself being discussed - a good while before he ever came near
the pole. Is this a case of possession, or what? Or could it simply be an
error on the part of RPT? Personally, I never cared at all for this tale of the
history of the Scarecrow for various reasons. Has anyone else ventured to
explain why he is alive, and other Ozzy scarecrows are not (ignoring _Royal
Book_)?
 
In the same scene in which this revelation takes place, the Scarecrow says,
"That accounts for my cleverness." But in every other instance before and
after, he attributes his cleverness to the brains given him by the Wizard and
it doesn't seem as if he would even consider any other alternative. (If we're
discussing Oz-as-literature, then we have to say, "Ah, it was her first Oz
book. Give her a break." But Oz-as-history requires a better explanation. He
was disoriented from his slide down the bean pole, right?)
 
I find it ironic, by the way, that Martin Gardner has Ku-Klip criticizing the
crazies in the U.S. who believe in "astrology, flying saucers, reincarnation,
and hundreds of other ridiculous things," when the Scarecrow (according to
_Royal Book_) represents an example of reincarnation. (In fact, Gardner's whole
book had an air of irony about it because of the unexploited tension between
the reality of Oz on the one hand and the appearance of several of Gardner's
hard-nosed skeptic buddies on the other.)
 
****end SPOILER****
 
David G,

Date: Mon, 8 Feb 99 10:19:33 CST
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: bookish royalty
 
David Godwin: Well, I'm typing this February 8, when the discussion of 
"Royal Book" was supposed to begin, so at this point I'll go back to 
your comments from January 3.  You "heartily disliked _Royal Book_" 
feeling it was "outrageously non-canonical (not to mention the fact that 
it harshly stereotypes the Chinese)."  You specified (January 15) that it 
was non-canonical in portraying the Scarecrow as having come alive 
when he was placed on the beanpole and the spirit of Chang Wang 
Woe took over the convenient body, whereas in "Wizard" the 
Scarecrow has memories of being constructed and painted, before he 
was put on the pole.  I don't think this discrepancy is serious enough 
to matter.  The Scarecrow, finding himself on the pole, and not 
remembering the Chang Wang Woe past, might have extrapolated a 
plausible background for himself which he then remembered as "real" 
memories.  Or, scarecrows in Oz may be sentient and self-aware but 
not interested in going exploring, and the addition of CWW to this 
particular Scarecrow may have been the factor that made him unlike 
the rest in asking a passerby for help.  Or, the characters' belief that 
the crocus spell succeeded in getting CWW reincarnated in the 
Scarecrow might be entirely mistaken, and their mistaken belief would 
not change any of the events in the story (except that if the Grand 
Gheewizard had succeeded in disenchanting the Scarecrow, he would 
have turned into some scattered hay and rags, not into CWW).
 
Secondarily, you pointed out the Scarecrow's "Royal" belief that his 
CWW past explains his cleverness is inconsistent with his belief 
otherwise that its his Wizard-made brains.  But actually, the Wizard at 
that time was a humbug, and the Scarecrow's belief that his wisdom 
came from the "bran-new brains" is mistaken, in any case.  He might 
temporarily be accepting the "correct" explanation (and then 
abandoning it again in later books for the explanation he's more used 
to), or he might be thinking that his cleverness must be a combined 
product of CWW & Wizard-work, and focusing for the moment on the 
one part of the combination.
 
I don't think the story really draws on harsh stereotypes.  If we have 
any Chinese or Chinese-descent people on the Digest, perhaps they 
may argue otherwise, but it seems to me that distinctions should be 
made between negative and positive stereotypes.  Even positive 
stereotypes cause some problems, but nothing like the kind of 
problems caused by negative ones.  And the stereotyped views of the 
Chinese used in "Royal Book" are largely positive (courteous, elegant, 
beautiful) -- the negative elements are either specific to a few 
individuals (the princes are treacherous and their kids are "dull," but 
non-royals like Happy Toko and the populace generally are loyal and 
open to new ideas) or are minor (the Scarecrow thinks Chinese 
cooking sounds unappetizing -- RPT evidently didn't know what he 
was missing!).
 
I think what I especially like in the book is RPT's picking up and 
dramatizing from such a different perspective Baum's interest in the 
paradoxes of what it means to be an individual person.  Instead of 
having different bodies competing for the same personhood (like the 
delightful paradoxes of "self" in the tin/flesh mix-ups of "Tin Woodman," 
or the spliced people in "Sky Island," or the confusion of heads 
represented in such characters as Languidere, Jack Pumpkinhead, or 
the Magical Monarch of Mo), she has one body getting a choice of 
character, as the Scarecrow tries to figures out "who I were," and 
finally realizes that defines himself by his actions, and an inherited 
identity doesn't particularly matter.  RPT is sometimes accused of 
having over-worked the plot of disenchanting someone under a spell, 
but here it's interesting to see that she's running that plot upsidedown 
and backward, as the Scarecrow resolutely refuses to be 
disenchanted -- and the three sons, who never were enchanted in the 
first place, turn out to have defined themselves by their treacherous 
actions as beings so inhuman, that the disenchantment-magic turns 
them into two pigs and a weasel as their "real" selves.
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 10:45:53 -0600
From: d.godwin at minn.net (David G.)
Subject: Oz
 
Ruth:
Thanks for your explanations of the apparent contradictions in _Royal
Book_. With all due respect, I would have to say that most of the
rationalizations that attempt to reconcile the Scarecrow's memories with
his animation by the spirit of Chang Wang Woe sound pretty lame. The only
one I might be provisionally willing to accept would be the one about his
having a sort of slug-like consciousness until said spirit came up the bean
pole. I would prefer to believe that the Silver Islanders were simply
mistaken, but then there's the bean pole to explain.
 
Another confusing element is that, strictly speaking, the Scarecrow was a
reincarnation or re-embodiment of the spirit of Chang Wang Woe and not a
transformation or enchantment. He is himself and not Chang Wang Woe under
some sort of spell. So why would a disenchantment have any effect?
 
BTW, the introduction of a knight in armor and of beasts common to Asia and
the Middle East would seem to me to argue in favor of the hypothesis that
RPT tried to "Europeanize," or at least de-Americanize, LFB's vision of Oz,
but it seems doubtful that everyone will ever agree on that one.
 
Another BTW: the Doubtful Dromedary seems to be the first in a long line of
RPT's devoted beasts (or fawning beasts, if you take a jaundiced view) - a
line that includes the Iffin, Terrybubble, etc. and finally reaches its
conclusion (?) only with the Flittermouse in the McGraws' _Merry-Go-Round_.
I'm not sure whether I find this charming or annoying; she seems to lay it
on a bit thick at times. In any case, it strikes me as slightly eccentric.
I can only conclude that RPT was definitely a "dog person" and not a "cat
person."
 
Back to _Royal Book_, I think what it boils down to is that, as a child, I
did not like this book and I don't like it now. I don't like the concept of
the bean pole going through the earth, I don't like the Silver Islanders, I
don't like the Doubtful Dromedary or the Comfortable Camel, and I don't
like the notion that the Scarecrow is a reincarnated emperor. Sir Hokus is
okay, but I don't like Pokes. And so on. Any reasons I could advance would
simply be an after-the-fact attempt to explain my (irrational?) feelings.
Of course, I am aware that not everyone shares my opinion, and that's
perfectly okay. However, from my viewpoint, I still have to consider _Royal
Book_ to be, to use Gehan's word, "un-fit."
 
- David G.

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1999 18:19:00 GMT
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-09-99
 
Ruth:
I pretty much agree with your comments on _Royal Book_. It's not one of my
favorite Thompsons - she was clearly still feeling her way into an overall
vision of Oz - but it's not one of the worst Oz books, either.
 
David Hulan

From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-11-99
Date: Fri, 12 Feb 1999 15:15:21 PST
 
David Godwin:
>With all due respect, I would have to say that most of the
>rationalizations that attempt to reconcile the Scarecrow's memories 
>with
>his animation by the spirit of Chang Wang Woe sound pretty lame. The 
>only
>one I might be provisionally willing to accept would be the one about 
>his
>having a sort of slug-like consciousness until said spirit came up
>the bean
>pole.
 
Judging from the cases of Benny and Humpy, it's likely that Thompson (in 
her Oz books, at least) considered inanimate objects to possess some 
sort of consciousness (a somewhat disturbing thought, when you think 
about it).  It's likely that Thompson thought that the Scarecrow had 
possessed a consciousness similar to that of the statue and the dummy 
before the spirit had entered him.
 
>Another confusing element is that, strictly speaking, the Scarecrow 
>was a
>reincarnation or re-embodiment of the spirit of Chang Wang Woe and
>not a
>transformation or enchantment. He is himself and not Chang Wang Woe 
>under
>some sort of spell. So why would a disenchantment have any effect?
 
Perhaps the Grand Gheewizard's "disenchantment" was actually a formula 
to restore a spirit to its last incarnation.  If so, this would suggest 
that the three Princes had been pigs and a weasel in their past lives.
 
>BTW, the introduction of a knight in armor and of beasts common to 
>Asia and
>the Middle East would seem to me to argue in favor of the hypothesis 
>that
>RPT tried to "Europeanize," or at least de-Americanize, LFB's vision 
>of Oz,
>but it seems doubtful that everyone will ever agree on that one.
 
I would tend to agree, but I don't necessarily see the 
"de-Americanization" as a bad thing.  Anyway, Baum introduced plenty of 
non-American elements himself.  When was the last time you saw a wild 
lion or tiger roaming through the States?
--
May you live in interesting times,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Mon, 15 Feb 99 09:33:03 CST
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: Animals of Oz
 
Nathan DeHoff: Sonia Brown (Oz fan and circus enthusiast) once 
suggested that both Baum and RPT chose most of their animals who 
are major characters from among the most popular circus-act animals.  
You do (or did, in the days when travelling circuses were more 
common) see animals of their favorite kinds roaming the streets of 
America when the circus parades through town.  (Or, of course, they 
might have been more familiar with them from zoos, but it seems 
plausible that circuses would have been at least part of the equation.)
 
David Godwin: RPT had a lot of devoted beasts, but she didn't really 
start the tradition of such characters in Oz -- Baum had Toto, 
Cowardly Lion, Hungry Tiger, Hank, et al.  He and RPT both seem to 
have preferred dogs to cats (in spite of their fondness for Big Cats).
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Mon, 15 Feb 1999 12:30:33 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com>
Subject: ROYAL BOOK OF OZ taken out of library
 
Thanks, Ruth Berman and David Godwin, for starting our ROYAL BOOK
discussion on a high level. David wrote: <<the introduction of a knight in
armor and of beasts common to Asia and the Middle East would seem to me to
argue in favor of the hypothesis that RPT tried to "Europeanize," or at
least de-Americanize, LFB's vision of Oz>>. 

