Here is the chronology for THE WIZARD OF OZ (long promised).

Day 1 - Cyclone - Dorothy & Toto carried off.

 (an unknown amount of time--Baum says "hour after hour"--passes 
 while Dorothy is carried in the cyclone. I assume about 12 hours.)

Day 2 - Dorothy arrives in the land of the Munchkins - meets Witch of the North -
  night in Boq's house
Day 3 - Dorothy encounters the Scarecrow - the three enter the great forest - night
  in Tin Woodman's cottage
Day 4 - The party rescues the Tin Woodman - they encounter the Cowardly Lion - night
  in forest "under a large tree"
Day 5 - The party crosses the great ditch - they meet the Kalidahs - they come to the
  river - Tin Woodman makes a raft - night on river bank
Day 6 - The party crosses the river - the Scarecrow is marooned - they enter the field
  of poppies in afternoon (the Tin Woodman wants to reach the Yellow Brick Road before
  dark) & are rescued by the field mice - night in farmhouse in Emerald City area
  (everything is green)
Day 7 - The party comes to the Emerald City in afternoon - night in Palace
Day 8 - Dorothy meets the Great Oz
Day 9 - The Scarecrow meets the Great Oz
Day 10 - The Tin Woodman meets the Great Oz
Day 11 - The Cowardly Lion meets the Great Oz
Day 12 - The party leaves the Emerald City to find the Wicked Witch of the West - attack
  by wolves in afternoon - night in open field
Day 13 - The party is attacked by crows, bees, & Winkies - Winged Monkeys attack
  Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, carry Dorothy, Toto & Lion to Witch's castle 
Days 14-21 At this point the captivity of Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion begins.
  Some days & nights pass - enough so that Dorothy and the Lion can begin plotting
  their escape. I assume a minimum of a week.
Day 22 - Dorothy melts the Wicked Witch - she frees the Lion and the Winkies - they
  start off in search of the Tin Woodman
Day 23 - They find the Tin Woodman
Days 24-26 - The Winkies work "for three days and four nights" to restore
  the Tin Woodman - the party starts off in search of the Scarecrow
Day 27 - They find the Scarecrow after walking "all that day and part of the next"
Day 28 - The Scarecrow is restored
Days 28-30 - The reunited party spends "a few happy days" at the Witch's castle 
Day 31 - The party leaves for the Emerald City - night in field
Days 32-35 - The party is lost - "day by day passed away"
Day 36 - The Queen of the Field Mice suggests using the Golden Cap - the party is carried
  to the gates of the Emerald City by the Winged Monkeys
Days 37-39 - They wait for the Wizard to receive them
Day 40 - Oz receives the party at 9:04 AM - he is exposed as a humbug
Day 41 - The Scarecrow receives his brains, the Tin Woodman his heart, and the Cowardly
  Lion his courage
Days 42-44 - "For three days Dorothy heard nothing from Oz." 
Day 45 - "On the fourth day" Oz announces his plans to leave with Dorothy in
  a balloon
Days 46-48 - "It took three days" to sew the balloon together
Day 49 - Oz departs
Day 50 - Council of the party ("on the morning after the balloon had gone up")
  - they decide to visit Glinda 
Day 51 - The party leaves for Glinda's palace - night in field
Day 52 - They enter the forest of fighting trees - they enter the China Country - the
  Cowardly Lion defeats the monster spider - they cross the hill of the Hammerheads
  - Glinda sends Dorothy home

In his Oz books Baum is not always clear about the passage of time, and WIZARD is not as
tightly plotted as other books in the series.  This chronology should not be taken as
conclusive. I have had to base it in part on my own perceptions of what goes on in the story.
It is clear, though, that more days pass in WIZARD than in any other Oz book I know.

Date: Mon, 03 Feb 1997 10:26:40 -0800
From: "Stephen J. Teller" <steller at pittstate.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-02-97
References: <01IEY7A0YS2Q9EF4TH at delphi.com>

BCF:

The 1st edition of WONDERFUL WIZARD was printed by George M. Hill, with
Baum and Denslow underwriting the costs of production with proceeds from
their previous best-seller, FATHER GOOSE: HIS BOOK.  It comes in several
states, all of which had 24 colored plates.  There were monochrome color
illustrations on the text pages of the book, and the colors of these
pictures changed with the color of the country the story took place in. 
Gray in Kansas, blue in the Munchkin Country, green in the Emerald City
etc.  The BoW reprint reproduces these characteristics.  The second
edition, published by Bobbs-Merrill. originally called THE NEW WIZARD OF
OZ had a new cover and dropped 9 of the colore plates.  The third
edition (1913) was from Donohue.  Bobbs-Merrill was again the publisher
for the fourth and later editions (except for the WADDLE BOOK) until
1956 when Reilly & Lee published it for the first time.  There have been
numerous adaptations, abridgements, etc.  A long bibliographic entry can
be found in BIBLIOGRAPHIA OZIANA revised edition (1988) 24-45.

Steve T.

Date: Tue, 04 Feb 1997 12:39:16 -0500 (EST)
From: OzBucket at aol.com
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-04-97 (Part 2)

Disney's Return to Oz: while it owes more to MGM than it does to Baum, it is
indeed a very somber and depressing movie overall. It did, however, have two
redeeming qualities that no one else has commented on. 1.) The claymation
sequences are beautiful to look at, and 2.) Fairuza Balk is even more so.
Okay, granted, my recent re-reading for the multi-billionth time of WW
reveals that Dorothy is far less mature than my 2 year old niece (who I find
annoyingly immature, by the way). Baum's Dorothy is a selfish little brat who
isn't above saying things like, "I don't care a bit what happens to any of
you, as long as I get what I want." Fairuza's Dorothy is much more kind and
caring, and seems almost motherly in her relationship with Jack. Fairuza, a
mature 9 (she turned 10 on the set) is a lot more likeable than Baum's
immature little girl. Frankly, while reading WW this last time, I found
myself wanting to take that little snot over my knee and beat her to a bloody
pulp. (by the way, I am starting up a babysitting service...).

Date: Thu, 06 Feb 1997 15:57:29 -0500 (EST)
From: DavidXOE at aol.com
Subject: Ozzy Digest, 2/5 & 6/97

Chris D.:
>Baum's Dorothy is a selfish little brat who
>isn't above saying things like, "I don't care a bit what happens to any of
>you, as long as I get what I want."

I don't remember Dorothy saying anything like that, and I just finished
rereading WIZARD last night. Could you give a specific reference to the
incident where it happened? It's certainly true that Dorothy is a much more
passive character in WIZARD than she becomes in later books; she reminds me
more of Betsy Bobbin (or vice versa) than her later persona. But I don't get
the feeling at all that she's a "selfish little brat"; she's a young kid
who's been ripped from the only home she's known into a very strange and
unfamiliar country, and she's thoroughly overwhelmed by it. Despite that, she
takes the best advice she gets and does what she can to get back home. If she
were really that kind of selfish brat, wouldn't she have continued to chase
the china princess?


David Hulan

Date: Sat, 08 Feb 1997 04:09:38 +0000
From: Scott Olsen <ScottO1440 at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-07-97

Re: Chris' (a.k.a. Ozbucket's) impression of Baum's Dorothy ("selfish little
brat who isn't above saying things like, 'I don't care a bit what happens to
any of you, as long as I get what I want.'")

My first thought is that this is a setup to encourage some discussion on
this point. Not only do I not recall this quote--but I've also never heard
anyone describe Dorothy in this way. Everyone's certainly entitled to their
opinion--but I'm afraid I need more substance and facts to back this up. If
this opinion is for real, then I'm sure an in-depth critique which explores
this heretofore unknown facet of Baum's main character would make
interesting, Bugle worthy, reading, to say the least.

Sincerely,

Scott Olsen

Date: Sat, 08 Feb 1997 00:12:17 -0500
From: Tyler Jones <tylerjones at compuserve.com>
Subject: Oz

Jeremy and Chris: 
I will go so far as to say that Dorothy, at least in the Baum books, is a 
little arrogant. For example, she is constantly calling ruler's attention to 
the fact that Ozma rules Oz, rules us, and rules YOU, and you had better do 
what we say... While she is technically correct, one gets the impression 
that she is being a little bit imperious. 

--Tyler Jones 

Date: Thu, 06 Feb 1997 14:35:07 -0500 (EST)
From: Nathan DeHoff <LNVF at grove.iup.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-05-97

Chris:
Dorothy is rather immature in _Wizard_, but I think that she is only about four years old in that story.
When she moves to Oz permanently, she is about eleven, and is much nicer.

         Nathan Mulac DeHoff
         lnvf at grove.iup.edu
         http://www.dragonfire.net/~VoVat/home.html

Date: Sat, 08 Feb 1997 01:09:01 -0500 (EST)
From: DavidXOE at aol.com
Subject: Ozzy Digest, 2/7/97

Nathan:
It seems unlikely that Dorothy is as young as four in WIZARD; she is
certainly able to read the fairly complex sentence "Let Dorothy go to the
City of Emeralds", and the instructions on how to use the Golden Cap to
summon the winged monkeys. Granted, I could have read these when I was four,
and so probably could a number of the rest of you, but we weren't growing up
on a farm in the middle of the Kansas prairie in 1899, either. It seems
almost certain to me that Dorothy was no younger than six in WIZARD.

David Hulan

Date: Sat, 08 Feb 1997 12:58:28 -0600
From: Gordon Birrell <gbirrell at post.cis.smu.edu>
Subject: Ozzy Digest

David and Scott:
Chris D.'s comments on Dorothy's apparent selfishness are not merely
conjecture.  His summary of Dorothy's attitude ("I don't care a bit what
happens to any of you, as long as I get what I want.") is a paraphrase of a
quotation from Chapter Five that describes Dorothy's response to an argument
between the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman over the relative importance of
brains and heart:

"Dorothy did not say anything, for she was puzzled to know which of her two
friends was right, and she decided if she could only get back to Kansas and
Aunt Em it did not matter so much whether the Woodman had no brains and the
Scarecrow no heart, or each got what he wanted."

Of course, this is early on in the book, before Dorothy has a chance to
develop a strong sense of loyalty to her friends.  I imagine there will be a
lot more said about Dorothy's character once the official discussion of the
book kicks off on Monday, but I'll say now that she seems in general to be a
tough, resilient, practical-minded little creature, quite a relief from the
sugary, sentimentalized heroines of so much children's literature from the
late nineteenth century (Alice excepted, of course).

Incidentally, the unexpected turn in Dorothy's thoughts in that quotation
above (the reference to a brainless Woodman and a heartless Scarecrow) is
really a very astute response to their arguments.

On Dorothy's age:  Michael Patrick Hearn, in _The Annotated Wizard of Oz_,
puts her at five or six and notes that Denslow's illustrations depict
Dorothy in clothing appropriate for that age group.

-Gordon Birrell

Date: Sat, 08 Feb 1997 14:34:49 -0500 (EST)
From: DavidXOE at aol.com
Subject: Ozzy Digest, 2/8/97

Tyler:
Dorothy is certainly assertive, at least after WIZARD. "Imperious" is
probably a little strong. The only occasion I can think of where she really
sounds imperious is with Coo-ee-oh in GLINDA.

Dave:
I'm ready to start discussing WIZARD any time. (There's already been a little
bit of it based on Chris D's insult of Dorothy.)

David Hulan

Date: Sat, 08 Feb 1997 15:27:50 -0500 (EST)
From: Nathan DeHoff <LNVF at grove.iup.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-08-97

David:
It is quite possible that Dorothy was only six at the time of _Wizard_.  This
would mean, however, that not very many years elapsed between Dorothy's first
and second visits to Oz.  We do know that Dorothy was attending school at the
time of _Dorothy and the Wizard_.


         Nathan Mulac DeHoff
         lnvf at grove.iup.edu

Date: Sun, 09 Feb 1997 03:34:28 +0000
From: Scott Olsen <ScottO1440 at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-08-97


Re: Tyler writes (to Jeremy and Chris) "I will go as far to say that
Dorothy, at least in the Baum books, is a little arrogant."

IMHO, "arrogant" (or "brat") may be too strong to discribe Dorothy. But how
about just saying she has "spunk"? Everyone likes spunk, right? (Well,
except for Lou Grant, right Dave?)

Sincerely,

Scott Olsen

Date: Sun, 09 Feb 1997 20:18:45 -0500 (EST)
From: DavidXOE at aol.com
Subject: Ozzy Digest, 02-09-97

Gordon:
I won't disagree with your characterization of Dorothy ("a tough, resilient,
practical-minded little creature,") at all. That isn't the same thing as "a
selfish brat".

Five or six I can buy for Dorothy's age (with six being more likely); four is
too young for what she seems able to do in the book. (Seven or eight seems
likelier yet, and IIRC Hearn's estimate of her age is based on assuming a
year between each of the books she appears in up to EC. For several reasons I
think they're closer together than that.)

David Hulan

Date: Sun, 09 Feb 1997 20:18:40 -0500 (EST)
From: DavidXOE at aol.com
Subject: Discussion of WOZ
 
Might I suggest, as a compromise that I don't think would be any extra
trouble for Dave yet that would let people uninterested in the discussion of
the Book of Current Focus skip that part of the Digest easily, that we post
our book discussions, and commentary on them, separately from the rest of our
Digest posts? That way those who aren't interested in the discussion can
scroll past those posts without having to check every paragraph to see if
there's something else hiding in there.
 
A few items that struck me on my latest rereading:
 
1. When the Tin Woodman is telling his life story, he refers to his father's
death and taking care of his "old mother" until her death. While there is no
definite chronology, the implication is that it wasn't long after his
mother's death that he fell in love with the Munchkin girl, that it wasn't
long after that that the Wicked Witch enchanted his axe, and that it wasn't
long after that that he was caught in the rain and rusted. In any case, it
seems inconsistent with the theory that aging and natural death stopped in Oz
several hundred years before the time of Dorothy.
 
2. This book seems to have fewer Irrelevant Episodes than most of the series,
with the major exception being the Dainty China Country. Mostly this is
because things that could be IEs (the various obstacles in getting to the EC,
primarily) are used to characterize the travelers - particularly to show that
the Scarecrow really does have brains, and the lion courage.
 
3. I remember even as a kid being skeptical that there was enough straw in
the Scarecrow to cover Dorothy and the lion well enough to protect them from
the bees. Certainly if the relative sizes are similar to Denslow's
illustrations it seems unlikely. Even covering Dorothy seems to be stretching
it; the lion is far larger.
 
4. I remember back about a year ago on the Digest a mother commenting on the
Cowardly Lion's sneak attack on the giant spider while it was asleep, and
asking whether this is a good example for children, or whether the lion
should have waked the spider up first so it would have been a fair fight. The
only comment I recall was one from Eric Gjovaag arguing for total
non-violence in the spirit of Gandhi and King. IIRC, this exchange happened
while I was en route from California to Chicago, because I know I thought
about responding at the time and then decided that the original discussion
had happened too long before for my comments to be relevant to most readers.
 
Reading the passage again, though, brought it back to my mind, and I thought
I'd toss in my two cents' worth on the subject. Total non-violence is usually
a worthy approach in human affairs, though it does require a willingness to
die by the violence of others (as happened to both Gandhi and King). When
you're dealing with a wild animal, however, whose only interest in you is as
dinner, total non-violence is tantamount to suicide. (Unless, in the case of
the animals in the forest in question, they deserted the forest - but in that
case they'd probably starve.)
 
As for the question of a "fair fight", that's a whole concept that's never
made much sense to me, unless you're talking about something like a formal
boxing match, with rules and officials to enforce them. People and animals
fight for two reasons. One is to try to impose their will by force on someone
they think is weaker (which will may be to eat the other one). That kind of
fight is inherently unfair, and never justifiable. The other is to defend
themselves or someone else against someone who is trying to impose their will
by force on someone they think is weaker. Fighting for that reason, the most
efficient way of winning the fight is justified. Based on that, I think the
lion's action in beheading the spider while it was asleep was one of only two
rational choices, the other of which was to pass through the forest as fast
as possible and avoid the whole issue. Neither passive resistance nor a "fair
fight" makes any sense at all in the circumstances as described.
 
I'm very interested in what other people will have to say about the first
book in the series.
 
David Hulan

Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 00:44:11 -0500 (EST)
From: OzBucket at aol.com
Subject: Oz (is there any other subject, really?)
 
I am probably a couple of days behind already. The last Digest I read was
already at least a day old, and I probably have a couple more to look at as
soon as I check my mail. Anyway, I was shocked and horrified to learn that no
one else has read WWoO [ That's _Wonderful Wizard_ -- not _Wicked Witch_ -- 
_of Oz_  -- Dave :) ] and remembered Dorothy to any degree. Throughout the
book she comes across as an immature little baby. I think I had also
forgotten until re-reading the book later, so it isn't so big a deal that you
guys forgot. Any re-reading of even a brief section will instantly tap your
memory. Pick any page at random. But to try to find one of the several places
where a quote like that is made, I have just flipped to page 61 of the BoW
version (for those of you who, like me, have started with mostly Del Rey and
don't have that page # in the same place, it is Chapter V, The Rescue of the
TM). But this is not an isolated quote. I think re-reading pretty much any
page will have you wanting to give this brat a spanking. Unless, of course, I
am assuming Dorothy to be several years older than she is. I can accept a lot
more immaturity from an infant than I can from a Kindergartener. In fact, the
one and ONLY time when she seems to think of anyone besides herself is when
her personal dog is in danger from the Lion. Had it been someone else's dog,
I think she'd have been far less quick to show any concern at all. Okay,
Rinny also reminds me of the fact that she fed the Lion while a prisoner of
the Witch. Of course, there again, it was for the sake of her own need for a
friend, but it was something. My point was that Fairuza Balk's character was
CONSIDERABLY more mature than Baum's. I'd have to say that, at the age of 2,
my niece was, too. Again, a 2-year old has more right to be immature than an
older child. I don't think this was one of the books that actually GAVE her
exact age, and I do not think Denslow asked before drawing her. If RtO is
supposed to take place in 1899, when did she make her FIRST trip to Oz?
(Yeah, I know, it was 1939...). I am willing to accept the idea that there
were several years between these two incidents (Ummm... No, I don't mean
that. RtO is Disney, not HACC. Having just re-read Dorothy & Wizard, I have
to say that she seems a lot more mature here, too. But, boy, is the Wizard a
meanie! But not as rude and sharp-tongued as our pals seem to be in Land... I
am getting way ahead of the focus book. I will stop it and wait for their
turns to come up). FWIW, I don't enjoy these early Oz books nearly as much as
most of the later ones. I tend to assume that Baum hadn't expected to write
any more about Oz, so didn't bother to focus on any clear vision of the
place.

Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 01:13:04 -0500 (EST)
From: RMorris306 at aol.com
Subject: Recent Ozzy Digests
 
Dave Hardenbrook wrote:
 
<<Well some people on the Digest who are not ready to talk about
_Wizard_privately made their opinions known, therefore I am moving the start
of the offical discussion up a week.  I want to emphasize that I want you all
to express your opinions and to let me know when you don't like what I'm
doing on the Digest.>>
 
  And here I just reread the book and was about to launch into an involved
discussion...which, now that it's after midnight, I'm just as happy to
postpone. But to touch on a couple of topics that have already been discussed
at some length...
 
DOROTHY'S PERSONALITY: I certainly don't see her as the spoiled brat one or
two people have. She clearly cares about her dog, Toto, and her three
companions, often crying for them and always doing everything she can to help
them. She even has sympathy for strangers who've given her reason to dislike
them (like the Wizard and the Winged Monkeys). No, as far as I'm concerned,
she's a very admirable little girl.
 
DOROTHY'S AGE: I'm inclined to think that she's a lot older than, as one
Ozian suggested, four. Even Michael Patrick Hearn's estimate of 5 or 6 seems
a bit on the young side, given that she can read complex sentences, and take
care of herself and her dog (something even most 7- year-olds would have
trouble doing...a matter I had to consider in some detail in co-breeding a
litter of puppies and giving some serious thought to what families, all of
whose adult members were often at work all day, to sell them to).

     Even compressing the years between publication of the books and
suggesting that her time in Oz slowed down her aging process does require
that she be several years younger than her final age of 11, though. My best
guess is that she's around 8 (the estimate of, among others, Rob Roy McVeigh)
at the time of WIZARD. Which isn't even inconsistent with Hearn's observation
that Denslow depicts her wearing a dress more appropriate to a 5- or
6-year-old. Baum makes it clear that her family isn't very well off and that
she had only two dresses, both of which were relatively old. If the dress
still fits her after two years, it could be because the Gales originally
bought a dress slightly too big so she'd grow into it, and/or let out the
seams to enlarge it as she grew older...both common practices in buying
clothes for children, not necessarily restricted to the poorest families.
 
A MARKET QUESTION: In their biography of W.W. Denslow, Douglas G. Greene and
Michael Patick Hearn maintains that THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ has sold more
copies than any other children's book written by an American. Is this
documented? Is it undisputed that it's sold more copies than THE ADVENTURES
OF HUCKLEBERRY FINN or THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD or THE POKY LITTLE PUPPY
or THE CAT IN THE HAT, all of which have been the subject of similar claims? 
 
FUTURE DISCUSSIONS: Since the consensus seems to be that we should start with
WIZARD and cover the books in order, I also think we should stick to the FF,
and not interpolate Baum's other books...not even SEA FAIRIES and SKY ISLAND,
as has been suggested. Even if they do introduce characters who later turn up
in Oz, there's no more reason for including them than there is for, say, THE
MAGICAL MONARCH OF MO or JOHN DOUGH AND THE CHERUB. Yes, SKY ISLAND was one
of Baum's best fantasies, but so were THE ENCHANTED ISLAND OF YEW and QUEEN
ZIXI OF IX, and on the flip side I'd say THE SEA FAIRIES was one of Baum's
worst fantasies. (Maybe if he'd done SKY ISLAND first, Reilly & Lee might
have had more success in selling Baum's attempts to move his fantasies
outsize Oz, and even gone on to publish RINKITINK in its original, non-Oz
form.) 

       Unless, indeed, we truly do go ahead and try to discuss *all* of
Baum's books, or rather all his children's fantasies (does anyone really
*want* to track down AUNT JANE'S NIECES and its sequels? I didn't think so).
And, aside from our already skipping THE MAGICAL MONARCH OF MO (which, at
least in its original incarnation as A NEW WONDERLAND, predated WIZARD), most
of us would have a hard time indeed tracking down copies of DOT AND TOT IN
MERRYLAND...and, I fear, an even harder time getting through it (since, in my
far-from-exclusive opinion, it made THE SEA FAIRIES read like THE LOST
PRINCESS OF OZ by comparison). No, let's do the FF! In order! And I can
hardly wait...
 
 
Rich Morrissey

Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 19:45:32 -0500 (EST)
From: Nathan DeHoff <LNVF at grove.iup.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-10-97
 
David:
It seems odd that both of Nick Chopper's parents died, but Nick himself did
not, even when he was cut to pieces.  If death ended between the death of
Nick's parents and the enchantment of his axe, it might explain it, but I don't
know for sure.
 
I agree that it was intelligent for the lion to kill the spider while it slept.
The lion generally makes fairly intelligent choices, which he considers to be
cowardly.
 
Rich:
The Munchkins are described as midgets in _Wizard_, and Denslow also draws the
Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman as about the same height as Dorothy.  In _Dorothy
and the Wizard_, the Munchkin that Zeb fights is short.  After this book,
however, I do not recall any mention of the Munchkins being any shorter than
any other people.  The Ozurians, for instance, are described as tall.  A recent
Oz Gazette suggests that Baum underestimated the size of the Munchkins.
Another possibility is that the Wicked Witches somehow shrank many of the
people of Oz (not just the Munchkins, as Locasta and the people of the Emerald
City are also described as diminutive).  Any other thoughts on the heights of
Ozites?
 
I was the one who suggested that Dorothy was four years old in _Wizard_, but I
agree that this was actually quite unlikely.  I used this age to allow a wide
space of time in between this book and _Ozma_, which was written several years
later.
 
I don't know if _Wizard_ sold more copies than any other children's book, but
it was considerably older than some of the books that you mentioned, and had
more time in which to be sold.  _Huckleberry Finn_ was older than _Wizard_, but
I wouldn't really consider _Huckleberry Finn_ to be a children's book.
 
        Nathan Mulac DeHoff
        lnvf at grove.iup.edu
        "I found out folks don't really care much for the truth."  -The Truth
        Teller

Date: Mon, 10 Feb 1997 21:34:24 -0500 (EST)
From: "Aaron S. Adelman" <adelman at yu1.yu.edu>
Subject: Characterization of Dorothy
 
1) Chris et. al., Dorothy in _Wizard_ never struck me as particularly
selfish; practical, yes, but selflessness in the face of starvation is a
fool's virtue.  Even Dorothy's constant worrying about getting home
doesn't strike me as a fault; if memory serves me correctly (I haven't
run across the relevant quote yet in my agonizingly slow rereading yet),
she was worried about the impact of her disappearance on Uncle Henry and
Aunt Em, financially as well as emotionally.  If Dorothy had been truly
selfish, she would have taken advantage of her accidental killing of
Gingemma and, duplicating what Oscar Diggs did, become Queen (or perhaps
Witch) of the East.
 
3) David, I was under the impression that Oz didn't become deathless until
a few years after Ozma came to power.  As late as _Little Wizard Stories
of Oz_, the Cowardly Lion and the Hungry Tiger predict (wrongfully) that
they will die relatively soon.
 
5) Rich, I always assumed that only the three little men who greeted
Dorothy were superlatively short.  Come to think of it, Gingemma probably
was as well, considering that Dorothy wore her Shoes.  The other Munchkins
I always assumed were more normal sized, at best being a little shorter
than people in the rest of Oz.  I don't recall any reference to Munchkins
in general being smaller than other Ozites.
 
Aaron Solomon (ben Saul Joseph) Adelman
adelman at yu1.yu.edu

Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 23:56:09 -0500 (EST)
From: Nathan DeHoff <LNVF at grove.iup.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-11-97
 
Aaron:
Near the end of the book, Dorothy informs Glinda that Aunt Em and Uncle Henry
will probably "put on mourning," which they would not be able to afford.  BTW,
in _Dorothy and the Wizard_, Em and Henry really do "put on mourning."
 
There was never really any reference to all of the Munchkins being short.
Unfortunately, the MGM movie made the Munchkins short, and, since then, the
word "Munchkin" has often been used as the equivalent of "little person." This
annoys me, and it probably would annoy the Munchkins if they knew of it.
 
Cheeriobed: What's all this about my people being midgets?
Realbad: I'm a Munchkin, and I'm over six feet tall.
Vaga: So what?  I'm a Munchkin, too, and I'm eight feet tall.
 
As for the Silver Shoes, it might have been that the WWE was diminutive (or
that she just had small feet), or it may have been that the Shoes would
automatically fit anyone's feet.
 
        Nathan Mulac DeHoff
        lnvf at grove.iup.edu
        "Oz?  Is that a place or a tonic?"  -Humpy
        (Yes, it's an old quote, but I'm running out of good quotes.  Maybe
        people could send me their favorite quotes.)

Date: Tue, 11 Feb 1997 21:11:00 -0500
From: Tyler Jones <tylerjones at compuserve.com>
Subject: Oz
 
Dorothy and her age:
On the HACC, I have _Wizard_ taking place in 1899 and _Emerald City_
taking place in 1905. IMHO, I have squeezed them as close together as I
possibly can. Currently, I am assuming that Dorothy was six at the time of
her first trip to Oz and that her visits slowed her aging down by one year.
It is possible to assume that she was seven and that her visits slowed her 
aging down by TWO years, but others (such as David Hulan) have remarked
that this would have slwoed down her aging by a great deal and that
people would have noticed.
 
YOu will notice that I am assuming Dorothy to be physically eleven by the
time she moves to Oz. THis is due to the fact that Baum wrote that Dorothy 
was one year older than Trot and that Trot said "me too" when Prince
Philador said he has stayed at the age of 10 for "ever so long". All this
means, though, is that Trot has also stopped her aging. What if Trot was
actually 11? Then Dorothy could be 12 (13 chronologically) and hence she
could be seven at the time of _Wizard_.
 
Someone once remarked that a girl growing up on a farm in the late 19th
century would be able to take care of herself a little better than
someone her own age in this time.
 
David again:
THe conventional wisdom is that all death and aging stopped cold when
Lurline did her thing so long ago. I do not buy this, though, as there is
plenty of evidence that aging and death happened afterwards. My MOPPeT is
that things happened in a way described by Hearn and in _Oz and the Three
Witches_. That is, that the enchantment was worked in order to create the
perfect land upon the ascension of Ozma. THe fact that Ozma was kidnapped
and transformed thre the plan a little off kilter.
 
I also like Aaron's idea of magical "hoptspots". That way, certain parts of
the country would become enchanted faster than others and even certain parts
of the enchantment would come to fuition before others. Using this, we can
easily explain why some people died and some did not. Also, certain people
may have been more or less susceptible to the enchantment that others, at
least before Ozma.
 
Nathan:
IIRC, it was only in the first book that so many people were described as
small. Either the WWE shrank some of her subjects or perhaps Baum wrote
that the people were the same size as Dorothy to appeal to children.
 
--Tyler Jones

Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 13:59:10 -0500 (EST)
From: DavidXOE at aol.com
Subject: Wizard of Oz Discussion
 
Chris D.:
 >I was shocked and horrified to learn that no
>one else has read WWoO [ That's _Wonderful Wizard_ -- not _Wicked Witch_ -- 
>_of Oz_  -- Dave :) ] and remembered Dorothy to any degree.
 
I don't think the question is whether we _remembered_ Dorothy so much as the
impression particular statements by and about Dorothy made on us vs.
yourself. I'll admit, though, that it's relatively difficult to go back to
WIZARD and read Dorothy's character without its being influenced by what I've
learned about her in the dozen or so later books where she has a major role.
 
However, there is _never_ a point in the book where Dorothy does or says
anything that I think deserves a spanking. If you do, then I hope you don't
have much to do with kindergarteners - or for that matter, kids up through
fourth grade or so.
 
>In fact, the one and ONLY time when she seems to think of anyone besides herself is when
>her personal dog is in danger from the Lion.
 
What about when the Scarecrow is stranded on the pole in the river, and she
appeals to the stork to rescue him? What about when she organizes the Winkies
to find the Tin Woodman and Scarecrow after she liquidates the WWW? What
about when she doesn't chase the china princess after she's asked to stay
away?
 
But yes, I'll agree that Fairuza Balk's character in RtO was considerably
more mature than Dorothy in WIZARD. This is reasonable; presumably she's
based on Dorothy's character in OZMA, which was certainly more mature than it
was in WIZARD. (Although for whatever reason, her diction was a lot worse.)
 