  To which Nathan DeHoff replied: <<Baum introduced plenty of non-American
elements himself.  When was the last time you saw a wild lion or tiger
roaming through the States?>>
 
A good point, but lions and tigers come from nature, not culture. For
artifacts, Baum rarely borrowed things for Oz which American children
couldn't see around their homes: scarecrows, china figures, phonographs,
teddy bears, balloons, cooking utensils. His warriors wore not medieval
armor but 19th-century dress uniforms. 

  In contrast, Thompson builds her story around things an American child is
likely to see only in other storybooks: a knight in shining armor,
pack-laden camels, a Mandarin court. Furthermore, she states the links
between these things and the contexts from which she borrowed them. She
compares the Silver Islanders to "the pictures of some Chinamen...in one of
Dorothy's books" [49]. Dorothy treats Sir Hokus "exactly as she had read in
books" [83]. [Dorothy has also read Lewis Carroll--239.] Compare this
attitude to how Baum told us to treat old stories skeptically in SEA
FAIRIES and "The Witchcraft of Mary-Marie." 

  I read ROYAL BOOK as implying that Sir Hokus and the camels actually came
from the Outside World. The knight says he was transported to Pokes
"centuries ago," when knights dominated Europe, and has no knowledge of Oz
[80]. The camels never spoke to humans before, as Oz animals normally do
[221]. In YELLOW KNIGHT Thompson works hard to provide another explanation
of these oddities. In the absence of that later information, however,
readers would deduce that Sir Hokus is truly from medieval Europe and the
camels from the contemporary Near East. 

  Thompson's originality came not from inventing societies as novel as
Baum's Mangaboos, Herku, and Flatheads, but from how she plays with
standard literary settings. I don't think she set out to introduce European
traditions into the series, but Old World fairy tales were the foundation
of her storytelling. ROYAL BOOK definitely starts a "Eurasianization" of
Oz.
 
Ruth Berman wrote about ROYAL BOOK:
<<I don't think the story really draws on harsh stereotypes.  If we have
any Chinese or Chinese-descent people on the Digest, perhaps they may argue
otherwise, but...the stereotyped views of the Chinese used in "Royal Book"
are largely positive (courteous, elegant, beautiful) -- the negative
elements are either specific to a few individuals [or] minor (the Scarecrow
thinks Chinese cooking sounds unappetizing -- RPT evidently didn't know
what he was missing!).>>
 
I agree that Thompson's use of Chinese stereotypes is far from uniformly
negative. A few traits she highlights would probably rub sore nerves among
Chinese-Americans, however. Cutting queues was one way Euro-American
rowdies tormented Chinese immigrants [105]. And it's not just that <<the
Scarecrow thinks Chinese cooking sounds unappetizing>>--Thompson tries to
gross out her American readers by showing the Silver Islanders eating
household pets [139]. But what probably caused the most worry for Peter
Glassman are the inhumanly slanted eyes in Neill's drawings of all the
Silver Islanders. 

  Ironically, the Emperor's serious and studious grandchildren resemble a
current stereotype that I'm not sure was widespread in 1921: the "model
minority" student of Asian origin. The scene of the Scarecrow meeting those
children reminded me so much of THE KING & I that I wondered whether
Thompson may have been influenced by ANNA & THE KING OF SIAM. I haven't
been able to find when that book was published.

  Last year Gordon Birrell made a very interesting connection I hadn't seen
before: the fairyland on the other side of the Earth from Oz in TIK-TOK
<<is so clearly marked with Oriental characteristics:  the Jinjin, the
dragon motif, the name Ti-ti-ti-Hoochoo. . . . (Thompson was doing
something similar in _Royal Book_.)>> Indeed, "here be dragons" in the
Silver Islands, too. In contrast to Baum's subtle links, however, Thompson
explicitly ties her land to China. 

  One important aspect of the Silver Islands reminds me not so much of
China, however, as of Tibet. Waiting for a ruler to come back in a new
body, recognizing that ruler by his traits and unexplained knowledge (in
this case, the Scarecrow's voice and innate use of the language
[49-50])--those seem to mirror how Tibetan lamas look for the rebirth of
their rulers' souls. I see Nathan DeHoff picked up on Buddhist beliefs by
writing: <<Perhaps the Grand Gheewizard's "disenchantment" was actually a
formula to restore a spirit to its last incarnation.  If so, this would
suggest that the three Princes had been pigs and a weasel in their past
lives.>> (And David Godwin mused about applying the same ideas to Ozma.)
 
David Godwin wrote:
<<the Doubtful Dromedary seems to be the first in a long line of RPT's
devoted beasts >>
 
I doubt it. But only because I think you mean the Comfortable Camel, who's
much more vocally devoted to his Karwan Bashi. Wasn't it nice when the most
devoted animal in Oz, Toto, was also the most taciturn? 

  I realized as I read ROYAL BOOK this time that Neill drew the Dromedary
larger than the Camel, and I'd always thought of them the other way around.
In the plate opposite 191 (Books of Wonder edition), doesn't the Camel have
a more dubious expression and the Dromedary a more comfortable one?
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Thu, 18 Feb 1999 15:52:48 GMT
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-11 & 2/14-99
 
2/11:
David G.:
>BTW, the introduction of a knight in armor and of beasts common to Asia and
>the Middle East would seem to me to argue in favor of the hypothesis that
>RPT tried to "Europeanize," or at least de-Americanize, LFB's vision of Oz,
>but it seems doubtful that everyone will ever agree on that one.
 
Well, the first wild animal we meet in Oz is an African lion. Beyond that,
we never, in any of Baum's books, meet a wild animal of a species that's
definitely native to the United States. No bison, no cougars, no black
bears (bears, but probably brown ones of the species that's found in
Eurasia as well), no pronghorns, no moose, no prairie dogs, no bighorn
sheep. It's true that jaguars have occasionally been spotted in the
southern tip of Texas, but they're primarily from south of the border.
 
On the other hand, we meet (or hear about) a lion, a tiger (maybe two,
depending on whether the tiger who appeals to the lion in _Wizard_ is
actually the Hungry Tiger or not), two kangaroos, a zebra, a leopard, a
gray ape (what species I don't know; there aren't any apes that are
normally gray), a giraffe, a wild boar, and a chimpanzee - if I haven't
forgotten any - none of which could be from the US. Then there are animals
that are found in the US but also elsewhere - rabbits, wolves, crows,
bears, etc.
 
Oddly enough, there _are_ wild camels in the US, down in the southwestern
desert (I forget if it's Arizona or New Mexico, or maybe both); they were
imported in the 19th century as an experiment for army transport in that
region, and later were released and were able to survive and breed on their
own. There aren't a lot of them - there may not be any by now - but they
were definitely there in 1921. Not, of course, that Camy and Doubty were
wild camels; they clearly were part of a caravan.
 
The knight in armor I'll give you as European, but no more so than the
descriptions of the soldiers in _Magic_ or the royal court of Bunnybury.
 
>Another BTW: the Doubtful Dromedary seems to be the first in a long line of
>RPT's devoted beasts (or fawning beasts, if you take a jaundiced view) - a
>line that includes the Iffin, Terrybubble, etc. and finally reaches its
>conclusion (?) only with the Flittermouse in the McGraws' _Merry-Go-Round_.
>I'm not sure whether I find this charming or annoying; she seems to lay it
>on a bit thick at times.
 
I think the Comfortable Camel is more of the fawning beast than the
Doubtful Dromedary, but you do make an interesting point. Thompson did a
better job with her animal characters who were at least somewhat acerbic in
personality - Kabumpo, Wag, Pansy, Chalk, Pigasus, Roger, etc. Though I
still like Terrybubble. But Camy, Bill, the Iffin, Nikobo, and others of
their ilk do detract from the books they're in. As to whether Thompson was
more of a dog person, that's hard to say. The only dog character she uses
is Toto, and he doesn't do anything but get Dorothy lost in _Grampa_ as far
as I recall. OTOH, Pansy the Watch Cat in _Speedy_ is one of her best
animal characters for my money, though the cats of Catty Corners are a
nasty lot.
 
David Hulan

Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1999 00:27:43 GMT
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Royal Book of Oz
 
I did make some notes on the BCF as I reread it, and since there hasn't
been a Digest since I posted my response to the last two and I have a
little time on my hands, I thought I'd add a second post discussing them.
 
The endpapers (of the BoW edition, which I assume are the same as in the
1st) provide an interesting challenge: name those characters! Most are
pretty clear, but there are a few that I'm not sure about. I'm guessing the
cat on the left is Eureka and the one on the right is Bungle, because the
latter looks more glassy, but I can't say for sure. The only owl I can
remember through the first 15 books is the Foolish Owl in PG, but the owl
on the endpapers doesn't look much like the FO as Neill drew her
previously. I'm guessing the plump-faced kid behind Cap'n Bill is
Button-Bright, though it doesn't look like any other illustration of him
Neill did. The character peering over the Wizard's shoulder is a Skeezer;
I'd assume Ervic, but I wouldn't bet on it. And is that Reera behind him in
a hat resembling a chef's toque? She wore that kind of hat in one of her
guises, so that's my guess. I suppose the bear on the far left is Bru, but
maybe it's Dyna's blue bearskin? And the simian to the right of the owl I
guess is Rango. But who's the horse in the right foreground? I thought
there weren't any known real horses in Oz between the time of Jim's
departure at the end of _DotWiz_ and the discovery of Highboy (if you want
to call him a real horse) in _Giant Horse_, or (if you don't) the horses of
the barons in _Jack Pumpkinhead_. Am I forgetting one, or did Neill just
decide to stick a horse in the picture because he wanted to draw a horse?
And does anyone have any idea who the bald man in glasses between the Nome
King and Jack Pumpkinhead might be?
 
I did note that this book marks the first (and for all I know the only)
reference to the Ozian continent as the Continent of Imagination.
 
I didn't find that the Scarecrow's motivation was very plausible. He'd
never cared about the Professor's opinions before, and several of the other
celebrities present (Scraps, Tik-Tok, Jack Pumpkinhead for three) had no
more lineage than he did. Why did he suddenly start worrying about who he
were? I suppose you could say that it was a matter of magic at work;
something had to get him to the Silver Islands on the 50th anniversary of
Chang Wang Woe's enchantment, so if it hadn't been for the Royal Book some
other mental itch would have sent him back to the beanpole.
 
I don't understand the statement on page 27 that there isn't a ferry in the
kingdom. There was certainly one in _Land_, and one in _Lost Princess_.
Others turn up in other books as well, I believe. (Certainly in
_Merry-Go-Round_, but I think there were others, though I don't recall one
for sure besides the two I mentioned.)
 