(And I'll also agree that with the exception of OZMA, I like the early Oz
books less than most of Baum's later ones.)
 
Jeremy:
The question of whether the time between Nick Chopper's mother's death and
Dorothy's arrival in Oz was 3 years or 5 years or even 20 years is certainly
open to question. That it would be as much as 700 years (which is one theory
that's fairly popular, based on information in YELLOW KNIGHT) seems highly
unlikely.
 
>Your scathing review of `Irrelevant Episodes' is, I feel,
>unwarranted, as they add texture to the Oz series (when not
>overdone);
 
Huh? All I said about IEs was " This book seems to have fewer Irrelevant
Episodes than most of the series,
with the major exception being the Dainty China Country. Mostly this is
because things that could be IEs (the various obstacles in getting to the EC,
primarily) are used to characterize the travelers - particularly to show that
the Scarecrow really does have brains, and the lion courage." This is a
"scathing review"? I've nothing against IEs in moderation; there's really
only one left in the published version of GLASS CAT, but there were three
more that had to be cut out to get it down to publishable length. EUREKA has
several, and so does PROF. WOGGLE-BUG. I'll admit that books like DOTWIZ,
ROAD, and EC, which are dominated by IEs, don't hold up as well, but a few
are no problem. I was only observing, not objecting.
 
Nathan:
As I've said before, MOPPeT is that the enchantment on the Tin Woodman's axe
was able to make it cut him, but not to kill him or make him bleed badly.
Otherwise, as you say, he could not have survived being cut up unless the
enchantment of deathlessness had already taken effect in Oz. We know for a
fact that it hadn't with animals, and have little reason to believe that it
had with humans.
 
Aaron:
I agree with you that deathlessness only became common in Oz after Ozma's
accession, though some individuals and groups might have achieved it through
other means than Lurline's enchantment. However, this view is not by any
means universal among Oz scholars. (I've never been able to persuade Robin
Hess, for one.)
 
David Hulan

Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 17:03:46 -0500 (EST)
From: OzBucket at aol.com
Subject: Oz
 
On the issue of Dorothy: Come on, people! I never meant to insult Dorothy in
any way. Are you honestly arguing that she seems more mature in Wonderful
Wizard than Fairuza's portrayal? I made a simple statement of fact, and it
has been blown way out of proportion. And agreed, when Dorothy returns in
later books, she is a LOT more mature than that first time. I am led to
wonder now, how many years actually passed. Baum was very bad about
identifying the year events took place (hence my question about THE
earthquake). We know that W.Wizard had to take place before it was written
(unless Baum was actually Nostradamus in disguise), so I figure 1899 is safe.
The next date we have for certain is not until Queer Visitors (3rd BOOK),
which is 1904. She may well have aged a full 4+ years since Wizard! And how
much later than 1904 was Ozma?

Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 18:38:11 -0600 (CST)
From: Robin Olderman <robino at tenet.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-12-97
 
Munchkin height: Doesn't Baum say something about their being about 
Dorothy's height, or the height of a child?
 
--Robin O.

Date: Wed, 12 Feb 1997 21:31:51 -0500
From: Tyler Jones <tylerjones at compuserve.com>
Subject: Oz
 
Dorothy: 
Considering that Dorothy was violently ripped away from her home, she 
acted rather well. 
 
--Tyler Jones 

Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 04:42:25 +0000
From: Scott Olsen <ScottO1440 at worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-11-97 & 2-12-97
 
 
BCF discussion:
 
Hopefully it's not too early, but I think it's interesting to note that
_Wizard_ is one of Baum's few children's books that has a message or moral
(even though he states in the introduction that it does not).
 
Sincerely,
 
Scott Olsen

Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 13:42:38 -0500 (EST)
From: DavidXOE at aol.com
Subject: Ozzy Digest, 02-12-97
 
Tyler:
I don't think it's that hard to squeeze the time between WIZARD and EMERALD
CITY to less than six years. My own timeline is WIZARD, summer of 1899; LAND,
sometime in 1900; OZMA, autumn of 1901; DOTWIZ, spring of 1902; ROAD, summer
of 1902; EMERALD CITY, sometime, probably early autumn, in 1903. I know of
nothing in the canon that would make these dates implausible (though they
might create some difficulty with some of the non-FF books), and there are
several things in their favor. This allows Dorothy to be seven in WIZARD
without any age-compression effect at all. 
 
It's certainly possible that Trot's "me too" in GIANT HORSE simply meant
she'd stopped her aging and not that she'd stopped it at 10, as Philador had.
But since Betsy is a year older than Dorothy, if Trot is 11, Dorothy would be
12 and Betsy 13. She doesn't look it in the illustrations, nor act it in any
of the books where she appears, so that seems implausible. Based on their
actions, it's likelier that Trot (who's often referred to as "Tiny Trot") is
younger than 10 than older.
 
>IIRC, it was only in the first book that so many people were described as small.
 
There was the Munchkin that Zeb wrestled and boxed with in DOTWIZ. He's
described as hardly coming to Zeb's shoulder. Of course, we don't know how
tall Zeb is, or even how old; he seems to be quite strong and capable, and I
wouldn't be surprised if he's 15 or 16 and as tall as a normal grown man.
 
David Hulan

Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 18:04:50 -0500 (EST)
From: Nathan DeHoff <LNVF at grove.iup.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-13-97
 
Robin:
Baum does state that the Munchkins who first approached Dorothy (as well as the
GWN, IIRC) were about the same height as Dorothy.
 
        Nathan Mulac DeHoff
        lnvf at grove.iup.edu
        http://www.dragonfire.net/~VoVat/home.html

Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 21:13:28 -0500
From: "Melody G. Keller" <104270.2374 at compuserve.com>
Subject: Ozzy Digest, 02-08-97
 
Chris:
 
Dorothy compares rather well with my daughter of similar age--who can get
"the gimmee's" really bad! (Down girl! Down! Down!) Dorothy seems so
non-greedy, Baum states in "Emerald City" that she never brought home any
jewels (or apparently anything else) from Oz with her. Either that, or any
fairyland stuff she picked up did not survive the trip to Kansas.
 
Melody Grandy

Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 21:12:20 -0500
From: Tyler Jones <tylerjones at compuserve.com>
Subject: Oz
 
Chris:
I don't think that anyone ever said that the Dorothy in _Wizard_ showed a
great deal of maturity, especially more so than Fairuza. THe consensus
seems to be that Dorothy acted reasonably well considering her age and
situation, and certainly was not bratty.
 
Nathan:
I believe Baum himself (or one of his characters) said that while people
could no longer die in Oz, they can still be destroyed.
 
--Tyler Jones

Date: Thu, 13 Feb 1997 21:40:29 -0500 (EST)
From: DavidXOE at aol.com
Subject: Ozzy Digest, 02-13-97
 
Chris D.:
You didn't mean to insult Dorothy in any way? I hope, then, that you never
decide to insult me in any way; calling someone "a selfish little brat," or
saying "I think re-reading pretty much any
page will have you wanting to give this brat a spanking," is much more of an
insult than I'd find acceptable. It's not your simple statement of fact that
Fairuza's portrayal in RtO is more mature than Dorothy's in WIZARD - which I
agree with - that ruffled a lot of feathers.
 
David Hulan

Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 01:07:20 -0500 (EST)
From: "John N. White" <jnw at vnet.net>
Subject: Ozzy Digest
 
Tyler Jones <tylerjones at compuserve.com> writes:
> It is possible to assume that she was seven and that her visits slowed her 
> aging down by TWO years, but others (such as David Hulan) have remarked 
> that this would have slwoed down her aging by a great deal and that 
> people would have noticed. 
 
Well, suppose Dorothy didn't age at all after her first visit in WIZARD?
Would there be any inconsistency between this and any of the books?
People would notice, of course, but they may have refrained from telling
Dorothy that she was a little runt.  People in Oz might not notice, since
they had stopped aging too.  Baum himself would have noticed, but
there is no reason why he would explicitly mention this in his book.
Actually, he *did* say things like Dorothy "seemed just the same sweet
little girl she had been when first she came to this delightful fairyland".
That might be interpreted as meaning Dorothy hadn't aged since WIZARD.
 
> I also like Aaron's idea of magical "hoptspots". ...  Also, certain people 
> may have been more or less susceptible to the enchantment that others,
> at least before Ozma. 
 
The enchantment may have been like a computer program -- taking a long
time to get all the parts running, and then another long time to get the
bugs out.  Also, being a fairy enchantment it may have helped good people
before it did anything for bad people.  I recall Baum saying somewhere
that even though good people never died, bad people could still be put
to death.
 
-- 
jnw at vnet.net   (John N. White)

Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 21:22:06 -0500
From: Tyler Jones <tylerjones at compuserve.com>
Subject: Oz
 
David:
Indeed, if only the FF are considered, the first six could be squeezed
quite tight, but that runs into problems with some of the non-FF.
 
John:
Dorothy must have aged at least a little after _Wizard_, since she was in
our world for long periods of time, certainly time enough for the semi-Oz
enchantment to stop having any effect. Her aging would probably have slowed
some, though, which is why I have the one-year thing, and possibly two.
 
If two years of age-slowing seems reasonable, then some of the pressure could 
be relieved in the timeline of the first six of the FF.
 
 
--Tyler Jones

Date: Fri, 14 Feb 1997 21:50:26 -0500 (EST)
From: DIXNAM at aol.com
Subject: Ozzy Digest 2-14-97
 
Chris/OzBucket;
 
Come on, "fess up".  Weren't those"Dorothy is a brat" comments, and saying
your  two year old niece is more mature, etc. just your way to "yank our
collective chains" and stir up a little controversy??  (A two year old not
going through the "terrible" stage is truly a remarkable child!!)
 
Dick

Date: Sat, 15 Feb 97 11:17:26 (PST)
From: Dave Hardenbrook <DaveH47 at delphi.com>
Subject: Ozzy Things
 
CHRIS' REMARKS ON DOROTHY:
FWIW, I think when Dorothy said "I don't care about *you* -- I just care
that I get what *I* want" (or words to that effect), she was just expressing
raw frustration at her situation, being so far from home (and the Scarecrow
and Tin Woodman's petty bickering wasn't helping matters any).
 
 
                             -- Dave

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 06:59:44 -0500 (EST)
From: "John N. White" <jnw at vnet.net>
Subject: Oz
 
Tyler Jones <tylerjones at compuserve.com> writes:
> Dorothy must have aged at least a little after _Wizard_, since she was in
> our world for long periods of time, certainly time enough for the semi-Oz
> enchantment to stop having any effect.
 
For all we know her metabolism was altered so that her growth was halted
PERMANENTLY.  Of course, she clearly is younger than 11 in WIZARD and
OZMA, so some aging occurred between then and E. CITY.  But suppose that
in WIZARD Dorothy is 7, and her growth is halted.  Then the events in
OZMA occur 6 years later, and Dorothy is still physically 7.  By that
time everyone (in the US) is frantic that this 13 year old girl still
looks like she is 7, and Dorothy is feeling the pressure to grow older.
So in OZMA she returns to Oz wanting to grow older, and her growth restarts.
Then in E. CITY (4 years later) Ozma asks Dorothy to halt her growth again.
 
My main point is that saying "people would have noticed" is no argument
since we have absolutely no evidence that people didn't notice.
-- 
jnw at vnet.net   (John N. White)

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 11:11:36 -0500 (EST)
From: JOdel at aol.com
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-14-97
 
On dwarfish Munchkins:
Gingema was a dwarf herself. Dwarfism is not uncommon in Oz, as can be seen
by the number of other child-sized characters encountered throughout the FF.
She did not want normal-sized people around her, towering over her. So she
cast an overlay spell that prevented anyone living within a day's travel or
so from her personal stomping ground from growing any taller than herself.
After a generation she effectively had produced a district populated by dwarfed
Munchkins. Once she was destroyed, the spell ended. Since there had been no
actual genetic changes made, any child thereafter who chose to grow up grew
to normal height.

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 20:31:32 -0500
From: Tyler Jones <tylerjones at compuserve.com>
Subject: Oz
 
John:
There may be something in what you say. The early part of the Baum line on
the HACC really needs to be "un-squeezed" by a year or two, as well as
making Dorothy about 7, which I feel is an appropriate age for her. The
only obstacle was the fact that people would have noticed that she was
not growing up, and as you say that may not really be a problem after all.
 
--Tyler Jones

Date: Sun, 16 Feb 1997 22:19:16 -0500 (EST)
From: RMorris306 at aol.com
Subject: THE WIZARD OF OZ and other Digest comments
 
 
David Hulan wrote:
 
<<I agree with you that HUCKLEBERRY FINN, though often marketed to children,
isn't really a children's book. Even TOM SAWYER, which is more of a
children's book than its sequel, is marginal.>>
 
     Well, Mark Twain himself said as much, though in a statement whose
sarcasm is often missed ("I wrote the books exclusively for adults...the idea
of either TOM SAWYER or HUCKLEBERRY FINN falling into the hands of a child
fills me with horror," or some such). My copy of WIZARD is the Schocken
edition edited by Hearn, which also includes a number of critical essays on
it and the later Oz books...and, after rereading it for the discussion, I
reread some of the articles. Some of them shed an interesting light on the
children's books of the day (including recommendations of writers like
Dickens, who almost certainly wasn't writing for children even to the limited
extent Twain sometimes was). I'll certainly grant that the other books I
mentioned, like THE LITTLE ENGINE THAT COULD, weren't around as long as
WIZARD and may not have sold as many total copies (though, since they were
much smaller and cheaper, I suspect they *sold* more copies in their day and
since than a big, relatively expensive book like WIZARD). But what about two
other books even older than WIZARD that I inexplicably forgot last time,
TREASURE ISLAND and LITTLE WOMEN? I wouldn't be surprised if either or both
has outsold WIZARD, and both were children's books written by Americans.
(Come to think of it, hasn't it also been claimed that the original Mother
Goose came from Boston?)
 
<<The question of whether the time between Nick Chopper's mother's death and
Dorothy's arrival in Oz was 3 years or 5 years or even 20 years is certainly
open to question. That it would be as much as 700 years (which is one theory
that's fairly popular, based on information in YELLOW KNIGHT) seems highly
unlikely.>>
 
     Impossible, if one credits the statement Nick makes in WIZARD to the
effect that his father had once visited the Emerald City. Since the EC had
only been built in the last 20 or so years by the Wizard, that indicates that
it hadn't been too many years since he died.
 
<<There was the Munchkin that Zeb wrestled and boxed with in DOTWIZ. He's
described as hardly coming to Zeb's shoulder. Of course, we don't know how
tall Zeb is, or even how old; he seems to be quite strong and capable, and I
wouldn't be surprised if he's 15 or 16 and as tall as a normal grown man.>>
 
     Actually, DOTWIZ , even more than WIZARD, was a book in which Baum
remembered the Munchkins, and only the Munchkins (only *some* Munchkins, at
that...even the movie had the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman as normal-sized men)
as being midgets. But, even in WIZARD, I never got the impression that people
in other parts of Oz were supposed to be unusually short. Some people in the
Emerald City were so described, but some weren't (I'm pretty sure the Soldier
with the Green Whiskers was consistently described as a tall man), so I'd say
the Guardian of the Gates just *happened* to be a short man... just as the
Wizard (who wasn't native to Oz) was.
 
And now...THE (WONDERFUL) WIZARD OF OZ!
 