One wonders how the A-B-Sea Serpent managed to have five
great-grandmothers. Most beings have four at most. Unless he's counting
step-parents. (By that standard my daughter has had six grandmothers at
some point in her life, with more than twice that many great-grandmothers.
Besides her two "natural" grandmothers there were the mothers of her
mother's second and third husbands and my second wife's mother and
stepmother. And my mother, at least, had her own mother and a stepmother;
I'm not sure about the rest.)
 
The first time I heard the Flanders & Swann song "The Hippopotamus," with
its chorus of "Mud, mud, glorious mud," I was strongly reminded of the
Middlings' national air.
 
Dorothy obviously didn't know much about King Arthur or she'd have known
Sir Hokus hadn't served him. If King Arthur existed at all it was somewhere
in the fifth or sixth century, and plate armor didn't come in until around
the thirteenth, IIRC. Certainly not until well after Arthur's time. Aside
from that, he'd have spoken an archaic form of Welsh, or possibly a form of
Latin - certainly not anything intelligible to someone whose only language
was English. (Of course, we find out in _Yellow Knight_ that it wasn't King
Arthur, but I won't say more than that here.)
 
Is my memory failing me, or did early editions of RB have a typo on page
90, where the Poke vendor handed Dorothy a "comb" instead of a "cone"? I
suppose I could look it up in Bib Oz - it sounds like the sort of thing
that would be an identification point - but Bib Oz is downstairs and it's
easier for me to Ask The Experts. I just remember being puzzled over eating
a comb when I read the book when I was 8 or so, and that was very likely a
1st edition. (The older son of the lady I borrowed them from would have
been 7 when RB came out, which is probably about the time she started
buying them as soon as they appeared. I'm sure the book hadn't been on sale
more than a year by the time she bought it, so it could still have been a
1st easily enough.)
 
The statement that the Scarecrow returned on the 50th anniversary of the
enchantment of Chang Wang Woe is a bit puzzling; it would seem to imply
that _Royal Book_ takes place 50 years after _Wizard_. Either (a) the
beanpole stood in the cornfield untouched for nearly 30 years; (b) the
Scarecrow hung on the beanpole for about 30 years before Dorothy happened
upon him; (c) _Wizard_ took place in the 1870s (highly unlikely, since
_Emerald City_ can't have taken place before 1900 or so because of a
reference to Marconi, and Dorothy's age presents a problem with even 6
years between _Wizard_ and EC); or (d) some combination of the three.
Unless somebody has another idea?
 
The Scarecrow overrates his brains, I think - the use of the fan to defeat
the invaders was a matter of luck, not brains. (But then the Scarecrow
often overrates his brains.)
 
Other than "because it makes for a better story," why on earth should a
"fine wide road", with nothing but Pokes at the end of it, degenerate into
a mere track before it gets somewhere else? If people had lived along the
part of the road nearest Pokes then I can see a point in the road being
good until it got past them and then deteriorating, but when no one lives
along a road then it should decay into a track along its whole length at
about the same rate. Anybody have any ideas?
 
It's interesting that Sir Hokus's sword snaps off at the hilt on page 155,
but yet he has a sword to kill the dragon with on page 257, with no mention
of acquiring a new one. Possibly there was one in one of the camels' packs?
(Or more likely, sloppy copyediting...)
 
The statement by King Fix Sit that "furniture lasts longer than people" is
true for our world, but it shouldn't be true for Oz. This is, in fact,
another bit of evidence that the immortality aspect of Lurline's
enchantment hadn't been in effect long enough for people to have noticed it
much. Even Dorothy (or Little With D) agrees with the statement, so it
can't have become very ingrained in her way of thinking.
 
I feel rather sorry for the dragon that Hokus slew. It wasn't doing any harm.
 
Does anyone else think that Princess Orange Blossom bears a striking
resemblance to the Six Snubnosed Princesses in _Sky Island_? (The
illustration, I mean.)
 
Well, those are my comments. Maybe they'll stimulate some discussion. As
I've said, I don't think this is one of Thompson's better books, but it's
not one of her worst, either. I'd put it about on a par with _Gnome King_,
_Giant Horse_, _Jack Pumpkinhead_, and _Pirates_; better than _Cowardly
Lion_, _Grampa_, or _Ozoplaning_; worse than the rest. About a 5 on a scale
of 1 to 10 among FF books, where 1 is _Wonder City_ or _Scalawagons_ and 10
is _Ozma_, _Lost Princess_, _Speedy_, or _Wishing Horse_.
 
David Hulan

From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-20-99
Date: Fri, 19 Feb 1999 20:15:25 PST
 
David Hulan:
>As to whether Thompson was
>more of a dog person, that's hard to say. The only dog character she 
>uses
>is Toto, and he doesn't do anything but get Dorothy lost in _Grampa_ 
>as far
>as I recall.
 
It's not part of the FF, but Thompson's _Yankee_ uses a dog as a main 
character.  Personally, I didn't care much for Yankee (I don't think Oz 
needs a protagonist who refers to Ozma as "a doll"), but Thompson gave 
him a fairly heroic role.  Incidentally, I believe that Yankee is named 
after a pet of Thompson herself.
 
>OTOH, Pansy the Watch Cat in _Speedy_ is one of her best
>animal characters for my money, though the cats of Catty Corners are >a 
nasty lot.
 
While I'm on the subject of Thompson's non-FF Oz books, I'll mention 
that the colony of dogs in _Enchanted Island_ wasn't much friendlier 
than Catty Corners.  (Actually, the dogs seemed to have something in 
common with _Lucky Bucky_'s Dollfins.)
 
>I did note that this book marks the first (and for all I know the 
>only)
>reference to the Ozian continent as the Continent of Imagination.
 
In _Pirates_, Roger refers to the Ozian world as "Imagi-Nation."  That's 
not exactly the same thing, though.
 
>I don't understand the statement on page 27 that there isn't a ferry 
>in the
>kingdom. There was certainly one in _Land_, and one in _Lost 
>Princess_.
>Others turn up in other books as well, I believe. (Certainly in
>_Merry-Go-Round_, but I think there were others, though I don't >recall 
one
>for sure besides the two I mentioned.)
 
There was one in _Wishing Horse_, too.  He took Dorothy and Pigasus 
across the Winkie River.
--
May you live in interesting times,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1999 14:52:52 -0600
From: d.godwin at minn.net (David F. Godwin)
Subject: Oz things
 
Ruth Berman wrote:
>RPT had a lot of devoted beasts, but she didn't really
>start the tradition of such characters in Oz -- Baum had Toto,
>Cowardly Lion, Hungry Tiger, Hank, et al.
 
Yes, but Toto, the CL and HT, etc. were devoted in action and did not go
out of their way to verbalize their loyalty. I seem to remember several of
RPT's animal companions saying things like, "I dote on you" (right out of
_Midsummer Night's Dream_, BTW). I don't think any of Baum's creatures
spoke in any such demonstrative (cloying) fashion. I brought up the dog/cat
thing because, if dogs in our world could talk, they might indeed say, "I
dote on you." (Toto has the restraint not to do so.) No cat would ever be
caught dead saying any such thing.
 
And yes, of course I did mean the Comfortable Camel rather than the
Doubtful Dromedary. Documented proof that I can type faster than I can
think.
 
Earlier, Ruth wrote (conerning the Silver Islanders):
<I don't think the story really draws on harsh stereotypes.
 
A stereotype doesn't have to be harsh to be demeaning. The most familiar
example is the notion that all blacks love watermelon, have a good sense of
rhythm, and are laid back, easy-going, etc.
 
Knights and camels and dromedaries, oh my!:
Nathan DeHoff said:
>Baum introduced plenty of non-American
>elements himself.  When was the last time you saw a wild lion or tiger
>roaming through the States?
 
Well, not roaming around, but I've seen my share in zoos, circuses, etc.
Not to mention David Hulan's >two kangaroos, a zebra, a leopard, a
>gray ape..., a giraffe, a wild boar, and a chimpanzee<. I've seen camels
>and dromedaries in zoos as well, but not fully caparisoned and ready for
>duty. I suppose I've seen knights in armor, too, at the Renaissance Fair,
>but such fairs didn't exist at the time of _Royal Book_. Besides, at the
>time Dorothy et al. encountered the CL, they were in a primitive forest
>all too likely to be inhabited by dangerous carnivores. Not exceptionally
>American, I grant you, but not exceptionally medieval European or
>Levantine, either. I can recall that when I was a small child, it was
>entirely plausible to me that any stretch of woods, including even the
>overgrown vacant lot behind our house, was liable to be infested with
>lions and tigers and bears. But not camels. My point is that lions and
>tigers may not be American animals. but they are still powerful images in
>the minds of American children.
 
When driving to work early one morning some 25 years ago, I did see an
elephant (gray, not pink) running across the freeway some distance ahead.
 
David Hulan wrote:
>Other than "because it makes for a better story," why on earth should a
>"fine wide road", with nothing but Pokes at the end of it, degenerate into
>a mere track before it gets somewhere else?
 
The question is, what's at the other end of the road? Judging from the
Haff/Martin map, it might lead to Sun Top Mountain. Perhaps construction
began on the road during a previous administration (Pastoria? The Wizard?)
but was later forgotten and abandoned. OTOH, roads in Oz, particularly
RPT's Oz, seem to have a random and arbitrary nature that defies
explanation and logic. At least one of them gets up and runs around.
 
Personally, I am - disturbed, shall we say? - by the storm that caused
Dorothy and the CL to stray into Pokes in the first place. Such weather is
so rare in Oz that I expected some sort of explanation for its special
occurrence, but none was forthcoming. I can't recall any other such storm
in the FF, unless it was that house-dropping cyclone.
 
- David G.

Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1999 22:45:03 -0500
From: Tyler Jones <tnj at compuserve.com>
Subject: Oz
 
American and European Oz:
Tigers abound in Asia, Lions roam the wilds of Africa and Kangaroos hop all
through Australia. Oz is truly of all parts of this world, with the
possible exception of Antarctica.
 
David Hulan:
If I read the book correctly, you "fine and wide" road appears in the
chapter "Sir Hokus Overcometh the Giant". As our friends leave Pokes, the
road is indeed fine and wide. After a while, the road peters out into a
little track in the forest. Let me ponder.. Okay, I've got a theory :-)
 
A long time ago, Pokes was a relatively normal town. They wanted to build a
road through the forest, possibly to link up with Perhaps City or the
Emerald City. They built the road up to the forest, following an old animal
trail, then something happened. The people of Pokes retired into their city
and were no longer interested in the outside. This may have had something
to do with the enchantment of Sir Hokus.
 
The road stayed, but never reached past the forest.
 
There is indeed a similarity between Orange Blosson and the Snubnosed
Princesses.
 
Tyler Jones

Date: Mon, 22 Feb 1999 17:19:13 GMT
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-20-99
 
Ruth:
I'd think that the contemporary readers of the Oz books would have been
more likely to have seen circus animals than ones in zoos. Zoos were (and
are) usually only found in good-sized cities; I think there are very few in
cities under 100,000, and not many in cities under 500,000. And I know, as
a bit of trivia I remember from my own elementary school days, that in 1940
there were only 101 cities of over 100,000 population in the country. In
1920 there were probably still fewer.
 
Circuses, on the other hand, played in quite small towns even when I was a
child in the '40s; there were usually two or three circuses a year that
would come to the towns where I lived - none of which was bigger than
15,000. Even farm kids in most of the country lived close enough to a town
big enough for a circus to have seen one. (Maybe not out in the Great
Plains, but then not very many people lived there, either - and I expect a
smaller fraction of them bought Oz books than in more populous areas as
well.)
 
J.L.:
>  I realized as I read ROYAL BOOK this time that Neill drew the Dromedary
>larger than the Camel, and I'd always thought of them the other way around.
>In the plate opposite 191 (Books of Wonder edition), doesn't the Camel have
>a more dubious expression and the Dromedary a more comfortable one?
 
Actually, I think here we have a case of Neill mistaking the meaning of the
word "dromedary." While technically it applies to the single-humped camel,
popular usage back in the early part of the century apparently applied it
to the two-humped Bactrian camel. I know I can remember animal books I had
as a kid making a big point that dromedaries have only one hump, with the
kind of emphasis that indicated that a lot of people thought the reverse.
(Something like seeing an error in usage of some sort pointed out in an
English book; if it's pointed out it's a safe bet that some people
somewhere tend to make that error. Of course, some "errors," like splitting
infinitives or ending sentences with prepositions, are so common that
objecting to them is really pedantry. But you don't see books telling you
not to say "her have went," because no native speaker of English is ever
going to use a construction like that except as a joke.) I base this partly
on the fact that the caption says "The Comfortable Camel and the Doubtful
Dromedary" and the single-humped camel is on the left, and partly on the
fact that when Camy shows up again in _Yellow Knight_ Neill draws him with
one hump.
 
David Hulan

Date: Tue, 23 Feb 99 09:54:45 CST
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: Anna and the King of Silverislands
 
J.L. Bell: Interesting comments on RPT's use of European and Oriental 
motifs.  The comment on the Silver Islands compared to the Oriental 
motifs of Baum's version of the far side of the (Ozian_ globe -- RPT 
was probably drawing to some extent on the notion of China as the 
place you could get to if you dug a hole straight through the Earth 
(you couldn't, not starting from a place in the northern hemisphere, 
but it was a common idea).  But I don't think her Silver Islands are on 
the far side of the Ozian globe -- the whole story seems to be taking 
place in an immense underground cavern (perhaps comparable in size 
to the kingdoms underground in "Dorothy and the Wizard").  (Speaking 
of Gordon Birrell, I miss him.)  Also interesting comparison of 
Scarecrow with the little princes to "The King and I."  Certainly, RPT 
could have seen Anna Leonowens' memoir, "The English Governess at 
the Siamese Court," which came out in 1870.  Phyllis Karr once 
commented that Gilbert&Sullivan's last operetta, "Utopia Ltd," played 
like a parody a half century in advance of "The King and I," and that it 
probably had the effect because Gilbert must have been reading 
Leonowens.
 
David Hulan: I don't remember answers to the specific points you mention about endpapers and 
typoes, but will try to remember to take a look.  What I always found 
confusing about the ice-cream in Pokes with Sir Hokus was the 
reference to hokey-pokey.  It wasn't until I was an adult and thought to 
check it in a dictionary that I discovered that hokey-pokey was the 
name of a variety of (cheap) ice-cream. // Yes, that poor dragon 
seems to have been entirely innocent (unless belonging to a 
Gheewizard who works for the three wicked princes is an indication of 
evildoing).
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Sat, 27 Feb 1999 13:03:43 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com>
Subject: ROYAL BOOK OF OZ art and science
 
About ROYAL BOOK, David Hulan wrote:
<<The endpapers (of the BoW edition, which I assume are the same as in the
1st) provide an interesting challenge: name those characters! . . . The
only owl I can remember through the first 15 books is the Foolish Owl in
PG. . . . I'm guessing the plump-faced kid behind Cap'n Bill is
Button-Bright, though it doesn't look like any other illustration of him
Neill did. The character peering over the Wizard's shoulder is a Skeezer;
I'd assume Ervic, but I wouldn't bet on it. And is that Reera behind him in
a hat resembling a chef's toque? . . . But who's the horse in the right
foreground?...And does anyone have any idea who the bald man in glasses
between the Nome King and Jack Pumpkinhead might be?>>
 
I think the horse is just half a horse: Hank the Mule. Neill's group
pictures like this tend to include characters from the recent books, even
if they're unlikely to actually gather together, so I bet your
identifications of Reera, Ervic, Bru, Rango, etc. are correct. I also agree
with your guess about Button-Bright, regressive as that image is. And over
Reera's shoulder seems to be Blinkie or the Wicked Witch of the East!
Though Sir Hokus appears in these endpapers, I note that for the cover
Reilly & Lee and Neill carefully went with beloved characters from WIZARD
only. 

  Neill uses owls in ROYAL BOOK itself, on pp. 26-7. There sleeping owls
demonstrate how late the Scarecrow is up. He's striding out of the frame
opposite to the way we turn the book's pages--symbolically walking into the
past. I also like the jeweled fence post. A very nice picture all around. 

  Neill and Reilly & Lee seem to have liked the two-page chapter openers
they used in GLINDA because they use an almost identical design in this
book. That again implies that the publisher had a little extra time to do
the necessary early layout. The major change in Neill's art for ROYAL BOOK
is that it has no drawings taking up a full single page, as GLINDA had. I
assume the publisher was less concerned about padding out a short
manuscript to a length parents would value.

  The illustration of the Scarecrow on page 48 is printed upside-down, a
detail Books of Wonder oddly preserved. Our straw-stuffed friend seems to
attract that sort of mistake; I'll let you folks name another example from
Thompson's books. 
 
David Hulan wrote:
<<I did note that this book marks the first (and for all I know the only)
reference to the Ozian continent as the Continent of Imagination.>>
 
Yes, this is one of the many indications that Thompson did her homework
before writing ROYAL BOOK. She uses landmarks from the TIK-TOK map: the
Wogglebug's college, the Scarecrow's pole, the Scarecrow's castle. She also
mentions the army of Oz as plural [57], the lack of horses [66], the
Scarecrow's battle against the crows [119], and his idea for defeating
Guph's plan in EMERALD CITY [162]. 

  You rightly point out: <<the statement on page 27 that there isn't a
ferry in the kingdom. There was certainly one in _Land_, and one in _Lost
Princess_>> I suspect that Thompson is thinking too hard of the same river
the travelers had to cross in WIZARD, where the Scarecrow needed help from
a stork. The image of Dorothy and the Lion asleep outside a city [69] also
recalls this section of WIZARD. 

  Another small change in ROYAL BOOK: Dorothy has learned to swim [186]
since PATCHWORK GIRL. 
 
David Hulan wrote:
<<Is my memory failing me, or did early editions of RB have a typo on page
90, where the Poke vendor handed Dorothy a "comb" instead of a "cone"?>>
 
I don't know about this, but I'm hoping someone can explain what Thompson
means by a "hokey-pokey" at that moment. All that term means to me is a
dance step you perform just before you "turn yourself about"--appropriate
for what the Pokes want, but nothing to do with ice cream. I assume it's a
slang term that was applied to lots of things at its peak of popularity and
survived in meanings very different from its original (like the "Big Apple"
or "polka dots"). 

  Another irony about terminology: Thompson states that Oz looks like a
"parchesi board" [58]. I never played Parcheesi growing up, so this
metaphor (which I thing she uses again in later books) didn't help me
envision Oz at all. But since I knew very well how Oz was laid out, it has
helped me visualize a Parcheesi board.
 
David Hulan wrote:
<<The statement that the Scarecrow returned on the 50th anniversary of the
enchantment of Chang Wang Woe is a bit puzzling; it would seem to imply
that _Royal Book_ takes place 50 years after _Wizard_.>>
 
Might it have taken ~30 years for the bean pole to grow through the earth
to Munchkinland? 

  Incidentally, am I wrong to suspect Thompson conflated bean poles with
bean stalks? I doubt Baum, raised on a rural estate, would have done that.
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Sun, 28 Feb 1999 15:36:59 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com>
Subject: ROYAL BOOK OF OZ opener
 
ROYAL BOOK gets off to a very strong start. The Wogglebug jumps up and
says, "The very thing! . . . The very next idea!" Right away we want to
know what his idea is. Furthermore, almost immediately, Thompson shows the
Wogglebug being rude to a "little Munchin[sic] boy" who is "working his way
through" school. Young American readers naturally identify with that boy.
By snapping, "You're a nobody or a nothing," the Professor reveals that
he'll be an antagonist in this story. We're primed to root against him, and
thus for the Scarecrow and his friends [13-14]. 

  In the midst of all excitement, however, it's easy to miss that the
Professor's idea seems out of character--out of Baum's character, at least.
The Wogglebug is a fellow who made up his own academic credentials
("T.E."), who dressed like a stereotypical parvenu, who epitomized the
self-made bug. Yet he wants to glorify people's biological ancestry instead
of their personal qualities and accomplishments. (Baum's own conception of
the Professor shifted over the years, of course: from the title character
of his own book and a musical to someone who "was very conceited and
admired himself so much and displayed his cleverness and learning so
constantly, that no one cared to associate with him" [GLINDA, 161].)

  Thompson makes fun of the Wogglebug's pretensions as a genealogist, but
she never fully undercuts his "Royal Book of Oz" the way I suspect Baum
would have. Near the end of this story the Wogglebug comes to realize he's
undervalued the Scarecrow and Dorothy [298]. Does he then abandon his study
as wrong-headed? Does he refocus it on what people have done rather than
what families they were born into? No, he inks in a few changes--still
focusing on the Scarecrow's imperial forebears rather than his crucial
contributions to Oz. I suspect Thompson herself valued royalty and coming
from the right sort of people too much to toss the "Royal Book" aside. 