      It's always hard to reread an acknowledged classic, especially one with
as many sequels as THE WIZARD OF OZ had. Yet in a way it had more in common
with Baum's non-Oz fantasies than it did with the later Oz books...just as in
QUEEN ZIXI or THE MAGICAL MONARCH OF MO or THE MASTER KEY, Baum was telling a
complete story about original and new characters that (by all accounts) he
never intended to use again. As far as I know, this was the only time he, due
to incredible demand, changed his mind and did decide to return to his
characters. Unless I miss my guess, even in THE SEA FAIRIES (Baum's only
other children's fantasy that became a series) Baum meant to continue Trot's
adventures by the time he finished the book...although, of course, by that
time he was writing more series than just Oz for other markets. 

     The Oz of this book, before Ozma's accession, is definitely a different
place than it later became...indeed, as I think David has noted that the Oz
we know had more in common with the original Mo (a/k/a Phunnyland) than with
the Oz of WIZARD. It's literally full of monstrous animals, most of them as
(apparently) mute as Toto...the Kalidahs, the wildcat, the Wicked Witch's
wolves, crows and bees, the giant spider, even the Winged Monkeys and (very
briefly) the Cowardly Lion before they become Dorothy'd friends. Clearly
whatever immortality affects Oz people didn't then (and may never have)
applied to animals, since many of them die (underscoring the fact that the
Cowardly Lion isn't a genuine coward; since he several times places his life
in danger to protect his friends). The only ones who talk, besides the
ultimately-friendly Lion and Monkeys, are the Queen of the Field Mice, the
leader of the Witch's wolves, and the old crow who befriends the
Scarecrow...who, I trust, was *not* one of those he later killed. Indeed,
s/he definitely wasn't if we're to believe Volkov, who brought him (or, to
Volkov, her) back in later books. Volkov called her Kaggi-Karr; I wonder if
Oz fandom as a whole could adopt that name for her (him) as it did those of
Gingemma and Bastinida?

 It's also interesting, given Baum's general lack of romantic subplots (with
most of those there were, like those in TIK-TOK and SCARECROW, taken from Oz
plots Baum originally developed for other media), to find no less than two in
his first Oz book. The story of Gayelette and Quelala is a mere interlude,
with neither character actually appearing in the book nor interacting with
its major characters. (Is it just me, or does the relationship parallel many
unorthodox pairings through history of powerful women and younger but
handsome men? I can't even help but be reminded of Madonna and Carlos
Leon...) But the doomed romance of Nick Chopper and Nimmee Aimee (if I can be
forgiven for using the names not given in this book but in later ones) was
rather surprising, involving a major character in the novel who fails to do
anything for her until Baum returned to the plot (again, by reader demand) in
TIN WOODMAN. (Actually, from the standpoint of this book alone, there was no
reason to assume he *wouldn't* have sent for her once he became established
as Emperor of the Winkies. By the time Baum returned to him in LAND, he may
simply have forgotten he'd left his fiancee behind.)

       The librarian once quoted by Martin Gardner to the effect that the Oz
books "had a cowardly approach to life" might have been thinking mostly of
the Cowardly Lion, and his dispatching of the giant spider (even *after* he
was given courage by the Wizard) in its sleep. But I have to concur with
David Hulan that this was one case where discretion was the better part of
valor, especially since none of the other jungle animals was brave enough
even to investigate the monster.

       In retrospect, perhaps the fame of THE WIZARD OF OZ may have been owed
as much to the Broadway musical (and, later, to the MGM movie) than to the
book itself. But it's still a delightful and solid book, which reportedly
kept the decidedly adult Samuel Goldwyn fascinated when one of his readers
suggested it for a movie...and the rest was history!
 
Rich Morrissey

Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 08:11:31 -0500 (EST)
From: DavidXOE at aol.com
Subject: Ozzy Digest, 02-16-97
 
John W.:
It seems unlikely that Dorothy's aging was halted when she went to Oz in
WIZARD; the Wizard's aging wasn't halted while he was in Oz, so it seems
pretty clear that as a minimum, the aging of mortals wasn't stopped against
their wills before Ozma's accession. (Whether Ozites' aging stopped
completely, happened only when they willed it, or stopped only when they
willed it is one of those areas where the books seem ambiguous.)
 
And while it's true that we don't -know- that Dorothy's lack of aging in
Kansas wasn't noticed, Uncle Henry and Aunt Em do a fair amount of
soul-searching about Dorothy in EC, and if she were seriously physically
retarded you'd think that would have been on their minds. And that Baum would
have mentioned it too.
 
David Hulan

Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 16:33:33 -0500 (EST)
From: Nathan DeHoff <LNVF at grove.iup.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-17-97
 
Rich:
Maybe the Guardian of the Gates grew up in the part of the Munchkin Country
where Dorothy's house landed.  This would explain his shortness.  As for the
Soldier, we know his weight (125 pounds in _Wonder City_), and are never given
an exact figure for his height, but I believe that he has been described as
tall.  Actually, the Tin Woodman might be even taller than the Soldier, since,
in _Ozoplaning_, when the party of the Tin Man, the Soldier, and Jellia met the
Stratovanians, these people were described as being "taller than even the Tin
Woodman." (I don't remember the exact line.)
 
        Nathan Mulac DeHoff
        lnvf at grove.iup.edu
        

Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 21:38:28 -0500 (EST)
From: "John N. White" <jnw at vnet.net>
Subject: Oz
 
DavidXOE at aol.com writes:
> It seems unlikely that Dorothy's aging was halted when she went to Oz in
> WIZARD; the Wizard's aging wasn't halted while he was in Oz,
 
The Enchantment seemed to be just getting going about the time Dorothy
arrived, and the Wizard had already aged by then.
 
In fact, Lurline and her band may have been hanging around at that time,
although they didn't show themselves.  Dorothy's house could not have
survived the fall without some magical assistance, and its falling
on one of the two worst wicked witches is just too improbable -- unless
someone arranged for it to do so.
 
> (Whether Ozites' aging stopped completely, happened only when they
> willed it, or stopped only when they willed it is one of those areas
> where the books seem ambiguous.)
 
The books don't seem ambiguous to me.  Baum clearly states that all
aging had stopped.  Period.  It is only later that the Ozites discover
that they can restart it if they want.
 
> And while it's true that we don't -know- that Dorothy's lack of aging in
> Kansas wasn't noticed, Uncle Henry and Aunt Em do a fair amount of
> soul-searching about Dorothy in EC, and if she were seriously physically
> retarded you'd think that would have been on their minds.
 
It may have been on their minds, but they may not have mentioned it to
Dorothy to avoid hurting her feelings and making her feel inadequate,
and Dorothy was Baum's informant.
 
> And that Baum would have mentioned it too.
 
He did.  He wasn't so blunt as to call her "seriously physically retarded",
but he did say things like Dorothy "seemed just the same sweet little girl
she had been when first she came to this delightful fairyland".
Baum obviously knew how to say these things diplomatically.
 
-- 
jnw at vnet.net   (John N. White)

Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 21:40:42 -0500 (EST)
From: Richard Bauman <72172.2631 at CompuServe.COM>
Subject: TWO DAYS OZ GROWLS
 
WOZ - There has been so much discussion of Dorothy's age.  Looking at p.11 (on
the porch behind Uncle Henry) and p.28 (surrounded by Munchkins) of my edition
she could be as old as 8 in the former and as young as 4 in the latter.  I guess
we will just have to blame Denslow for this confusion.  Does anyone know if the
publisher let Baum approve the drawings for his book.  I'm told most modern
authors don't get that courtesy.  
 
I noticed on p. 41 that the Yellow Brick Road is in bad shape.  The Munchkins
aren't paying their taxes?  Is there an explanation for this in the FF?
 
I noticed on p.114 that the children were buying things with green pennies. Eric
had a whole article on means of exchange in Oz, in the Bugle recently.   
 
p. 217 It is interesting that Baum chose to have the Lion's tail destroy a
church.  It makes me wonder how Baum felt about churches.  
 
Speaking of destruction, I am afraid the thing I noticed most in the book, not
having read it for 30 years, was the unrelenting slaughter.  To enumerate:
 
p. 21 One Witch (East), crushed to death - by house
p. 72 Two Kalidahs, smashed on rocks - by Woodman
p. 92 One wildcat, hacked to death - by Woodman
p. 136 40 Wolves, likewise - by Woodman 
p. 138 40 Crows, necks broken - by Scarecrow
p. 139 One swarm bees, stingers broken - by Woodman
p. 150 One Witch (West), disolved - by Dorothy
p. 221 One giant spider, decapitated - by Lion
 
It is clear from the above that the Woodman is the real killing machine of the
quartet, but all of them are involved in the slaughter.  This book certainly
borrows from the tradition of grim and Grimm fairy tales in this regard.  And
this from someone who is so "kind and soft-hearted" he couldn't handle military
school?  This is another demonstration of someone's dark side, where a person
expresses sublimated agression in some socially acceptable way, such as in a
fantasy.  It is also interesting to note that our "kind and soft-hearted" author
chose violence as a way of solving his characters problems. I have the feeling
that he chose other means in later books.  
 
Busily, Bear  (:<)

Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 10:37:40 -0800
From: "Stephen J. Teller" <steller at pittstate.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-17-97
 
> From: RMorris306 at aol.com
> And now...THE (WONDERFUL) WIZARD OF OZ!
 
> the old crow who befriends the
> Scarecrow...who, I trust, was *not* one of those he later killed. 
 
Certainly not, it was a Munchkin crow, not a Winkie one.
 
> Indeed, s/he definitely wasn't if we're to believe Volkov, who brought him 
> (or, to
> Volkov, her) back in later books. Volkov called her Kaggi-Karr; I wonder if
> Oz fandom as a whole could adopt that name for her (him) as it did those of
> Gingemma and Bastinida?
 
I am not sure we have.  I, for one, only use those names for Volkov's
characters, never for Baum's.
 
> But the doomed romance of Nick Chopper and Nimmee Aimee (if I can be
> forgiven for using the names not given in this book but in later ones) was
> rather surprising, involving a major character in the novel who fails to do
> anything for her until Baum returned to the plot (again, by reader demand) in
> TIN WOODMAN. (Actually, from the standpoint of this book alone, there was no
> reason to assume he *wouldn't* have sent for her once he became established
> as Emperor of the Winkies. By the time Baum returned to him in LAND, he may
> simply have forgotten he'd left his fiancee behind.)
 
He certainly does not mention that possibility in WWOO.
 
>        In retrospect, perhaps the fame of THE WIZARD OF OZ may have been owed
> as much to the Broadway musical (and, later, to the MGM movie) than to the
> book itself. 
> 
> Rich Morrissey
 
The initial success of the book preceeded the musical version, and it
was a classic before the movie.  Certainly much of its fame in the 1990s
comes from the 1939 movie.  It is impossible to know what the fate of
the book would have been had the movie not come out.
 
Steve T.

Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 21:49:36 -0600 (CST)
From: Ruth Berman <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: ozzy digest
 
David Hulan: You pointed out to Dave
Hardenbrook that Dorothy in "Wizard" never said "I don't care if you get what you want so long
as I get what I want" and that the quasi-quote paraphrased what the narrative said she was
thinking.  I'd add a reminder of the point Gordon Birrell made earlier: that the narrative
description of the thought has it as part of her reaction to the argument between the Scarecrow
and the Tin Woodman, each believing that the other would get no good out of having the gift he
planned to ask of the Wizard, and that it's a sensible reaction to an insoluble problem.  It doesn't
mean she doesn't care about them.
 
Tyler Jones: On having the Silver Slippers show up in later stories, even though lost in the Desert
-- there was a story in "Oziana" several years back in which the Slippers were recovered from the
Sand Witch of the Desert. 
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 20:29:49 -0500 (EST)
From: Nathan DeHoff <LNVF at grove.iup.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-18-97
 
Bear:
Baum and Denslow were friends, so there is a good chance that the author did
see the illustrator's work before it was published.  Incidentally, the book was
copyrighted by both Baum and Denslow.
 
The ruined parts of the Yellow Brick Road were in uninhabited areas.  In
populated places, the people probably fix the road when it falls into
disrepair.
 
It is interesting to note that the china church in _Wizard_ is the only mention
of such a building in Baum's Oz books (IIRC).  Thompson makes passing
references to churches in _Ojo_ and _Handy Mandy_.
 
        Nathan Mulac DeHoff
        lnvf at grove.iup.edu
        "I can't think of a quote right now."  -Me

Date: Tue, 18 Feb 1997 21:20:22 -0500
From: Tyler Jones <tylerjones at compuserve.com>
Subject: Oz
 
John:
Farmer theorized that Glinda may have had a hand in Dorothy's house in
his non-HACC _Barnstormer in Oz_.
 
Aging:
My current MOPPeT is that Baum, as an early explorer of Oz, did not realize
that people were aging very slowly, and he assumed that all aging stopped.
In later years, after more investigating, it was discovered that people
aged only when they wanted to.
 
Bear:
I don't know if there is an explanation in the FF, but in _Tin Castle_ we
meet a man made of Yellow Bricks who works to repair the road. One
possibility is that the WWE, fearful of the Wizard, allowed the road to
fall into disrepair in order to cut down on access to and from EC.
 
--Tyler Jones

Date: Wed, 19 Feb 97 23:33:59 (PST)
From: Dave Hardenbrook <DaveH47 at delphi.com>
Subject: Ozzy Things
 
DEATH OF "OLD SAND-EYE" (A.K.A. GINGEMMA):
FWIW, a couple of years ago, before I was online and started the Ozzy Digest
or joined the IWOC, I wrote a story which explained the seemingly coincidental
demise of "Old Sand-Eye" (my name I had for the WWE; the WWW was 
"Old Snarl-Spats")...In this story it was all orchestrated by the Adepts,
who finally figured out a round-about way to exterminate Old Sand-Eye by
using their powers "garnered from nature" to harness a tornado in the
Outside World, have it pick up a good, heavy house, carry it through the Earth-Nonestica
wormhole to where the witch (whom I imagined to be on the narcoleptic side)
was slumbering under a tree in Munchkinland, and SPLAT!!!!!
 
That was my story, anyway...It probably doesn't hold HACC-water, but at least
it was fun to write... :)
 
                              -- Dave

Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 08:37:37 -0500 (EST)
From: CrNoble at aol.com
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-18-97
 
Observations from the first eight chapters of _Wizard_:
(page numbers are from BoW's fascimile edition)
 
1. Ch.2, p.24 - The Witch of the North says there are no witches left in
civilized countries (like Kansas), but Oz isn't civilized.  This suggests to
me that Baum initially intended or thought that Oz was someplace on Earth.
 Perhaps he thought the Deadly Desert was all that separated it from the
outside world.  Of course in later books we learn about other parts of
Baumgea that are outside the Deadly Desert, but note that these, too, are
uncivilized countries (like Ev) where magic is practiced.
 
2. The color scheme in Oz is much less rigid here.  Note for example in the
Munchkin country (Ch.2, p. 20) that there were "lovely patches of green
sward, and (Ch. 3, p. 34) though "blue was the favorite color," Dorothy
visits Boq's house which has a "green lawn before it."
 
3. I don't think Dorothy was a selfish brat, she was just a lost little girl
who was rightfully worried about finding her home.  She "was truly sorry for
him [the Scarecrow]" because he had no brains (Ch.3, p. 39).  Dorothy's later
thought that her companions' plight wouldn't matter so much if she were back
in Kansas is not unreasonable.  After all, despite their problems, they seem
better able to take care of themselves than she does.
 