  We may see a little of the same attitude in how the Scarecrow bids the
Silver Island farewell. In SCARECROW he told the people of Jinxland they
had to choose their own ruler. The Silvermen get no such freedom. He uses
his imperial authority and his magic fan to cow them into bowing to Happy
Toko [272]. Does this show the contrast between Baum and Thompson in how
they viewed the natural legitimacy of royalty? Or is Thompson implying that
the Silvermen haven't reached the level of political maturity that would
allow them to choose their own ruler? I think it's both. Thompson assures
us that Oz is "quite democratic and no one is considered better than
another," but slavery and rigid etiquette continue in the Silver Island
[110--however, Thompson's GNOME KING will reveal that slavery continues in
parts of Oz, too]. 
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 09:45:36 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com>
Subject: ROYAL BOOK OF OZ ending
 
Yesterday I posted a message discussing how ROYAL BOOK gets off to a good
start. Today I'm coming at the book from the opposite direction: I think
this tale comes to a rather poor end. 

  First, Thompson relies a great deal on coincidences. Dorothy happens to
open her parasol, happens to fly up [alone, even though the Scarecrow had
just "held convulsively to" her], happens to come down just as the Grand
Gheewizard throws his vase, and happens to deflect it onto the princes
[260-3]. Back in Oz, the fan just happens to blow the Cowardly Lion and the
camels to the Emerald City [287]. How convenient this all is. Thompson
simply gives up on justifying one useful detail: "by some reason even I
cannot explain, the people from Oz found that they could understand all
that was being said" [255--cf. 49-50, 117].

  Second, the action in the Scarecrow's imperial throne room [chapter 20]
goes through a series of stuttering climaxes. The Silvermen refuse to let
their straw emperor resign, the Gheewizard arrives, Sir Hokus attacks the
dragon, and...the action stops for two pages. The Gheewizard goes into his
wind-up again, Dorothy triggers the parasol, and...the action stops for
another page. Finally the Silver Island plot ends happily. But even after
Dorothy and her companions float up through the pole hole [the return to
home so important in Oz books], there's a new crisis when--with only a
bean-sized link to what has come before--Sir Hokus becomes attached to the
pole [284]. Thompson seems to have added that final episode just to bring
her characters all the way to the Emerald City and to play on "knighthood
in flower" [295]. 

  A third, minor problem involves the Munchkin farmer who made the
Scarecrow. Late on night he sees his old friend out in his cornfield; "I'll
see you in the morning," the straw man promises [36-38]. Yet when the
farmer wakes up, his friend is nowhere to be seen and there's a deep hole
right where he was standing. Does the farmer suspect these two odd events
are related? Does he alert Ozma that something may have happened to one of
the most popular people in Oz? No, he covers up the hole and says nothing
[277]. 

  Here's one way Thompson could have finished her story instead. The
Gheewizard enters with his flagon and his dragon, intentions unmistakable.
The Scarecrow's friends go into action. Sir Hokus springs at the dragon
while the Cowardly Lion tackles the three princes. The Gheewizard turns the
Lion into a stone foo dog, one paw resting on the eldest prince. Pop! goes
the dragon, stunning Hokus. The now-enraged Gheewizard throws his potion at
the defenseless Scarecrow. Dorothy stands up, opening her parasol as a
shield. The vase bounces off it and cracks over the foo dog and the howling
heirs, restoring the Lion and turning the princes into those little
carnivores. Meanwhile, Dorothy rises into the air but soon returns, having
found the mechanism for returning to Oz.

  The companions then float up to Oz, as in ROYAL BOOK, and hack their way
through the farmer's cover. But instead of an empty field, they find Ozma
and her court, summoned by the Munchkin farmer. The grateful ruler of Oz
turns her search party into a real party [she's already had one in this
book, the first of many in Thompson's stories--15]. There could even be
room for a little "knighthood in flower" surprise at that party, but the
curtain would come down before everyone returned to the Emerald City, while
the Scarecrow and Dorothy's success was still new.
 
Incidentally, there are hints in ROYAL BOOK that the new Royal Historian
receives her reports from Oz in a different way. Twice--on pages 76 and
167--Thompson remarks on how Dorothy later described her adventures to
Princess Ozma. That implies Thompson either got the story through Ozma, or
listened in on that conversation.  
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-01-99
Date: Mon, 01 Mar 1999 08:17:18 PST
 
David Godwin:
>Personally, I am - disturbed, shall we say? - by the storm that >caused
>Dorothy and the CL to stray into Pokes in the first place. Such 
>weather is
>so rare in Oz that I expected some sort of explanation for its >special
>occurrence, but none was forthcoming. I can't recall any other such 
>storm
>in the FF, unless it was that house-dropping cyclone.
 
There was a pretty bad storm in _Cowardly Lion_, and it rained (although 
I can't recall any thunder or lightning) in _Tin Woodman_.
--
May you live in interesting times,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Mon, 1 Mar 99 14:42:44 CST
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: Royalatry in Oz
 
David Godwin: There are some other storms in Oz without special 
explanation -- usually rain needed to help Polychrome find a rainbow 
(as in "Tin Woodman").  Of course, there might be a difference in 
whether a rain without high winds would be called a storm, but in 
general usage it's probably at least "stormy weather."
 
David Hulan: The greater availability of circuses compared to zoos 
would be a factor for Baum and Thompson in deciding what animals 
their readers would be likely to know, but Thompson as a 
Philadelphian and Baum during his years as a Chicagoan and an 
Angeleno probably had opportunities to visit zoos pretty regularly.
 
J.L. Bell: Interesting point, that the Wogglebug's admiration for other 
people's lineage doesn't match with his pride in his own self-awarded 
academic standing.  I'm not sure that it's necessarily out of character 
for him to be inconsistent in prizing achievement in himself and 
background in others, though -- might indicate an attempt to snag a 
bit of the genealogical glory he can't claim for himself otherwise by 
making it one of his academic studies.  Inconsistent in the Wogglebug, 
but could be consistent in depicting his character.  I'm not sure to 
what extent the story accepts the Wogglebug's snobbery as 
appropriate.  The surprise-you're-royal-plot RPT used so often, just in 
itself, puts some degree of more or less snobbish value on high birth, 
but the feeling I get from the stories where she does it is that most of 
the value she's putting on being "royal" is a metaphoric way of 
underscoring the more serious value she's putting on "it's nice to have 
a family that love you."  In "Royal Book," the Scarecrow abandons both 
the royal position and the newly-discovered family, finding that the 
adopted family of people who really love him, such as Dorothy and the 
Lion, is far more important than sons and grandsons who don't love 
him at all, so it seems to me that even though the Wogglebug is 
(mostly) holding by his snobbishness at the end, the Scarecrow and 
the narrative have thoroughly undercut it.  Likewise an interesting point 
that the Scarecrow imposes a (non-royal) ruler on the Silver Islanders 
instead of leaving it to them to choose a ruler as he did in Jinxland.  
You're probably right in seeing at least some degree of ruler-idolizing 
here, but, then, there's a certain amount of royalatry built into the 
Jinxland plot, too, where the people given a free choice freely choose 
the two royal heirs.  A noteworthy difference between the two 
situations is that in Jinxland the Scarecrow is offered and is refusing a 
job.  In the Silver Islands, he has already been forced to accept the 
job, and it's plausible that in running out on the job he would feel that 
appointing a successor was part of the job and something he ought to 
do before bailing out.  (He forces them to accept his choice before he 
leaves, but once he's off in Oz, they would probably be free to oust 
Happy Toko and put in the Grand Chew Chew, or a royal grandson, 
or someone else, if they liked.)
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 21:50:44 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com>
Subject: ROYAL BOOK OF OZ centered
 
Ruth Berman wrote:
<<hokey-pokey was the name of a variety of (cheap) ice-cream.>>
 
Now that's service! (And a reminder not to rely just on my British
dictionary.)
 
David Godwin wrote:
<<I am - disturbed, shall we say? - by the storm that caused Dorothy and
the CL to stray into Pokes in the first place. Such weather is so rare in
Oz that I expected some sort of explanation for its special occurrence, but
none was forthcoming.>>
 
I too was struck [though not thunderstruck] by the storm in ROYAL BOOK
[63-5]. Baum left hints of poor weather (the rain at the end of TIN
WOODMAN, the spell over Miss Cuttenclip's village), but nothing this bad.
However, the storm ends just as suddenly as it begins, with no
precipitation except Dorothy falling into a bush. Clearly it was Thompson's
convenient way to lose Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion.
 
David Hulan wrote:
<<I think here we have a case of Neill mistaking the meaning of the word
"dromedary." While technically it applies to the single-humped camel,
popular usage back in the early part of the century apparently applied it
to the two-humped Bactrian camel. I know I can remember animal books I had
as a kid making a big point that dromedaries have only one hump, with the
kind of emphasis that indicated that a lot of people thought the reverse.
(Something like seeing an error in usage of some sort pointed out in an
English book; if it's pointed out it's a safe bet that some people
somewhere tend to make that error.)>>
 
I developed a similar theory when researching the rules of early baseball.
About halfway through the project I realized that each increasingly
technical new rule was probably the fossil of a bench-clearing argument.

  I'd need to see examples of "dromedary" applied to a two-hump camel
before being convinced, however. I suspect the reason authors (including
the assemblers of my 1931 encyclopedia) felt a need to clarify so clearly
is that all dromedaries are camels, but not all camels are dromedaries. 

  Once Thompson created a Camel and a Dromedary, Neill seems to have taken
some half-steps to distinguish the beasts. When they're standing or sitting
together, he consistently shows the one-humped animal as larger [opp. 191,
213, 244]. Sometimes, but not always, the Comfortable Camel can also be
distinguished by his tasseled headdress [249]. Often, however, the two
animals' expressions show equal mixes of comfort, doubt, and simple
obtuseness.

  Speaking of drawing animals, I used to sketch lots of pictures of the
A-B-Sea Serpent as he looks on page 31. Just over and over [but not, thank
goodness, over again]. It must have been because he was the first character
in WHO'S WHO, and because drawing blocks is easy. Not until this reading,
however, did I consider the chilling implications of a giant sea monster
wearing an American sailor's cap. 
 