4. Humor!  Dorothy remarks there's no place like home, even though it's dry
and gray (Ch. 3, p. 45).  The Scarecrow responds, "If your heads were stuffed
with straw like mine, you would probably all live in beautiful places, and
then Kansas would have no people at all.  It is fortunate for Kansas that you
have brains."
 
-- Craig

Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 11:19:24 -0500 (EST)
From: Nathan DeHoff <LNVF at grove.iup.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-19-97
 
Dave:
Well, Ku-Klip states that the WWE was on her way to get some magical herbs to
enchant Nimmie Amee when the house hit her.  Of course, she could have taken a
nap on her way to where the herbs grew.
 
        Nathan Mulac DeHoff
        lnvf at grove.iup.edu
        "Don't meddle with magic; that's my motto."  -Wag

Date: Wed, 19 Feb 1997 20:51:20 -0500
From: "Melody G. Keller" <104270.2374 at compuserve.com>
Subject: Ozzy Digest, 02-18-97
 
Bear:
 
Here's the account from the annotated Wizard of Oz: "Even as a boy, Baum
was a dreamer who preferred to spend his time alone. He had been born with
a defective heart and was forbidden to play any of the rough games of
childhood.  He was educated by private tutors and soon became enthralled
with the fat novels of the popular Victorian authors. Besides reading, he
had an early interest in writing poetry and novels.
 
"To cure him of his daydreaming (! aren't we glad it didn't work! MG :-)
:-) ) his mother sent him to the Peekskill Military Academy. Unaccustomed
to the harsh treatment of a military school he suffered a heart attack and
was immediately withdrawn. Years later he described the preference of his
instructors to slap or use a cane for discipline purposes. .......After his
disaster at the military academy his parents became more lenient and
evidently encouraged his interests." 
        
 In short, Baum proved temperamentally and physically unsuited for military
life. His mom made the typical parental mistake of trying to make her son
into something he wasn't. Nowadays, daydreaming is recognized as healthy
and normal---and important to creativity!  :-) .As for whether he had the
heart attack after being yelled at, I'll quote that one if I ever find it,
or it even exists.  But being yelled at gratuitously a lot is not exactly
good for mental health.... 
 
Yes, the Wizard does feature a lot of carnage in comparison with later Oz
books. However, Baum was supposedly kindly in real life--and even the
kindliest people get angry from time to time. 
 
Melody Grandy.

Date: Thu, 20 Feb 97 02:57:17 (PST)
From: Dave Hardenbrook <DaveH47 at delphi.com>
Subject: Ozzy Things
 
CRAIG'S _WIZARD_ COMMENTS:
Yes, I think Baum did originally intend the Deadly Desert to be the main
buffer between Oz and our world...I guess it wasn't until _Ozma_ that
Baumgea was "born" :) and Oz became situated at its hub.
 
 
                              -- Dave

Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 08:36:36 -0800
From: "Stephen J. Teller" <steller at pittstate.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-20-97
 
> From: CrNoble at aol.com
> 
> 2. The color scheme in Oz is much less rigid here.  Note for example in the
> Munchkin country (Ch.2, p. 20) that there were "lovely patches of green
> sward, and (Ch. 3, p. 34) though "blue was the favorite color," Dorothy
> visits Boq's house which has a "green lawn before it."
> 
Since you are using a facsimile first edition, it should be noted that
in this edition that was overseen by Baum and Denslow the colors of the
chapter title pages and the text illustrations change with the territory
in which the story is taking place.  A careful note of these colors will
show that the five color scheme that we associate with Oz was not clear
in the first book.  More on this later.
 
Steve T.

Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 09:56:22 -0600
From: Gordon Birrell <gbirrell at post.cis.smu.edu>
Subject: Ozzy Digest
 
Some observations on WWOZ:
 
Bear:
I liked your statistical analysis of the carnage in the book and the
surprising revelation that the Tin Woodman is the real "killing
machine" of the quartet.  It's interesting, though,
that most of the creatures that get wiped out in the course of the
book are wild animals, and precisely the kind of wild animals (crows,
bees, wolves, wildcats) that plagued Midwest farmers at the turn of
the century, as Michael Patrick Hearn points out in the annotated
WWOZ.  It's unlikely that contemporary readers would have
found this violence excessive or unwarranted.
 
I'd forgotten, too, how much more domesticated the Wicked Witch of the
West is in the original book compared with the MGM film:  the
way she sits on her homey front porch scanning her territories for intruders
is a far cry from Margaret Hamilton's flamboyant wickedness and the Nazi Deco
mise-en-scene that the filmmakers constructed for the witch's castle.
  There's no question that the MGM witch is terrifying, but Baum's
down-home witch with her little comical touches is nightmarish in more
complex ways, I think.
 
About the Dainty China Country:  everybody seems to agree that this
chapter constitutes an Irrelevant Episode.  Hearn comments that it
lacks the "robustness" of the rest of the book, and it is certainly true
that the milieu of the China Country comes across as overrefined and precious
in comparison with the primitive or archaic forces that the quartet has had
to come to terms with in other chapters.  On the other hand, I
believe that a case can be made for the relevance of this episode.  WWOZ
is, among other things, about a process of empowerment--I shudder to use that
term, with its echoes of talk-show babble, but here it makes sense, since three
of the characters are preparing to assume positions of great power and authority
(the Scarecrow as ruler of the Emerald City, the Tin Woodman as Emperor of the
Winkies, the Lion as King of the Forest), and Dorothy is also learning about
power--notice the cool way she takes charge of the witch's domain, issuing
clear-headed commands and restoring order in a methodical way. What the Dainty
China Country chapter demonstrates is that the just exercise of power involves
not only appropriate force against dangerous aggressors but also, and inevitably,
a sense of responsibility to respect the rights of those who are smaller,
weaker, more fragile, and--yes--more brittle.  (I say "inevitably"
because the book makes it clear that the China Country is directly in the path
of the four, and they *have* to traverse it on their way to Glinda's castle.)
 
Speaking of Dorothy and power:  it's worth noting that the destruction
of the Wicked Witch of the West doesn't take place in the context of a valiant
attempt to save the Scarecrow but occurs solely between Dorothy and the Witch,
in the feminine arena of the kitchen, in the context of a power struggle
over the silver shoes.
 
Craig:
I was also struck by unexpected humorous moments, and not just Baum's
infamous puns.  Here's one of my favorite passages:
 
Glinda:  "By means of the Golden Cap I shall command the Winged
Monkeys to carry [the Scarecrow] to the gates of the Emerald City, for it would
be a shame to deprive the people of so wonderful a ruler."
 
Scarecrow:  "Am I really wonderful?"
 
Glinda:  "You are unusual."
 
Gordon Birrell

Date: Thu, 20 Feb 1997 15:30:28 -0500 (EST)
From: Nathan DeHoff <LNVF at grove.iup.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-20-97
 
Craig:
The GWN's statement that there are no witches in civilized countries seems to
conflict with _John Dough_.  In that book, Ali Dubh says that he received
magical powders from a witch in an American city.  Of course, we do not know
that the GWN's statement was entirely correct, since she had probably never
been to a "civilized" country.  BTW, isn't it kinda strange how
Oz is described as "uncivilized," but, at least after Ozma's ascension
to the throne, it actually seems more civilized than the Great Outside World?
 
        Nathan Mulac DeHoff
        lnvf at grove.iup.edu
        http://www.dragonfire.net/~VoVat/home.html
        "This isn't a fairy tale.  It's real life in the Kingdom of Noland."
        -Ruffles (the dog in _Queen Zixi of Ix_)

Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 11:07:16 -0500 (EST)
From: DavidXOE at aol.com
Subject: Ozzy Digest, 02-18 thru 20-97
 
2/18:
Nathan:
The Soldier with the Green Whiskers is even described as "immensely tall"
somewhere in the series, though I forget exactly where. I remember that
phrase, though. Ojo thought he was the tallest man he'd ever seen, which
definitely means he's taller than the Shaggy Man.
 
John W.:
When I said "the books are ambiguous" about aging, I put it in the plural
deliberately. In TIN WOODMAN, Baum says aging had stopped, period. But in
PATCHWORK GIRL one of his characters says that Ojo will grow up (and there's
a strong implication that he's been growing recently); Thompson and Neill
both say quite specifically that Ozites can decide to age more if they
choose. (Maybe "inconsistent" or "contradictory" would have been better than
"ambiguous".)
 
Bear:
It's true that there's a lot of killing in WIZARD, but except for the two
Wicked Witches all those killed are animals. And the Animal Rights movement
hadn't really started yet.
 
2/19:
Ruth:
Right, Dorothy's thoughts in that quote that's been bandied about quite a bit
lately didn't even say that it didn't matter if her friends got what they
wanted as long as she got what she wanted - it said that it didn't matter if
they didn't get what they didn't particularly want in the first place (brains
for the TW and a heart for the Scarecrow).
 
2/20:
Craig:
The color scheme of Oz didn't get all that rigid in any of the Baum or
Thompson books, IIRC. In their books grass was always green, as were tree
leaves.
 
David Hulan

Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 17:44:17 -0500 (EST)
From: Gili Bar-Hillel <abhillel at husc.harvard.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-21-97
 
David - about killings after "Wizard", offhand I can think of a few in
"Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz": I'm not sure that mangaboos die when they
are split in half, but the fish in the brook that Eureka ate, I think one
of the invisible bears, possibly some gargoyles... I don't exactly
remember. I'll have to rearead the book, I guess...
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Gili Bar-Hillel
abhillel at fas.harvard.edu
    gili at scso.com
http://www.scso.com/~gili
======================================================================
                               "He thought he saw an Elephant          
   |\      _,,,---,,_          That practised on a fife:               
   /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_      He looked again, and found it was       
  |,4-  ) )-,_..;\ (  `'-'     A letter from his wife.                 
 '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)          'At length I realise,' he said,         
(cat by Felix Lee)             'The bitterness of Life!'"              
                                    - Lewis Carrol, "Sylvie and Bruno"

Date: Fri, 21 Feb 1997 18:33:11 -0500 (EST)
From: Nathan DeHoff <LNVF at grove.iup.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-21-97
 
David:
In _Ojo_, it is stated that Ojo was born after Ozma took the throne, so he must
have been aging between _Land_ and _Patchwork Girl_.  Of course, this was
Thompson's idea, not Baum's.
 
In _Land_, IIRC, Tip tells Jack Pumpkinhead that pretty much everything,
including the grass and trees, are purple in the Gillikin Country.  In
_Patchwork Girl_, on the other hand, Baum states that the grass and trees do
not follow the color scheme.  The scheme is most extreme in Neill's books.
 
        Nathan Mulac DeHoff
        lnvf at grove.iup.edu
        http://www.dragonfire.net/~VoVat/home.html
        "I've had a hard life; hard as those rocks.  Everybody's been against
        me from the very start, and all because I'm so little."  -Ruggedo

Date: Sat, 22 Feb 1997 12:26:00 -0500 (EST)
From: CrNoble at aol.com
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-21-97
 
Stephen:
 
Good point about the color of the text illustrations not always matching the
Oz territory  in the facsimile/first edition.  I was wondering about that
myself.  This is the first time I've read this edition of _Wizard_.  I'm
really enjoying the color plates and text illustrations.  The text
illustrations in my old R&L edition (in the white binding) don't overlap with
the text.  I like them much better the way they were intended even though it
sometimes makes it difficult to read the text.  I'm also seeing new
illustrations that I hadn't seen before in the chapter heading pages.
 
Gordon:
 
I'm not done with _Wizard_ yet, so I haven't gotten to the funny exchange
between Glinda and the Scarecrow.  Even so, that IS funny!
 
David:
 
As for the color scheme, I'm sure you're right about the Baum and Thompson
books.  I just finished reading for the first time _Scalawagons_, _Lucky
Bucky_, _Shaggy Man_, _Hidden Valley_, and _Merry-Go-Round_, and IIRC in some
of these books the color scheme is pretty rigid.
 
That's it for today,
Craig

Date: Sat, 22 Feb 1997 16:13:05 -0500 (EST)
From: Nathan DeHoff <LNVF at grove.iup.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-22-97
 
Gili:
IIRC, _Dorothy and the Wizard_ may have contained less violence overall than
_Wizard_, but much gorier descriptions.  The violence in _Wizard_ was usually
described quickly, and never very graphic, but I seem to remember Jim bleeding
after being attacked by an invisible bear.
 
        Nathan Mulac DeHoff
        lnvf at grove.iup.edu
        "Is it a girl or an octopus?"  -Kerr, upon first seeing Handy Mandy

Date: Sat, 22 Feb 1997 15:23:35 -0800
From: "Stephen J. Teller" <steller at pittstate.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-22-97
 
> Good point about the color of the text illustrations not always matching the
> Oz territory  in the facsimile/first edition. 
 
The full story follows:
 
Besides having 24 color plates including the color title page, the first
edition of WWOO had monochrome color on the chapter title pages and the
illustrations on most text pages. Because the color was on the pages as
printed in signatures, sometimes the color changed in the middle of a
chapter.  The first chapter, in Kansas, is in gray; Chapter II to the
middle of chapter VII in the Munchkin Country are in blue.  Chapter VIII
"The Deadly Poppoy Field is in red, which would suggest the poppies were
not in the Munchkin Country. Chapters IX to the middle of XII are in
green for the Emerald City, although most of XII is in the Winkie
Country.  Chapters XIII-XIV are yellow.  Chapters XV-XIX are all green,
meaning the fighting trees are still in the Emerald City region.  The
most interesting fact is that chapters XX and XXI are *brown*!  This
would suggest that the dainty  China Country and the forest where the
Lion becomes king of beasts in neither in the Emerald City nor in
Quadling Country. (Is brown a mixture of green and red?)  Finally
chapters XXII-XXIV are in red for the Quadling Country--it would have
been prohibitive to revert to gray for the one page chapter XXIV.
 
The Gillikin country does not figure in WWOO.  It may be significant
that the three countries have the three primany colors.  Adding green
for the Emerald City and purple for the northland leaves out only one of
the secondary colors, orange.  March Laumer attempted to remedy this in
THE MAGIC MIRROR OF OZ.
 
Steve T.

From: CrNoble at aol.com
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-22-97
Date: Sat, 22 Feb 1997 20:44:17 -0500 (EST)
 
I've finished rereading _Wizard_.  As I said before, it's the first time I've
read a facsimile of the first edition.  Here are more comments and questions:
 
1.  After Peter Glassman's "Afterward" there's one final unnumbered page
which reads, "Here ends the story of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which was
written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by William Wallace Denslow.  The
engravings were made by the Illinois Engraving Company, the paper was
supplied by Dwight Bros. Paper Company, and Messrs. A. R. Barnes & Company
printed the book for the publishers, the George M. Hill Company, completing
it on the fifteenth day of May, in the year nineteen hundred."  In the lower
right corner there's a picture of Dorothy sitting on the ground with Toto and
her basket.  In the upper right corner the letters "B" and "D" are
intertwined in fancy type with Denslow's hippocampus.  What do the "B" and
"D" stand for?  Baum and Denslow?
 
2.  I don't remember reading in later Oz books whatever happened to Dorothy's
house.  Is it still in the Munchkin country?  Does somebody live there?  Is
it a museum?  I can imagine a plaque that reads, "Here stands the house of
Dorothy Gale, which landed on this spot in the Munchkin country of the land
of Oz after being carried by a cyclone with Dorothy and her dog Toto from
Kansas in the outside world, flattening the Wicked Witch of the East and
liberating the Munchkin people from slavery."
 
3. A closer look at the picture (color plate) of the Wizard as the Giant Head
revealed to me that the head does appear to be floating in mid-air.  For some
reason, I always used to think the shadow cast by the head on the back of the
throne was an upper torso and shoulder.  The picture never seemed quite right
to me.
 
4. As much as I like Denslow's illustrations, I've always preferred Neill's
portrayal of most Oz characters.  The one exception is Denslow's Glinda who I
think is much more beautiful -- especially her hair.  Neill's Glinda looks
like she's wearing a hairnet.  What's with that?!?

Date: Sat, 22 Feb 1997 21:20:46 -0500 (EST)
From: DavidXOE at aol.com
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-22-97
 
Gili:
The killings you cite don't happen in Oz. There are quite a few killings
outside of Oz after Ozma's accession, but that wasn't the question (at least
as I was posing it).
 
David Hulan

Date: Sat, 22 Feb 1997 22:22:17 -0500 (EST)
From: "Aaron S. Adelman" <adelman at yu1.yu.edu>
Subject: For the Ozzy Digest:  Chick the Cherub
 Empire
 
2) On the cyclone, in Volkov's books the cyclone is caused by Gingemma,
who wants to destroy humankind.  Villina (alter-Locasta) redirects the
cyclone so that it only picks up one house, which she (erroneously)
belives in empty and drops it on Gingemma.
 
Aaron Solomon (ben Saul Joseph) Adelman
adelman at yu1.yu.edu

Date: Mon, 24 Feb 1997 13:43:12 -0600 (CST)
From: Ruth Berman <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: ozzy digest
 
Gordon Birrell: Interesting comments on China Country as maybe thematically relevant.
 
Craig Noble: Right, Neill's Glinda regularly wears a hairnet.  Not the kind of hairnet to hold a
hairstyle in place while the hair dries, but the ornamental kind called a "snood."  Not worn
nowadays, but they used to be fairly popular.
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 17:50:47 -0500 (EST)
From: Nathan DeHoff <LNVF at grove.iup.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-23-97
 
Craig:
There is a brief visit to Dorothy's old house in Roger Baum's _Dorothy of Oz_,
the only book by that author which I have read.  I think that it is quite
likely that the house became a tourist attraction.
 
        Nathan Mulac DeHoff
        lnvf at grove.iup.edu
        http://www.dragonfire.net/~VoVat/home.html
        "If a thin Prince sets out on a fat elephant to find a Proper Princess,
        how many yards of fringe will the elephant lose from his robe and how
        bald will the Prince be at the end of the journey?"  -Count It Up

Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 18:18:12 -0500 (EST)
From: DavidXOE at aol.com
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-23-97
 
Steve:
If you mix red and green pigments you get a brown, though not a very nice
shade of it. I did note in WIZ that Baum says that Dorothy and friends
weren't in the Quadling country until after they crossed the Hammerhead
Mountains.
 
Incidentally, though I too learned in grade school that red, yellow, and blue
are the "primary colors", in practice they aren't - that is, if you're trying
to use three colors to generate the full spectrum, those three aren't the
ones to choose. The additive primaries are red, green, and blue; the
subtractive primaries are magenta, yellow, and cyan.
 
Craig:
I believe that in one (at least) of March Laumer's books Dorothy's house
plays a prominent role, but I don't think it appears anywhere in the FF after
WIZARD.
 
I agree; Denslow's Glinda is much more beautiful than Neill's. I believe I
like his Soldier with the Green Whiskers better, too, but that's not a strong
preference and the two aren't so different as all that, either. (I also like
his Toto better, but that's more a breed preference than an artistic one.)
 
David Hulan

Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 19:22:01 -0600 (CST)
From: Robin Olderman <robino at tenet.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-23-97
 
Craig: Dorothy's abandoned house has been the subject of a number of 
pastiches. Most authors agree that it's still in the same spot where it 
landed and that it is much respected by the Munchkins.
 
Glinda and the hairnet: Glinda wears a decorative hairnet called a snood. 
Ah, fashion! She must like to wear her hair down, but it would have been 
improper to do so as an adult if she wore it free.
 
--Robin

Date: Sun, 23 Feb 1997 22:33:03 -0500
From: Tyler Jones <tylerjones at compuserve.com>
Subject: Oz
 
David and Nathan:
Yes indeed. After Ozma ascended the throne, on-stage killing was almost
eliminated, except for some baddies like Mombi (which was done off-stage)
and Glegg (and it can be argued that this killing was accidental).
 
Craig and colors:
It was only in Neill that the color scheme was taken to ridiculous
extremes, such as the color of people's skin and hair and even the air.
 
Craig:
In the non-FF _Giant Garden of Oz_ by Eric Shanower and available from BOW,
Dorothy's house (OK, Aunt Em and Uncle Henry's house actually) figures
quite prominently, as it does in one of March Laumer's books.
 
--Tyler Jones

Date: Mon, 24 Feb 1997 10:42:21 -0800
From: "Stephen J. Teller" <steller at pittstate.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-23-97
 
> From: CrNoble at aol.com
  
> 1.  After Peter Glassman's "Afterward" there's one final unnumbered page
> which reads, "Here ends the story of the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which was
> written by L. Frank Baum and illustrated by William Wallace Denslow.  The
> engravings were made by the Illinois Engraving Company, the paper was
> supplied by Dwight Bros. Paper Company, and Messrs. A. R. Barnes & Company
> printed the book for the publishers, the George M. Hill Company, completing
> it on the fifteenth day of May, in the year nineteen hundred."  In the lower
> right corner there's a picture of Dorothy sitting on the ground with Toto and
> her basket.  In the upper right corner the letters "B" and "D" are
> intertwined in fancy type with Denslow's hippocampus.  What do the "B" and
> "D" stand for?  Baum and Denslow?
> 
This is a repriduction of the 13 line colophon that appears in the 2nd
and later states of the first edition.  One of the points of the
earliest state is an 11 line colophon, boxed.  BD would seem to stand
for Baum/Denslow.
 
> 2.  I don't remember reading in later Oz books whatever happened to Dorothy's
> house.  Is it still in the Munchkin country?  Does somebody live there?  Is
> it a museum?  I can imagine a plaque that reads, "Here stands the house of
> Dorothy Gale, which landed on this spot in the Munchkin country of the land
> of Oz after being carried by a cyclone with Dorothy and her dog Toto from
> Kansas in the outside world, flattening the Wicked Witch of the East and
> liberating the Munchkin people from slavery."
 
This is the subject fofr several pastiches.  March Laumer wrote two
books about it:  AUNT EM AND UNCLE HENRY IN OZ and UNCLE HENRY AND AUNT
EM IN OZ.  The house also figures in several of the books sumitted for
the Centenniel Book Contest.
> 
> 4. As much as I like Denslow's illustrations, I've always preferred Neill's
> portrayal of most Oz characters.  The one exception is Denslow's Glinda who I
> think is much more beautiful -- especially her hair.  Neill's Glinda looks
> like she's wearing a hairnet.  What's with that?!?
> 
I believe it is called a snood.

Date: Mon, 24 Feb 97 13:59:43 (PST)
From: Dave Hardenbrook <DaveH47 at delphi.com>
Subject: Ozzy Things
 
In regard to the Denslow vs. Neill version of Glinda, the thing that
has disturbed me since childhood about Neill's Glinda is that excessively
massive headwear she always wears...I'm much kinder to her in my illios.,
in which she wears just a crown ( one of the new Ozzy "light and airy"
models :) ), and since my Enya-esque Glinda has short hair, she has no
need of the snood. :)
 
                             -- Dave

Date: Mon, 24 Feb 1997 22:09:21 -0500 (EST)
From: DavidXOE at aol.com
Subject: Ozzy Digest, 02-24-97
 
Tyler:
Uncle Henry and Aunt Em's house plays a prominent role in GIANT GARDEN, but
it's not the same house that fell on the WWE. It's a new one provided by the
Wizard when they decide to return to farming.
 
David Hulan

Date: Tue, 25 Feb 1997 00:10:22 -0500 (EST)
From: "Aaron S. Adelman" <adelman at ymail.yu.edu>
Subject: The Magic Machine of Oz Empire
 
3) Craig and Tyler, uh, if I remember correctly, Uncle Henry and Aunt Em's
house does figure in _Giant Garden_, but that is a new house built on a
different site when they decide to go back into farming.  The original
house does not appear at all.
 
4) To add on the subject of Glinda wearing weird things on her head, let
me draw atention to the portrait of Glinda on the cover of the Del Ray
edition _Glinda of Oz_ (where she has a magical instrument in her hand
which I can never remember the term for and don't feel like looking up at
the moment), which is a misinterpretation of the Neillian depiction of
Glinda.  Her hair and that tall thin thing usually depicted on her head (a
crown, I think, but too thin to stay on unless it has support under her
hair) form a single continuous surface.  Dave, I think that is more
disturbing than the snood she normally wears, which I never found
disturbing at all.  (Though the tall thin thing is a different matter.)
But Glinda with short hair and a normal crown I can't see.
 
Aaron Solomon (ben Saul Joseph) Adelman
adelman at yu1.yu.edu

Date: Tue, 25 Feb 1997 07:45:20 -0500 (EST)
From: DIXNAM at aol.com
Subject: Ozzy Digest 2-24-97
 
 
Robin & Steve T.:  Snood!  I haven't heard that term used in 50 years, since
the WWII days . . . "Rosie the Riveter", et al,  had to keep those long
tresses out of the machinery, working in defense plants.
 
Dick

Date: Wed, 26 Feb 1997 12:57:05 -0500 (EST)
From: "John N. White" <jnw at vnet.net>
Subject: Oz
 
On another subject, since we're discussing WIZARD there is something that
I have always wondered about.  The color plates in my Dover edition, as
well as my BOW edition, seem to be badly off-color.  Dorothy, for instance
seems to have chartreuse skin.  I can't imagine this being deliberate,
so I wondered if the dyes used in the original could have been of poor
quality, causing their color to degrade over time.  Then the Dover and
BOW editions failed to correct for this, reproducing the off-color plates.
Does anyone know?
 
-- 
jnw at vnet.net   (John N. White)

Date: Thu, 27 Feb 1997 11:44:54 -0600
From: Gordon Birrell <gbirrell at post.cis.smu.edu>
Subject: Ozzy Digest
 
When I was little, the one image that I retained most vividly from WWOZ was
the description of the witch "melting away like brown sugar before
[Dorothy's] very eyes."  Brown sugar!  Since we've been formally discussing
WWOZ the last two weeks, I decided it was finally time to see exactly what
Baum meant.  I molded a little two-inch-high witch figurine out of brown
sugar, let it harden for a couple of hours, and then poured water over it,
trying to approximate the correct proportions of water to body mass.  The
results were impressive.  The thing stayed upright for one or two seconds
and then began to cave in from the inside out, surrounded by a spreading
ring of brown goo.  The figure lurched a little to one side and then
collapsed into its own mess.  After two minutes there was nothing left but a
big dark-brown sticky puddle.
 
It was truly gruesome.  I invite the rest of you to duplicate this experiment.
 
I can see why Dorothy, as a well-brought-up little girl, considered it
imperative to grab a mop and clean this disgusting mess off of the kitchen
floor before she went out to liberate the Lion and call all the Winkies
together to announce that they were no longer slaves.
 
--Gordon Birrell

Date: Thu, 27 Feb 1997 15:42:52 -0600 (CST)
From: Robin Olderman <robino at tenet.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-27-97
 
Gordon: You melted a brown-sugar witch?!  I love the way your mind works!
 
1. He causes Dorothy to miss being in the cyclone cellar, snug and safe.
2. It's only when Toto is threatened that Dorothy slaps the Cowardly 
Lion, thus providing a rationale for the Lion to show his "cowardice" and 
to become one of the fab four.
3. Toto discloses that the "Great and Pwerful Oz" is nothing but a man 
behind a curtain.
4. Toto jumps out of the Wizard's basket:Dorothy needs Glinda, who tells 
her a primary theme of the book.
 
I'm sure I've missed a number of such incidents, and I'm equally sure 
that some of you will fill in the blank--Robin

Date: Thu, 27 Feb 1997 17:57:22 -0500 (EST)
From: sahutchi at cord.iupui.edu
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-27-97
 
I always saw Dorothy's cleaning up the mess the witch made as rather 
grusone.  Witch or no witch, you don't sweep a corpse out the door and 
forget about it!
--Scott

Date: Thu, 27 Feb 1997 23:43:17 -0500 (EST)
From: HermBieber at aol.com
Subject: For the Ozzy Digest
 
for John White:
 
The facimile editions for the recent editions of the Wizard of Oz were made
by photocopying techniques, and there are no antiquarian books which have
organic dye plates that have not changed since they were originally printed
(an exception is the metallic inks used in some expensive old books that are
much more stable to aging).  So there is no accurate point of reference.  In
fact, if you compare two identical books that have been stored under dry vs
damp environments, you may see quite a variation in color.  
 
Having said that, the main cause for different tints will be in the method
used to produce the plates from the photo negatives.  Expensive dye transfer
processes can be used to make faithful renditions for expensive limited
editions of art prints or nature photographs.  But the processes suitable for
cheap, mass produced books all have serious limitations in fidelity.
 
Herm Bieber

Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1997 18:41:22 +0500
From: rri0189 at ibm.net
Subject: Wizard of Oz Discussion
 
<pant><pant><pant>  I got stuck doing a massive project that kept me
off-line for weeks, but it's over now <gasp><wheeze> and I've been spending=
the whole of this past week catching up.  <pant> Is it too late to get in
on the "Wizard of Oz" discussion?  No?  Good!  <deep breath>
 
Ozzian Heights:
 
The Munchkins' hats are described as being "a foot tall".  Now, if we
assume that the illustrations are drawn in correct proportion (I know, a
dangerous assumption, but let's just assume it for the moment) then that
would make the Munchkins and the GWN about 4 feet tall, which *is* about
the size of a "well-grown child [for Dorothy's age, whatever that is]", and
definitely short for an adult.
 
Since the Munchkins are "about the same size" as Dorothy, that would make
her 3'10, or 4'.  Comparing her to the other characters then, that would
make the Tin Woodman and Scarecrow about 5', and the Soldier with the Green 
Whiskers about 6', tall not only for Oz, but also for the U.S. at the time.
 
(Incidentally, the Wizard is depicted as only 4' tall, although he's more
"normal-sized" in later books.  If he was a midget, perhaps that's why he
went into the entertainment field, first as a ventriloquist and then with
the circus.)
 
Ages and Ages:
 
Dorothy thinks that the Munchkins are about as old as Uncle Henry, but the
GWN is "doubtless much older: her face was covered with wrinkles, her hair
was nearly white, and she walked rather stiffly."  Now, most children tend
to define "old" as younger than an adult would.  (That's an awkward
sentence.  Let me give an example:  when I was 7 I informed my 18-year-old
sister that in a few years she would be 21 and "over the hill".  Such is a
child's perception.)  Let's assume for the sake of argument that the GWN
appears to be 60.  This would tend to make us place Henry and Em in their
forties, perhaps Henry in his fifties.  I think this is reasonable.  20
years spent farming the sort of harsh, gray "Kansas" that Baum describes
would be enough to age anyone, and Baum makes it clear that Henry and Em
are more worn than aged.  I don't think there's any need for a "missing
generation" here.  Henry (or Em, whichever) could easily have been the
older sibling of Dorothy's parent.
 