Ruth Berman wrote:
<<RPT could have seen Anna Leonowens' memoir, "The English Governess at the
Siamese Court," which came out in 1870.>>
 
Thanks for the date. It looks like Leonowens' story was revived in 1944 as
a third-person book called ANNA AND THE KING OF SIAM [part of the wartime
interest in lands occupied or threatened by the Axis?], which prompted the
adaptation frenzy David Hulan noted. 
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

From: Ozmama at aol.com
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 10:57:17 EST
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-20-99
 
David H.: 
Yes, Princess Orange Blossom looks like a snubnosed Blue
princess.  Makes one wonder what chinless person Neill knew 
and thoroughly disliked, doesn't it? <g>  
 
<<The first time I heard the Flanders & Swann song 
"The Hippopotamus," with its chorus of "Mud, mud, glorious 
mud," I was strongly reminded of the Middlings' national air.>>
 
I'm ashamed to report that I wrote the chorus to the duo's muddy 
ditty (gasp) right in the book (p.46) when I was a teenager.  :(  Of *course*
the Middling Anthem triggered that song in our minds and
vice versa.  For those who don't know the F&S song, here's the chorus:

        "Mud, mud, glorious mud,
        There's nothing quite like it for cooling the blood.
        So follow me, follow,
        Down to the hollow, 
        And there we will wallow,
        In glorious mud!"
 
Possible prejudice/bias: The only thing I've noted so far is on p.117 
with Happy Toko's "A 'talking China in a way/To break a white
man's jaw, Sir!"  The rest of the Chinese material seems quite lovely 
and sets an exotic tone for the setting. 
 
Overall, I'm impressed with the quality of writing in the book, and 
am distressed with the lack of quality in the proofing.  No one seems
to have caught the many "it's" for "its" errors.  I like the whimsy and 
the inventiveness.  I like the doggerel, which is pretty durned good,
overall.  I'll get to Fix City tonight, and then my enthusiasm will 
probably wane, since I'm not very fond of the IE.  It's overly forced 
for my taste, since it's based on a single pun and is rather an 
unpleasant and pointless interlude. Overall, I'm glad for an excuse
to reread the book.  I haven't read an Oz book in quite some time,
and it's fun!
 
As for David's mention of the "comb" for "cone" on p.90, my first 
edition uses "cone."  My childhood copy...from somewhere in the 
'50s, also uses "cone."   I'll have to go look it up in _BibOz_, but I 
don't recall that as an edition point.  --Robin

From: Ozmama at aol.com
Date: Wed, 3 Mar 1999 11:23:47 EST
Subject: Ozzy Digest: Feb. 21--March 1
 
David G:Personally, I am - disturbed, shall we say? - by the storm 
that caused Dorothy and the CL to stray into Pokes in the first 
place. Such weather is so rare in Oz that I expected some sort of explanation
for its special occurrence, but none was forthcoming. 
I can't recall any other such storm in the FF, unless it was that house-
dropping cyclone.>>
 
I immediately get the mental image of Kabumpo, ears and tarp 
fluttering in the wind, as he is swept away by an RPT storm.  Was 
that in _Kabumpo_?  I think so.
 
Stereotypes: Neill seems more guilty than Thompson of stereotyping 
the Chinese.  His illos are demeaning, IMO. His most demeaning illos,
btw, are probably those of Sambo in what I think was the earliest 
reprint of the Bannerman book. (Reilly & Britton were the first to
publish that book, IIRC, after she lost her copyright through 
mismanagement.)  Neill's Sambo is Ubangi-lipped and very dark.
More racist, even, than Bannerman's original illos.  She, being veddy 
British and in India, had the concept that Indians were blacks 
inculcated early on.
I wonder what Neill's excuse was.  His Chinese characters are all too
consistent with his Little Black Sambo.  The stereotypical features are
grossly exaggerated in each case.  Thompson does stereotype, but the 
Neill pictures come off as rather offensive caricatures.  :(
--Robin

From: Ozmama at aol.com
Date: Fri, 5 Mar 1999 21:32:52 EST
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-05-99
 
Storms in Oz: Let's not forget that a storm is what started the whole
Oz series, albeit not a storm in Oz itself. 
 
John Bell: I like your tightly plotted ending to _Royal Book_.  Good
job!
 
--Robin

Date: Sat, 6 Mar 1999 11:51:11 -0600
From: d.godwin at minn.net (David Frank Godwin)
Subject: Oz
 
Nathan DeHoff wrote, with regard to my comments about the storm in _Royal
Book_:
>There was a pretty bad storm in _Cowardly Lion_, and it rained (although
>I can't recall any thunder or lightning) in _Tin Woodman_.
 
I admit that there are other storms in other books - and some nice ones,
too - but this one was peculiar because of the total darkness it produced
(and some magical property that enabled the Cowardly Lion to run halfway
across Oz in a very short time).
 
- David G.

Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1999 18:40:10 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com>
Subject: ROYAL BOOK OF OZ footnotes
 
Robin Olderman wrote:
<<I'll get to Fix City tonight, and then my enthusiasm will probably wane,
since I'm not very fond of the IE.  It's overly forced for my taste, since
it's based on a single pun and is rather an unpleasant and pointless
interlude.>>
 
Fix City, for some reason, was my favorite IE this time through ROYAL BOOK.
Thompson does pound one note over and over, but she gets the most she can
out of it with some nifty visual images. I particularly liked Dorothy's
remark about going to sleep in the moving bed as "Just like sleeping in a
train" [177], which she did around the time of DOROTHY & WIZARD. 

  Whoever recently characterized Thompson's IEs as our heroes stumbling
into a community who want to make all newcomers like themselves was
certainly on target for this book. The Middlings offer the Scarecrow "a
coat of mud" [44], the Pokes try to put Dorothy and the Lion in their
pokey, and the Fixes are fixed on convincing them to stay put as well. Even
the Silvermen want to make the Scarecrow one of them [again?]. 

  My least favorite episode in ROYAL BOOK doesn't even have that
soon-to-be-familiar story line, though. It has none at all: the pointless
appearance of Memo and Randum. 
 
Ruth Berman wrote:
<<I'm not sure to what extent the story accepts the Wogglebug's snobbery as
appropriate.  The surprise-you're-royal-plot RPT used so often, just in
itself, puts some degree of more or less snobbish value on high birth, but
the feeling I get from the stories where she does it is that most of the
value she's putting on being "royal" is a metaphoric way of underscoring
the more serious value she's putting on "it's nice to have a family that
love you.">>
 
Except in PURPLE PRINCE, where Randy's father loves him so much that he's
abdicated and headed for the hills! 

  I think you're right the Thompson would certainly say that the Professor
gets his comeuppance at the end of ROYAL BOOK, and that the Scarecrow
leaves the Silver Islands more democratic than when he arrived. But I also
sense that Baum would have gone a bit further than she did. He could end
stories with heroes returning to families that weren't royal or American
(e.g., Ojo). 
 
Miscellaneous ROYAL BOOK remarks: 

  The only line in the book that made me laugh out loud was Maud Baum's:
"You see I am Mrs. Baum, the wife of the Royal Historian of Oz, and so I
know how he feels about everything" [9]. Yes, dear.

  When he's in Pokes, Sir Hokus is described as "melancholy" [76], acting
"mournfully" [77], "gravely," "wistfully" [78], and even "brokenly" [80],
though Thompson also remarks on his "kind, timid...dignity" [76]. When he
escapes, Thompson shows him as "kind-hearted and jolly and so polite," and
he even cracks jokes [163-4]. I don't think he ever truly escapes his
melancholy, however, at least while he's in the body of the old knight; it
certainly resurfaces to spur the plot of YELLOW KNIGHT. 

  Comparing a mid-century Reilly & Lee edition to Books of Wonder's, I was
struck by the latter firm's difficulty in matching some of Neill's
double-page spreads vertically. My edition has particularly odd effects on
pages 160-1 and 224-5. The shift in trim size, perhaps combined with a
different binding process, may not have been kind to Mr. Neill.

  Finally, here's a mystery that my old edition of BIBLIOGRAPHIA OZIANA
didn't help me with. Why is the first numbered page of ROYAL BOOK--page
13--actually the eleventh? As usual, I'm not counting the endpaper or color
plate. Both my editions, neither of which is a first, have this oddity. 
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com
 
 

Date: Mon, 8 Mar 99 13:48:54 CST
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: royalbookends
 
J. L. Bell: You may be right in thinking that the "Royal" illo on p. 48 is 
upsidedown.  It's not so clear a case as the "Wishing Horse" illo of the 
Scarecrow pole-vaulting over a bar that got printed as the Scarecrow 
sliding under a bar and being pulled up by his pole.  (The Del Rey 
edition, incidentally, corrected that, printing it upsideup.)  If this one is 
upsidedown, it's an illo of the Scarecrow falling on his face, or, rather, 
about to.  But if Neill misread the description of the Scarecrow blown 
halfway up to the roof and thought the Scarecrow wemt roof-high in 
the blast, then the illo as printed might be what he intended. // 
Interesting set of suggestions for how ending of book could have 
been stronger.
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Mon, 15 Mar 99 13:36:35 CST
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: stormy weather in oz
 
David Godwin: I think you're overstating the strength of the "Royal" 
storm in thinking that it must have had "some magical property that 
enabled the Cowardly Lion to run halfway across Oz in a very short 
time."  The time isn't that short -- it seems like several hours to 
Dorothy while it's going on, and her estimate seems to be right (it's 
sometime in the day when they start, and sometime getting on 
for evening when they stop).  And the Lion doesn't run halfway across 
Oz -- going by the placement of the Scarecrow's Tower and Pokes on 
the Haff/Martin map, it's about a third of the shorter (north/south) way.  
If you go by the estimate of the north/south axis as about 70 miles, the 
Lion might have run some 25 miles, and he ought to be able to do 
that in maybe three hours.  The comparable distance from the Truth 
Pond to the Tin Woodman's Castle (about the same as the Truth Pond 
is placed on the "Tik-Tok" map, or somewhat longer as it's placed on 
the Haff/Martin map, which puts it further south) is walked by Dorothy 
and company in "Road" in less than a day.
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 14:14:32 -0600
From: d.godwin at minn.net (David F. Godwin)
Subject: Oz
 
Ruth Berman wrote:
>I think you're overstating the strength of the "Royal"
>storm in thinking that it must have had "some magical property that
>enabled the Cowardly Lion to run halfway across Oz in a very short
>time."  The time isn't that short -- it seems like several hours to
>Dorothy while it's going on, and her estimate seems to be right (it's
>sometime in the day when they start, and sometime getting on
>for evening when they stop).  And the Lion doesn't run halfway across
>Oz -- going by the placement of the Scarecrow's Tower and Pokes on
>the Haff/Martin map, it's about a third of the shorter (north/south) way.
>If you go by the estimate of the north/south axis as about 70 miles, the
>Lion might have run some 25 miles, and he ought to be able to do
>that in maybe three hours.  The comparable distance from the Truth
>Pond to the Tin Woodman's Castle (about the same as the Truth Pond
>is placed on the "Tik-Tok" map, or somewhat longer as it's placed on
>the Haff/Martin map, which puts it further south) is walked by Dorothy
>and company in "Road" in less than a day.
 