Glinda's crown:
 
I don't think it's as heavy as you think it is.  There's a lot of empty
space there, between the vertical metal bits, and that appears to be a
feather on top.  I'll grant you, though, that if those hanging bobs are
solid jewels, they might be a bit heavy, but all the weight would be
hanging down the sides, pulling the circlet down evenly.
 
Miscellaneous:
 
Has anyone else noticed Dorothy's unusual hairstyle?  (Braided, but with no
fastening on the bottom, not even a ribbon.  John says maybe she lost her
hair ribbons and they couldn't afford to buy her new ones.)
 
Does anyone else find it interesting that Dorothy's command to the Silver
Shoes is "Take me home to Aunt Em!"  Why not "Aunt Em and Uncle Henry"? 
Why not "home to Kansas"?  Why put in any qualifier at all?
 
Baum's first pun (Chapter 3):  "'Good day,' said the Scarecrow in a rather
husky voice."  <groan>
 
Gordon:  thanks for the description of the brown sugar experiment.  That
phrase always struck me, too.
 
Sorry for the length of the post, but I had a lot of Ozzy messages pent up
waiting to come out. <g>
 
   -- Eleanor Kennedy

Date: Fri, 28 Feb 1997 19:05:37 -0600 (CST)
From: Robin Olderman <robino at tenet.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 02-28-07
 
A line was (obviously) missing in my last post. The last section was
supposed to be about how many times Toto was used to move the book (WOZ)
along.

Date: Sat, 01 Mar 1997 02:26:52 -0800 (PST)
From: Barbara Belgrave <bbelgrav at potlatch.esd112.wednet.edu>
Subject: Ozzy Digest
 
Now on to the BCF before we go on to the next one and I'm not done with
this one.  Here's my questions:
1. Did Baum get to choose Denslow as an artist?
2. Why didn't Del Rey continue and do all 40 FF books in paperbacks?
3. If there is no death in Oz, what about the Tin Woodman's parents and
the wolves and the crows?
4. Is anyone else confused when Baum says in the Intro that "the
heartaches and nightmares are left out of the fairy tale"?  I think there is
plenty of heartache when Dorothy leaves Oz and if the killing of the wolves
and crows doesn't scare some kids into a nightmare I'd be suprized.
 
Well that's enogh for now.
Sinsozly,
Barbara

Date: Sat, 01 Mar 1997 17:52:06 -0500 (EST)
From: DavidXOE at aol.com
Subject: Ozzy Digest, 03-01-97
 
Eleanor:
If Dorothy was four feet tall in WIZARD then it seems extremely unlikely
that he was as young as 5. I read to 4th and 5th graders (who are presumably
 9-10 ears old) and I don't believe any of them is over 4 feet tall; certainly
not uch over.
 
Being 60 myself, I don't think that the description of the GWN including
"face covered with wrinkles" and "walked rather stiffly" is consistent with
her being that age. Admittedly, it varies, and I've known people in their=
40s ith wrinkled faces and stiff walks, but it's more typical of people well=
into their 70s. It's certainly true that a child's estimate of age is very
different from an adult's, but here we're dealing not just with Dorothy's
perception but with actual physical description.
 
I agree with you that it's interesting that Dorothy says "Take me home to
Aunt Em!" In fact, she seems to have much more affection for and interest in
Em in WIZARD than in the subsequent books; from OZMA on she seems much more
interested in and concerned about Henry.
 
Barbara B.:
Others will undoubtedly answer your questions; I'll only have a go at 2 and
3. Del Rey stopped reprinting the later Oz books because they weren't
selling well and Judy-Lynn del Rey, who had spearheaded the effort to publish them,
died.
 
And there was clearly death in Oz at least up to shortly before the events=
of EMERALD CITY, since one of Billina's chicks is recorded as dying after=
Ozma's birthday party (presumably the one in ROAD). I think the first mention of
deathlessness in Oz was in TIK-TOK.
 
David Hulan

Date: Sat, 01 Mar 1997 19:14:22 -0600 (CST)
From: Robin Olderman <robino at tenet.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-01-97
 
Barbara: Baum and Denslow were, essentially, partners in WOZ.  Del Rey
started publishing the Oz books as a pet project of Lester Del Rey's
wife. When she died, so did the project.  As for the nightmare and
heartaches aspect of WOZ, yes, that always bothered me as a kid. I didn't
understand Baum's disclaimer at all, and it rather irritated me, since I
thought the book was loaded with stuff that could make for nightmares.(Not
for me, though!)  Death in Oz?  Essentially, no one knows for sure, so it's
wide open for conjecture.

Date: Sat, 01 Mar 1997 20:15:31 -0500 (EST)
From: CrNoble at aol.com
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-01-97
 
Eleanor:
 
If Dorothy had commanded the silver shoes to take her back to Kansas, she
could have been taken to the wrong part of the state.  As for why Aunt Em
and not Uncle Henry, I guess the odds were better that Em would be in or near
the new house, whereas Henry could have been somewhere else on the farm.
 
-- Craig Noble

Date: Sun, 02 Mar 1997 17:25:52 -0500 (EST)
From: dsparker at mail.utexas.edu (Douglass S. Parker)
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-01-97
 
Gordon Birrell, the 2/21/96 1/2 remarks on The Dainty China Country:
>What the Dainty China Country chapter demonstrates is that the just exercise of
>power involves not only appropriate force against dangerous aggressors but
>also, and inevitably, a sense of responsibility to respect the rights of
>those who are smaller, weaker, more fragile, and--yes--more brittle.
 
  Very perceptive and really helpful, though I don't suppose that it will
squelch those who consider WOZ 19-22 irrelevant, as did MGM. [Why go to
Glinda's? Bring her back by fast bubble.] But there may be other,
extra-structural reasons for insisting on the China Country, as well as the
other places: Fighting Trees, the Lion's spider-thing, the Hammerheads.

  [1] Here's the start of what delighted me most about the subsequent
Oz-books, and, even though [or because] it became a sort of tic in
Thompson: The creation of a series of largely ad hoc quasi-allegorical
places, which might or might not have any thematic function in The Book As
A Whole. "What will he/she come up with next?" Wild invention (well, not in
WOZ, but later) of unusual spots, parodic or satiric places--this, for me,
was the fundamental pleasure of Oz, I think; it was certainly what set me
to making the huge Oz map that swallowed a good part of my 13th year. The
plot was, I'm afraid, secondary; what I wanted was a series of realized
weirdnesses.

  [2] It doesn't do much for the Populist-Oz theory, but it should be
considered in connection with William R. Leach's Consumerist-Oz, first set
forth in the essays bracketing his edition of WOZ in the American Society &
Culture Series [Belmont CA: Wadsworth, 1991] and developed in his LAND OF
DESIRE: MERCHANTS, POWER, AND THE RISE OF A NEW AMERICAN CULTURE [NYC:
Pantheon/Random House, 1993]. Leach himself doesn't do much with it, about
all he gives is a parenthesis, "...brown for the Dainty China Country (a
land where all the 'little people' are made out of colorful china--Baum's
homage to his years as a glass and crockery salesman)..." [LAND OF DESIRE
p. 252]. Maybe it should be considered in terms of Baum's AMERICAN FAIRY
TALES of 1901 [Dover repr. 1978], where department stores almost seem the
locale of choice. [No china, I think, but there's a Glass *Dog* who
anticipates Bungle, and the mannequin in "The Dummy That Lived" is
certainly fragile, and deteriorates alarmingly.]

  Neither [1] nor [2] may operate very well in terms of structure; in fact,
they keep dragging the reader outside the story...though the CC is
certainly a useful foil to that REAL Wanamaker's or Field's or Macy's, the
Emerald City. But that resonance/resemblance to an outside world [which
might just be ours] is one of the glories of great children's literature.
Or, as may be, of any great literature. Which is, I suppose, a hassle best
avoided.
 
  Anyway, fine point.
 
                        Doug Parker

Date: Sun, 02 Mar 1997 16:59:31 -0800
From: "Stephen J. Teller" <steller at pittstate.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-01-97
 
> From: Barbara Belgrave 
 
> Now on to the BCF before we go on to the next one and I'm not done with
> this one.  Here's my questions:
> 1. Did Baum get to choose Denslow as an artist?
 
They were both part of the Chicago artistic circle.  Denslow had done
some illustrations for BY THE CANDALABRA'S GLARE and illustrated FATHER
GOOSE HIS BOOK.
 
> 2. Why didn't Del Rey continue and do all 40 FF books in paperbacks?
 
Judy-Lynn Del Rey dies.  She was the moving force behind the project.
 
> 3. If there is no death in Oz, what about the Tin Woodman's parents and
> the wolves and the crows?
 
This has been much discussed lately on the Digest.  The question is,
when did death cease to exist in Oz?
 
> 4. Is anyone else confused when Baum says in the Intro that "the
> heartaches and nightmares are left out of the fairy tale"?  I think there is
> plenty of heartache when Dorothy leaves Oz and if the killing of the wolves
> and crows doesn't scare some kids into a nightmare I'd be suprized.
> 

These episodes are quite mild compared to the violence in the Grimm
Fairy Tales.  For example.  The the "Cinderella " story, one sister cuts
off her heel and the other her toe to try to fit in the glass slipper
(the birds tell the prince that there is blood on the track.  Later the
birds pluck out the eyes of the sisters as they go to and from the
wedding.  It takes a strong stomach to read "Rapunzel."  Disney's
versions are pablum.
 
Steve T.

Date: Sun, 02 Mar 1997 22:22:05 -0600 (CST)
From: atty242 at mail.utexas.edu (Atticus)
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-02-97
 
DAVID HULAN:
i don't think it's true that most 4th or 5th graders are around four feet
tall.  i vividly remember being measured as 5 feet or so in fifth grade,
and i was (and still am) of average height.
 
take care,
atticus

Date: Mon, 03 Mar 1997 10:59:23 -0600 (CST)
From: Ruth Berman <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: ozzy digest
 
Barbara Belgrave: Yes, Baum chose Denslow as the artist for "Wizard of Oz." They'd already
worked together on "Father Goose."  // Del Rey didn't reprint entire Oz series because the sales
figures weren't high enough to make it seem like a good idea.  (If Judy Lynn Del Rey had lived
a few years longer, she might have pushed for keeping it going.)  // Death in Oz -- it really isn't
until about the time of "Emerald City" that Baum decided there wasn't any death (or aging) there.
There are various ways of trying to reconcile the inconsistencies that result.  One possibility is
to assume that the earlier references are in error.  Another is to assume that there is no death
by illness, but that death is possible (voluntary?) for someone living in intolerable pain (when torn
in little bits, for example). // Heartache and nightmare -- aren't you thinking of the movie rather
than the book in finding heartache in Dorothy's departure from Oz in "Wizard"?  In the book, she
seems only mildly regretful at leaving her new friends.  Nightmare -- sensitive adults worry about
the wolves and crows, but I doubt that any children do.  I've known children to have nightmares
over the witches and the Wizard as floating head (even those were perhaps more responses to
the movie than to the book), but the general average of "scary" scenes is a good deal lower in
the Oz books than in most of Grimm or Andersen.
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Mon, 03 Mar 1997 13:27:38 -0500 (EST)
From: RMorris306 at aol.com
Subject: Recent Ozzy Digests
 
 
Barbara wrote:
 
<<1. Did Baum get to choose Denslow as an artist?>>
 
     Yes. They were friends and had previously collaborated on the successful
FATHER GOOSE: HIS BOOK, so the book was written from the start on the
assumption that he would be the artist. Baum and Denslow later quarrelled,
but Baum always liked Denslow's art, preferring it to Neill's.
 
<<2. Why didn't Del Rey continue and do all 40 FF books in paperbacks?>>
 
     The sales figures were low. And the death of the Del Rey editor who'd
pushed the acquisition of the Thompson books (Judy-Lynn Benjamin, wife of
imprint founder Lester Del Rey) left them with nobody to argue forcefully for
their continuation.
 
<<3. If there is no death in Oz, what about the Tin Woodman's parents and the
wolves and the crows?>>
 
      This has been discussed in great detail; the amount of death in Oz
seemed to gradually lessen, particularly after Ozma assumed the throne. (And
it's never been established that it applies to animals, anyway...just to
human beings.)
 
<<4. Is anyone else confused when Baum says in the Intro that "the
heartaches and nightmares are left out of the fairy tale"?  I think there is
plenty of heartache when Dorothy leaves Oz and if the killing of the wolves
and crows doesn't scare some kids into a nightmare I'd be suprized.>>
 
    One never knows what will scare some kids, but on the whole I applaud
Baum's intent of at least not trying to do so.
 
 
Rich Morrissey

Date: Mon, 03 Mar 1997 16:49:53 -0500
From: Richard Bauman <RBauman at compuserve.com>
Subject: Threeday's Oz Growls
 
Eleanor - About Dorothy wanting Em.  This seems really obvious.  Haven't you ever
heard a small child who is upset wailing, "I want my mommy!"  Smaller
children are usually more closely bonded to mommy.  Although Em is not
mommy, she is the surrogate as far as Dorothy is concerned. 
 
Bookishly, Bear  (:<)

Date: Tue, 04 Mar 1997 21:09:08 -0500
From: Tyler Jones <tylerjones at compuserve.com>
Subject: Oz
 
Eleanor:
family. Prior to her permanent move to Oz, she mentioned several times
that the only reason she wants to leave Oz is to go back to Aunt Em and
Uncle Henry, meaning that "home is where the heart is". As for her mention
of Aunt Em only, I would imagine that her aunt and uncle have taken the
place of her parents, physically and emotionally, and people (especially at
that age) tend to think of their mother first when they are lost and want
to go home.
 
Death in Oz:
I believe that there is ample evidence that death occured prior to Ozma's
ascension to the throne and even after, in very special cases.
 
Craig:
That is a good observation. On some occasions, people have wished themselves
to be in Oz, and then wound up in some less-than-perfect part of Oz. In
Ryan Gannaway's new book, our heroine realizes this and wishes herself
to the Emerald City.
 
Death in Oz:
One theory is that deathlessness was a slow process, beginning with Lurline's
enchantment and culminating with Ozma ascending the throne. _Emerald City_
is the first of the FF to take place mostly in Oz after Ozma began her rule.
Using Michael Patrick Hearn's theory of the enchantment having full effect
only after Ozma's rule combined with my MOPPeT of Ozma's enchantment
messing up the schedule combined with Aaron's MOPPeT about magical hotspots
such that the enchantment may have taken effect faster in some areas and
slower in others, and you have ample explanation of seeming
inconsistencies.
 
Of course, the implication is that people can still be destoryed if the
magic is powerful enough.
 
--Tyler Jones

Date: Wed, 05 Mar 1997 21:00:58 -0500
From: "Melody G. Keller" <104270.2374 at compuserve.com>
Subject: Ozzy Digest, 03-04-97
 
 
>> 4. Is anyone else confused when Baum says in the Intro that "the
> heartaches and nightmares are left out of the fairy tale"?  I think there is
> plenty of heartache when Dorothy leaves Oz and if the killing of the wolves
> and crows doesn't scare some kids into a nightmare I'd be suprized<
 
Stephen Teller is right. Also, in the Lang fairy books of different colors,
I don't remember a single animal story that wasn't violent in the extreme.
The animal characters eat each other, burn each other, and are really,
really treacherous. Innocent characters are often on the receiving end of
the mayhem. Baum is tame compared to the ancient predecessors featured by
Lang.
 