Okay, I exaggerated. It's not halfway across Oz, only about a quarter of
the way across Oz, or somewhat more than halfway across the Winkie country.
If the longer dimension of Oz is 90 miles (about the same as Connecticut),
a quarter of that is only 22-1/2 miles. However, as I've stated before, I
for one do not accept these claustrophobic dimensions. I think it's about
twice that (140 x 180 miles, with an area about the same as West Virginia),
so that the Lion would have had to run 45 miles.
 
It only _seemed_ to Dorothy that the Lion ran for "hours and hours" - it
was "quite late in the afternoon" when they started out and still daylight
when they stopped. But supposing that the CL ran for three hours, that's
still only 15 mph max - not terribly speedy. However, it was "absolutely
dark" - plenty of thunder but, oddly enough, no accompanying lightning. Try
driving with your lights off on a dark, moonless night in a rural area at
15 mph. I for one would be far too cowardly to try it. Also, I'm not sure
that non-magical lions in non-magical countries are able to run for three
hours - I have the impression that they're good at sprinting, not so good
on the long haul. But this is Oz, after all, and no ordinary lion. I
concede that point.
 
It also seems to me that the natural reaction to a total blackout like
this, especially for a cowardly individual, would be to freeze, not to run
headlong into the pitch darkness for more than 20 miles in search of a
place of safety (from what?). It's not a case of panic, either, because
Dorothy and the Lion discuss it beforehand. It also seems odd that someone
can run in total darkness for 22-1/2 miles (much less 45 miles) without
hitting a tree or falling into a ditch. Doesn't the Lion have any
apprehension about chasms such as the one that swallowed the kalidahs? Of
course, he thinks he's running back to the EC - but then why is he not
apprehensive about bolting headlong into the encircling wall? I suppose you
could say that cats can see in the dark, although the book doesn't mention
this. But, if so, why does he run in the wrong direction?
 
As for how far Dorothy can walk in a day, I think we've all agreed that
travel times as reported in the FF are notoriously unreliable. On the
Haff-Martin map, the distance from the Truth Pond to the Tin Woodman's
castle is roughly equivalent to the distance from "where Dorothy's house
landed" to the Emerald City, and the latter journey took five days.
 
In any case. it still strikes me as odd, noteworthy, and unusual that an
ordinary storm could and would cause a total blackout over an area of about
400 square miles (minimum) for three hours or more. Shades of New York in
1965! The whole episode seems to me a transparent, artificial, and (IMHO)
awkward device used to transport Dot & Lion the requisite distance and get
them lost.
 
- David G.

Date: Wed, 17 Mar 1999 23:42:56 -0600
From: d.godwin at minn.net (David F. Godwin)
Subject: 50k Oz run
 
As an afterthought to my posting about the storm and the Cowardly Lion's
22-1/2 (or 25, or 45) mile dash through the land of the Winkies in _Royal
Book_ - what really beggars the imagination is that anyone or anything
could travel such a distance in Thompsonian Oz without having to go through
at least half a dozen IEs.
 
- David G.

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 17:14:57 GMT
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-10 & 16-99
 
David G.:
>I admit that there are other storms in other books - and some nice ones,
>too - but this one was peculiar because of the total darkness it produced
>(and some magical property that enabled the Cowardly Lion to run halfway
>across Oz in a very short time).
 
As Tyler pointed out, the Scarecrow's tower and Pokes aren't halfway across
Oz from each other. Using the Haff-Martin map and the scale I've chosen
(which fits travel times reasonably well for most books), I make it 28
miles. Granted, a normal lion can't run full speed for that long, but the
CL is an extraordinary lion. It seemed to Dorothy that he ran for hours and
hours - the distance is about the same as for a marathon, which are
typically won in a little over two hours by men and about two and a half by
women. They left the tower "late in the afternoon," but since they'd
planned on leaving right after lunch that could mean maybe 3:30-4:00, and
night was falling when they reached Pokes, not long after the CL stopped
running - probably about 7:00. Running 28 miles in 3 hours or so shouldn't
be beyond an extraordinary lion...
 
But I'll agree that the total darkness of the storm is puzzling; I've never
seen a storm like that. (Dark enough I had to turn on my car lights in
midday, but not dark enough I couldn't see without them.)
 
J.L.:
>  My least favorite episode in ROYAL BOOK doesn't even have that
>soon-to-be-familiar story line, though. It has none at all: the pointless
>appearance of Memo and Randum.
 
I think that falls into the same category as the Scarecrow's encounter with
the A-B-Sea Serpent and Rattlesnake; Thompson had thought of a pun that
tickled her fancy and put in an incident that let her use it. Neither of
those episodes contributed anything to the story.
 
>He [Baum] could end
>stories with heroes returning to families that weren't royal or American
>(e.g., Ojo).
 
I think that's pretty marginal; Ojo is the only hero in Baum who returns to
a family that isn't American, and Unc Nunkie is royal, though he doesn't
rule anything at the time of the book. Of Baum's other protagonists who
aren't American, Inga's family is royal and Woot never returns to his
family. As far as Thompson goes, Snip isn't royal (in _Lost King_), and
while his family doesn't appear on stage he does return to Kimbaloo and
presumably to his family. Mandy's family doesn't appear, and she might not
have one; when she goes back to Mt. Mern for a brief visit before settling
in Keretaria she seems more concerned about her goats than any people. But
she isn't royal.
 
David Hulan

Date: Fri, 19 Mar 1999 17:15:01 GMT
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Ozzy Digest, 03-05-99
 
This seems to have been lost in cyberspace somehow; I sent it on 3/9, but
it wasn't in either the 3/10 or the 3/16 Digest, so I'll send it again:
 
--------------------
J.L.:
Thompson relied on coincidences in a lot of her books. Baum did too to some
extent (e.g. the fortuitous meetings of characters in _Tik-Tok_ - what was
Shaggy doing in the Rose Kingdom in the first place, and how probable is it
that he and Betsy would encounter Polychrome, Tik-Tok, and the Oogaboos in
a short span of time?), but Thompson employed it a lot more. _Yellow
Knight_, though it's a book I like, is one of the worst - for Speedy to end
his rocket flight in Subterranea doesn't really qualify, but first he finds
the statue of Marygolden, and then when he takes off with his parashoot (or
whatever they called it) it emerges within a day's walk of the place she'd
originally come from? And that's far from the only one, but I'll wait till
it's the BCF to go into others.
 
I like your proposed ending to RB better than the one Thompson wrote, by
the way.
 
Ruth:
I'm sure that Baum and Thompson themselves had both visited zoos, but I
think they probably picked the animals they used based more on circus
animals than ones from zoos, because they knew much of their audience would
never have been to a zoo.
 
J.L. again:
>  I'd need to see examples of "dromedary" applied to a two-hump camel
>before being convinced, however.
 
Fortunately, I still have my childhood copy of _Animals of the World_,
originally published in 1917, though this is a 1941 reprint, so I can
quote: "...it may be well to refer to the confusion which exists in the use
of the names Camel and Dromedary. The latter name seems popularly to be
applied to the two-humped species, the name Camel being reserved for the
one with a single hump. This is a mistake." And later, in the article on
the Bactrian camel, "This species is often called the Dromedary; but, as we
have already remarked, this is an error." Is that enough evidence for you?
It isn't an example of someone misusing the term, but it's a clear
statement by someone who was around at roughly the time of RB that the
misuse was common.
 
Robin:
Since I read RB long before I heard Flanders & Swann (for that matter, long
before F&S started performing, as far as I know - I read it around 1945,
give or take a year) it was "The Hippopotamus" that reminded me of the
Middlings' Anthem rather than vice versa.
 
>I immediately get the mental image of Kabumpo, ears and tarp
>fluttering in the wind, as he is swept away by an RPT storm.  Was
>that in _Kabumpo_?  I think so.
 
No, it was in _Silver Princess_. It's how Kabumpo and Randy got across the
Deadly Desert that time.
 
David Hulan

From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
Subject: Oz Matters
Date: Tue, 23 Mar 1999 14:58:33 PST
 
David Godwin:
>In any case. it still strikes me as odd, noteworthy, and unusual that 
>an
>ordinary storm could and would cause a total blackout over an area of
>about
>400 square miles (minimum) for three hours or more.
 
Maybe it wasn't an ordinary storm, and it followed the Lion around.  I 
agree that it was a rather awkward way to get Dorothy and the Lion lost, 
however.
 
David Hulan:
>I think that falls into the same category as the Scarecrow's >encounter with
>the A-B-Sea Serpent and Rattlesnake; Thompson had thought of a pun 
>that
>tickled her fancy and put in an incident that let her use it. Neither 
>of
>those episodes contributed anything to the story.
 
Well, the A-B-Sea Serpent did allow the Scarecrow to cross the Munchkin 
River, but that task could have been accomplished without introducing 
any new characters.
 
>Snip isn't royal (in _Lost King_), and
>while his family doesn't appear on stage he does return to Kimbaloo 
>and presumably to his family.
 
I don't recall any indication that the button boys and girls of Kimbaloo 
had families.  I suppose they might have, though.  After all, the 
children probably could not have supported themselves, and the castle 
staff seemed too small to support five hundred children.  Snip was 
planning to return to the Emerald City and work with Pastoria after his 
visit to his old home, though.
 
>Mandy's family doesn't appear, and she might not
>have one; when she goes back to Mt. Mern for a brief visit before
>settling
>in Keretaria she seems more concerned about her goats than any >people.
 
I think it was stated in the text that Mandy was an orphan.
 
>>I immediately get the mental image of Kabumpo, ears and tarp
>>fluttering in the wind, as he is swept away by an RPT storm.  Was
>>that in _Kabumpo_?  I think so.
>
>No, it was in _Silver Princess_. It's how Kabumpo and Randy got >across 
the Deadly Desert that time.
 
While the image of an elephant being blown away by a storm is quite 
amusing, this seems like yet another one of Thompson's hurried attempts 
to get the characters to the right place.  Note that a thunderstorm also 
helped Kabumpo and Randy to cross the desert in _Purple Prince_.  Why 
would so many storms fall in such an arid area as the edge of the Deadly 
Desert?  Maybe the Rain King has a particular liking for Kabumpo.
--
May you live in interesting times,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Wed, 24 Mar 1999 15:56:13 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com>
Subject: Ozma the Red
 
I asked:
<<Why is the first numbered page of ROYAL BOOK--page 13--actually the
eleventh? As usual, I'm not counting the endpaper or color plate.>>
 
Gordon Birrell kindly sent me an e-mail saying that ROYAL BOOK doesn't have
true endpapers (single sheets connecting inside covers and bound pages);
the right side of what looks like the opening endpaper is thus truly page 1
of the printed signatures. I'll now keep my eye out for that trait in other
books. 
 
David Hulan wrote of the visit of Memo and Randum:
<<I think that falls into the same category as the Scarecrow's encounter
with the A-B-Sea Serpent and Rattlesnake; Thompson had thought of a pun
that tickled her fancy and put in an incident that let her use it. Neither
of those episodes contributed anything to the story.>>
 
Thompson even had to do some backing and filling to explain why the Serpent
and Rattlesnake didn't tell Ozma they'd met the Scarecrow and thus affect
the plot. But at least their episode gave Neill a chance to depict those
magical monsters in their grotesque glory; Memo and Randum are ordinary
humans, and he didn't even bother drawing them. 
 
David Hulan wrote:
<<Ojo is the only hero in Baum who returns to a family that isn't American,
and Unc Nunkie is royal, though he doesn't rule anything at the time of the
book. Of Baum's other protagonists who aren't American, Inga's family is
royal and Woot never returns to his family. As far as Thompson goes, Snip
isn't royal (in _Lost King_), and while his family doesn't appear on stage
he does return to Kimbaloo and presumably to his family. Mandy's family
doesn't appear, and she might not have one; when she goes back to Mt. Mern
for a brief visit before settling in Keretaria she seems more concerned
about her goats than any people. But she isn't royal.>>
 
In judging Thompson's infatuation with royalty, I take into account how she
made Peter a knight and Speedy a princess's likely betrothed even as they
return to America. Zeb didn't get that treatment. Baum made Dorothy a
princess, as she deserved, but left Trot, Betsy, and Button-Bright as
ordinary palace guests. Thompson elevated the first two to princess level. 

  When a poor Gillikin boy wanders into TIN WOODMAN, he ends up as...a poor
Gillikin boy. In PURPLE PRINCE, the similar figure turns out to be a king.
Ojo ends PATCHWORK GIRL living happily with his uncle (whose royal blood
isn't mentioned after the beginning of the book). Thompson moves them out
of that small cottage into a big castle. Baum's happy, status-quo-ante
endings didn't seem sufficient for Thompson.

  Thompson leaves three ordinary young protagonists as commoners, I think:
Bob Up, who gets to live in a circus; Snip, who serves a former king
(Pastoria) and a current one (Kinda Jolly); and Jellia, Ozma's housekeeper.
No one seems to be a regular *friend* of a ruler, like Trot or Betsy. Snip
and Jellia are are working children, fitting into a royal master-servant
relationship.

  I see Mandy as anomalous: with her extra arms, she seems to be on the
edge of what ordinary young readers can identify with. That may be a reason
Thompson brought in Kerry--to be restored to his royal throne as usual. But
HANDY MANDY as a whole is a careless production, even by Thompson's
standards, with a lot that's hard to figure out.
 
David Hulan wrote:
<<I still have my childhood copy of _Animals of the World_, originally
published in 1917, though this is a 1941 reprint, so I can quote: "...it
may be well to refer to the confusion which exists in the use of the names
Camel and Dromedary. The latter name seems popularly to be applied to the
two-humped species, the name Camel being reserved for the one with a single
hump. This is a mistake." And later, in the article on the Bactrian camel,
"This species is often called the Dromedary; but, as we have already
remarked, this is an error." Is that enough evidence for you?>>
 
Indubitably. Thank you.
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 16:57:53 GMT
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Ozzy Digest 03-23-99
 
Yet another of my posts seems to have been lost in cyberspace, maybe
because I hit "reply" and forgot to change the address to "OzDigest" from
"DaveH47". Anyhow, here's what I wrote on 3/24:
 
----------------
Regarding the ongoing discussion about the absolute darkness during the
storm in RB, I ran across this interesting quote the other day:
 
"A darkness overspread us, not like that of a cloudy night, or when there
is no moon, but of a room when it is shut up and all the lights are
extinguished. Nothing then was to be heard but the shrieks of women, the
screams of children, and the cries of men...some wishing to die from the
very fear of dying, some lifting up their hands to the gods; but the
greater part imagining that the last and eternal night had come, which was
to destroy both the gods and the world together."
 
This is a translation of part of Pliny the Younger's description of the
eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE, as viewed from several miles away from the
volcano itself. Perhaps the "storm" wasn't a storm at all, but a volcanic
eruption? And the booming wasn't thunder, but the bangs of exploding vapor,
etc.? That would explain the absence of lightning or rain. The eruption
could have been out in the Deadly Desert somewhere, so there'd be no
destruction in Oz proper.
 
David G.:
>Also, I'm not sure
>that non-magical lions in non-magical countries are able to run for three
>hours - I have the impression that they're good at sprinting, not so good
>on the long haul.
 
True. Lions are very fast for 50-60 yards, but they tire rapidly. Humans
actually have greater endurance than most animals (if the human is in good
condition; not _me_!); I've read that human hunters on foot can run down a
horse or a deer or an antelope eventually, though for short distances
they're nowhere near as fast. Some canids - wolves, particularly, and their
close relatives domestic dogs (other than breeds that have been selected
for other characteristics) - have the same kind of endurance; felids don't.
 
>As for how far Dorothy can walk in a day, I think we've all agreed that
>travel times as reported in the FF are notoriously unreliable. On the
>Haff-Martin map, the distance from the Truth Pond to the Tin Woodman's
>castle is roughly equivalent to the distance from "where Dorothy's house
>landed" to the Emerald City, and the latter journey took five days.
 
The journey in _Road_ is one of the most suspect ones in the whole FF.
Another question it raises is how Tik-Tok, of all characters, managed to
walk from wherever he was last wound up to near the Truth Pond. Billina
surely couldn't have wound him; did she have to periodically hunt up a
friendly Winkie? We know a single winding doesn't last him anything like a
full day when he's walking.
 
But most of the rest of the books seem to be fairly consistent with an Oz
that's about the size of Belgium; a little bigger than New Hampshire or
Vermont (and a very different shape). A reasonably close approximation in
both size and shape might be the part of Tennessee within the "big bend" of
the Tennessee River. With nothing but shank's mare available for travel
most of the time, that's plenty big enough to accommodate everything shown
in the FF with adequate room to spare for new stories. (Of course, you have
to get rid of the scalawagons first...)
 
>As an afterthought to my posting about the storm and the Cowardly Lion's
>22-1/2 (or 25, or 45) mile dash through the land of the Winkies in _Royal
>Book_ - what really beggars the imagination is that anyone or anything
>could travel such a distance in Thompsonian Oz without having to go through
>at least half a dozen IEs.
 
It was so dark that they got past all those little town/kingdoms unseen! :-)
 
David Hulan

From: Ozmama at aol.com
Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1999 20:00:39 EST
Subject: Re: Ozzy 03-26-99
 
In a message dated 3/26/99 10:12:01 PM Central Standard Time,
DaveH47 at mindspring.com writes:
 
<< 
 In judging Thompson's infatuation with royalty, I take into account how she
 made Peter a knight and Speedy a princess's likely betrothed even as they
 return to America. Zeb didn't get that treatment. Baum made Dorothy a
 princess, as she deserved, but left Trot, Betsy, and Button-Bright as
 ordinary palace guests. Thompson elevated the first two to princess level. 
   When a poor Gillikin boy wanders into TIN WOODMAN, he ends up as...a poor
 Gillikin boy. In PURPLE PRINCE, the similar figure turns out to be a king.
 Ojo ends PATCHWORK GIRL living happily with his uncle (whose royal blood
 isn't mentioned after the beginning of the book). Thompson moves them out
 of that small cottage into a big castle. Baum's happy, status-quo-ante
 endings didn't seem sufficient for Thompson. >>John L. Bell

Zeb and Woot aren't genuinely heroic, but Peter and Speedy 
are.  I see RPT's making Trot and Betsy royal as rectifying an 
inequity!  She seems to feel that a child who acts really bravely and loyally
deserves to be a prince or princess.  Bob Up is a wuss.  Snip 
and Jellia are happy servitors, as John points out.  Jellia, of course, 
does get to be royal, temporarily, in _Ozoplaning_.  Mandy has 
never seemed much like a child to me, btw.  She's a grownup making 
her own way in the world.   It would be very odd for such a character 
to want to bother with being royal.
--Robin

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 14:48:26 GMT
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy 03-26-99
 
Nathan:
>While the image of an elephant being blown away by a storm is quite
>amusing, this seems like yet another one of Thompson's hurried attempts
>to get the characters to the right place.  Note that a thunderstorm also
>helped Kabumpo and Randy to cross the desert in _Purple Prince_.  Why
>would so many storms fall in such an arid area as the edge of the Deadly
>Desert?  Maybe the Rain King has a particular liking for Kabumpo.
 
That arid area seems to get quite a bit of rain - it had rained near there
to get Polychrome lost early in _Tik-Tok_, and again to get her home at the
end. Then it happens again in _Lucky Bucky_ so that a rainbow can be used
to get travelers over the desert. (Incidentally, that rainbows actually
touch the ground is another way in which the laws of physics seem to be
different in Oz, which reinforces my argument that it's not physically on
this earth. Rainbows here aren't physical objects; they're lighting effects
that inherently can't contact a physical object.)
 
J.L.:
>In judging Thompson's infatuation with royalty, I take into account how she
>made Peter a knight and Speedy a princess's likely betrothed even as they
>return to America.
 
Wasn't Peter made a prince? I know Ozma offered him the title, and I
thought he took it even though he refused the offer to remain in Oz. (Maybe
I should check my copy of _Gnome King_; that's two questions that have come
up about it that my memory is vague on. But it's downstairs and I'm lazy.)
 
David Hulan

Date: Wed, 31 Mar 1999 15:32:52 +1000
From: Gehan Cooray <calamity at eureka.lk>
Subject: The Royal Book of Oz
 
How can the Scarecrow's beanpole, rise from the Silver Island? I thought it
was an ordinary pole fixed by the Munchkin Farmer. Surely he would have done
some research if he saw a beanpole arise from nowhere. And even if it were a
magic beanpole, and if the spirit of Chang Wang Woe enters the first person
who touches it, then the spirit should have entered the farmer. Surely he
would have touche the pole before the Scarecrow? Ruth Plumly Thompson doesnt
think straight and that annoys me! I also cant stand the thought of our
jolly old scarecrow having the spirit of Chang Wang Woe. -Royal Book- is
totally un-fit. I didnt enjoy it much either. But then, by rejecting -Royal
Book-, all the Thompson books are rejected, mainly because of Sir Hokus of
Pokes. I would have assumed that it was all a bad dream which Dorothy had,
but the fact that Sir Hokus settled won in the EC rejects that. 
 
--Gehan Cooray