Melody Grandy

L. Frank Baum, W.W. Denslow

Date: Thu, 06 Mar 1997 13:46:16 -0600
From: Gordon Birrell <gbirrell at post.cis.smu.edu>
Subject: Ozzy Digest
 
Doug P.:
I enjoyed your comments on the extra-structural references in the Dainty
China Country episode.  Michael Patrick Hearn has a good explanation for the
appropriateness of those contested chapters 19-22 in his annotations to WWOZ:
after the Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and Lion have received their symbolic
attributes from the Wizard, "each now prizes the symbol above its property.
The purpose of the journey to Glinda is to develop their ability to use
their qualities (now that they have the public symbols for them) through the
experience of adventures in the unknown."
 
In this regard, the MGM film really does no service to the Scarecrow, the
Woodman, and the Lion by completing their respective quests at the point
where they react with childlike glee to the obviously empty and ludicrous
symbols that the Wizard bestows on them.  (I do think that the Wizard's
advice to the Woodman on the way a heart is judged is very fine, though.)
 
So in that sense Baum was right in tacking on those extra chapters.  But
this is one of those cases where you agree intellectually with what an
author is doing but can't assent emotionally.  Something is wrong with the
last part of the book.  I think that the reason that it isn't completely
satisfying has to do with Dorothy.  Up to Chapter 17, Dorothy and her three
companions have shared the same quest:  to get to the Wizard, to kill the
witch, to demand that the Wizard fulfill his promise.  But the following
chapters have little to do with the progress of Dorothy's quest.  As far as
she is concerned, it would have been much simpler just to put on the magic
cap and go straight to Glinda (or for Glinda to come to Dorothy, as in the
movie).  For that matter, the Scarecrow's belated idea that the three of
them could use the cap to get to Glinda smacks of the similar and often
attacked denouement of _Dorothy and the Wizard_, where Dorothy's
recollection of the Magic Belt comes a little too late for credibility.
 
In the movie, of course, Dorothy's quest is primary, and for that reason
Chapters 19-22 had to be deleted.
 
I honestly don't know what Baum could have done to get around this
structural problem of divergent quests.  And it is probably true that the
Dainty China Country episode, with its less apparent connections to the
development of any of the characters, is the point at which the reader's
patience is most strained.
 
--Gordon Birrell

Date: Thu, 06 Mar 1997 16:13:23 -0500 (EST)
From: DavidXOE at aol.com
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-04 & 05-97
 
3/4:
Atticus:
I checked the World Almanac for typical children's heights; the average child
passes 4 feet somewhere between ages 7 and 8. 5 feet, on the other hand,
isn't reached by the average child until age 13, so if you were 5 feet in 5th
grade you were old for your grade (seems unlikely) or unusually tall for your
age. (The average 10-year-old - typical of 5th grade - is 4'6".) Dorothy was
supposed to be "well-grown" for her age; on the other hand, average heights a
century ago were probably not what they are now. (Certainly they aren't for
adults; it seems unlikely that all of the increase in growth has come in the
teen years.) Four feet tall would be unusually tall for a 6-year-old now and
was probably even more so in Dorothy's day.
 
David Hulan

Date: Fri, 07 Mar 97 10:54:37 (PST)
From: Dave Hardenbrook <DaveH47 at delphi.com>
Subject: Ozzy Things
 
FROM _WIZARD_ TO _LAND_ (WITH QUICK DETOURS TO _WICKED_???):
>Discussion of THE MARVELOUS LAND OF OZ? Sure; I think the discussion of
>WIZARD has pretty well petered out by now.
 
Any other votes for our moving on the _Land_?  If so, then I have a
"transitional" question...Does anyone see any evidence (from _Land_
and from the musical) that from the _Wizard_ musical up until DOTWIZ
Baum's intent was for the Wizard to be evil (not unlike _Wicked_!)?
 
                              -- Dave

Date: Fri, 07 Mar 1997 16:51:26 -0500 (EST)
From: "Aaron S. Adelman" <adelman at ymail.yu.edu>
Subject: The Wizard of Oz
 
1) Another thing which the MGM movie did which was certainly wrong (noted
in "The Wizard of Odd" and by a classmate of mine: they fused Glinda and
Locasta.  This results in Glinda at the flattening of Gingemma telling
Dorothy to go to see the Wizard in the Emerald City and then at the end of
the film telling Dorothy that all this time she could have used the Ruby
Slippers to go home, in effect making all the trouble she went through
pointless.  At this point in "The Wizard of Odd" Dorothy rightly points
out that such cruelty should make her a bad witch.
 
Aaron Solomon (ben Saul Joseph) Adelman
adelman at yu1.yu.edu

Date: Sat, 08 Mar 1997 00:54:28 -0500 (EST)
From: RMorris306 at aol.com
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-07-97
 
 
David Hulan wrote:
<< Dorothy was supposed to be "well-grown" for her age; on the other hand,
average heights a century ago were probably not what they are now. (Certainly
they aren't for adults; it seems unlikely that all of the increase in growth has come in the
teen years.) Four feet tall would be unusually tall for a 6-year-old now and
was probably even more so in Dorothy's day.>>
 
    Which again backs up your (and my) contention that Dorothy was at least 7
in WIZARD; more likely 8 (or even 9). After all, many of the Oz fans'
attempts to judge her age are based on attempts to squeeze in all the later
books about her before she went to Oz (often the HACC in addition to the four
more Baum wrote)...and, as is well known, when Baum wrote WIZARD (and even
LAND), he had no idea he'd ever write another book about Dorothy.
 
Rich Morrissey

Date: Sat, 08 Mar 1997 08:25:30 -0800 (PST)
From: earlabbe at juno.com (Earl C. Abbe)
Subject: Ozzy Digest Submission
 
Dave (not David) asks <Does anyone see any evidence ... [that]
Baum's [original] intent was for the Wizard to be evil...?>
Well, sending a little girl and three apparent incompetents out to kill a
fearsome wicked witch does not seem the act of a good man (despite what
the movie says).
 
Interestingly, in the same dialog exchange the Wizard says, "In this
country everyone must pay for everything he gets."  This is at
considerable variance with the from-each-according-to-his-ability
to-each-according-to-his-need view of Oz developed in the later books.

Date: Sat, 08 Mar 1997 10:48:53 -0500 (EST)
From: DavidXOE at aol.com
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-07-97
 
Dave:
It's not my feeling that Baum intended the Wizard to be evil up to DOTWIZ -
certainly not to the extent that he is in WICKED. He was not notably good,
either - just an ordinary man with a repertoire of tricks and a firm
attachment to his own skin, who did what he considered he had to do to keep
himself safe. As the series wore on Baum increased the good side of him. This
may have come simply from living in Oz, or may have been due to the fact that
with fewer threats he had less need to take actions that were expedient but
unethical.
 
David Hulan

Date: Sat, 08 Mar 97 13:46:36 (PST)
From: Dave Hardenbrook <DaveH47 at delphi.com>
Subject: Ozzy Things
 
THE WIZARD:
Earl wrote:
>Well, sending a little girl and three apparent incompetents out to kill a
>fearsome wicked witch does not seem the act of a good man (despite what
>the movie says).
 
Hasn't this been discussed before?   I remember someone pointing out that
the Wizard probably said "Kill the WWW" (Or "Bring me her broomstick") only
to send them away so they wouldn't bother him again...He didn't except them
to actually ATTEMPT the obvious Herculean Labor he gave them!  So his
biggest "crime" in this case was his gross underestimation of human ( or
leonian or scarecrownian :) ) determination...
 
                             -- Dave

Date: Sat, 08 Mar 1997 19:44:50 -0500
From: Richard Bauman <RBauman at compuserve.com>
Subject: Today's Oz Growls
 
Earl - We have had some of this discussion here before.  Like you, I had a
lower opinion of the Wiz until it was pointed out Dorothy was under the
protection of the GWN (her kiss) so she was not in much danger from WWW
except for housemaids knee.  The Wiz knew this.  
 
>Interestingly, in the same dialog exchange the Wizard says, "In this
country everyone must pay for everything he gets."  This is at
considerable variance with the from-each-according-to-his-ability
to-each-according-to-his-need view of Oz developed in the later books.
 
Oh No!  Call HUAC!  Baum converted to Communism.  :)
 
Regards, Bear  (:<)

Date: Sat, 08 Mar 1997 21:40:46 -0500 (EST)
From: DavidXOE at aol.com
Subject: Ozzy Digest, 03-08-97
 
Rich:
I concur that when Baum wrote WIZARD he had no idea he'd write another book
about Dorothy. OTOH, we have to remember that we have to separate the
Oz-as-Literature discussion from the Oz-as-History discussion. From the
latter standpoint, there's no difficulty in compressing the period from
WIZARD to EMERALD CITY into three or four years if we only consider the FF;
the difficulty only arises when the HACC is taken into account.
 
David Hulan

Date: Sun, 09 Mar 1997 17:51:24 -0500 (EST)
From: Nathan DeHoff <LNVF at grove.iup.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-08-97
 
Eleanor:
I do not recall the Soldier's actual height ever being given, but his weight,
according to _Wonder City_, is 125 pounds.
 
        Nathan Mulac DeHoff
        lnvf at grove.iup.edu
        http://www.dragonfire.net/~VoVat/home.html
        "I don't want a hat I was wearing in 1890.  Have you no sense of time
        at all?"  -Merlyn, in _The Sword in the Stone_

Date: Sun, 09 Mar 1997 07:23:54 -0800 (PST)
From: earlabbe at juno.com (Earl C. Abbe)
Subject: Ozzy Digest Submission
 
In the 3/8 Digest Dave says <Hasn't this been discussed before?   I
remember someone pointing out that the Wizard probably said "Kill the
WWW" (Or "Bring me her broomstick") only to send them away so they
wouldn't bother him again...He didn't except them to actually ATTEMPT
the obvious Herculean Labor he gave them.>
 
Yes, it has been discussed before, here and elsewhere.  (The first
discussion that I remember was in the 80s on a large Government bulletin
board/e-mail system.)  However, Dave gave the matter a new spin when he
asked if Baum originally intended the Wizard to be evil.
 
As was pointed out by David in the 3/8 issue, the Wizard was being
expedient to send the fab four to do an impossible task, a task that no
one would reasonably expect them to actually try to do.  When they
really did set out to the Country of the Winkies, a good man would have
made some effort to retrieve them before they came to harm.  The Wizard
did not try.  The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for
"good" men to do nothing.  So, perhaps the Wizard was not actively evil,
but he certainly wasn't good, in this first book.

Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 07:04:42 -0800 (PST)
From: earlabbe at juno.com (Earl C. Abbe)
Subject: Ozzy Digest Submission
 
Bear says in the 3/10 Digest, <I had a lower opinion of the Wiz until it
was pointed out Dorothy was under the protection of the GWN (her kiss)
so she was not in much danger from WWW except for housemaids knee.  The
Wiz knew this.>
protection.  Some thought should have been given to them.  But even if
Dorothy was the only one whose welfare should be considered, the Witch
could still do terrible things to her psyche by making her watch the
others be hurt.  The movie says it well, "Throw that basket [with Toto]
in the river and drown him!" and "the last to go will see the first
three go before her."

Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 16:01:01 -0500 (EST)
From: sahutchi at cord.iupui.edu
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-07-97 (1 of 2)
 
Gordon--I think Baum did not have Glinda come to the Emerald City becuase 
he was writing in a naturalistic style, and that would be fairly 
contrived, close to literal usage of deus ex machina.  I think Bqum 
successfully creates tension within this second quest of the book.  It is 
both more realistic and imparts the same frustration on the reader that 
Dorothy was feeling at the time.  As a result, I prefer the book.  The 
Turkish film is interesting in that it includes to visits to the China 
Country, once on the way to the Emerald City, and once on the way to the 
Sorceress (I believe her name starts with an N here, but I cannot 
remember.)  It does some filmic parallells by having the Scarecrow step 
in the same spot of water on a bridge twice, though clearly not in a 
repetition of footage.
--Scott

Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 15:45:52 -0600 (CST)
From: Ruth Berman <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: ozzy digest
 
Aaron Adelman: The MGM movie does supply an answer to the question of why Glinda didn't
tell Dorothy to tap her heels and go home at the start: she says it wouldn't have worked until
Dorothy learned more from experience about what home meant to her.  I suspect that made the
right choice in fusing the characters of Glinda and the Good Witch of the North.  As David Hulan
has commented at various times, the fact that a novel is usually longer than a play means that
an adaptation has to cut things out, and if the movie had kept both Good Witches, there
probably wouldn't have been room to present either character adequately.
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Tue, 11 Mar 1997 00:15:45 -0500 (EST)
From: Ozisus at aol.com
Subject: Oz posts
 
Re: "Take me home to Aunt Em" discussions.  My father recently put his
proverbial foot down and reminded my sister and I that he did not live in,
nor do we visit  our "mother's house."  It is his too.  I think the maternal
connection in recent generations results from kids seeing Mom as home maker
"making" the home.  But in Dorothy's day, Henry wasn't heading for the office
every morning, so our young heroine is without that excuse. Oh course, if you
get into those weird Freudian "explainations" of Oz -- Dorothy's adventure
beig a dream, of course, and subject to all manner of bizarre interpretation
-- she probably had some massive disfunction with her uncle that is motivates
her to identify only with her aunt. 

Date: Wed, 12 Mar 1997 18:47:54 -0800 (PST)
From: earlabbe at juno.com (Earl C. Abbe)
Subject: Ozzy Digest Submission
 
Back by popular demand (at least Bear asked), here is my 3/10
transmission, which hopefully will get through untruncated this time:
   
Bear says in the 3/10 Digest, <I had a lower opinion of the Wiz until it
was pointed out Dorothy was under the protection of the GWN (her kiss)
so she was not in much danger from WWW except for housemaids knee.  The
Wiz knew this.> 
 
Toto, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, and the Cowardly Lion had no such
protection.  Some thought should have been given to them.  But even if
Dorothy was the only one whose welfare should be considered, the Witch could 
still do terrible things to her psyche by making her watch the
others be hurt.  The movie says it well, "Throw that basket [with Toto]
in the river and drown him!" and "the last to go will see the first
three go before her."

Date: Thu, 13 Mar 1997 11:20:04 -0500 (EST)
From: DavidXOE at aol.com
Subject: Ozzy Digest, 03-11-97
 
Ruth:
I don't think the book WIZARD really characterizes either of the good witches
very much; the movie could probably have handled that about as well without
becoming any longer. But getting Dorothy to Glinda would have taken too long,
and bringing a new character in at the very end would have made no sense.
 
Jane:
I don't think you can bring in weird Freudian things about Dorothy's
relationship with Uncle Henry if you accept the books from OZMA on; in those
books Dorothy and Henry seem closer than Dorothy and Em.
 
David Hulan

Date:   Thu, 13 Mar 1997 20:44:00 -0800
From: Nathan Mulac DeHoff <vovat at geocities.com>
Subject: Ozzy Digest
To: Dave Hardenbrook <DaveH47 at delphi.com>
Organization: The Intergalactic Cult of VoVat
 
David:
True, Dorothy was closer to Henry in later books.  Of course,
both Ozma and Dorothy and the Wizard take place around when Dorothy and 
Henry were on vacation together, without Em around.
-- 
Nathan Mulac DeHoff
lnvf at grove.iup.edu or vovat at geocities.com
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Corridor/5447/

Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 12:17:25 -0500 (EST)
Date-warning: Date header was inserted by delphi.com
From: dsparker at mail.utexas.edu (Douglass S. Parker)
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-14-97

 
What bothers me about Rationalization is that it always appears to be driven by
the desire to make the Evils worse, and the Goods not just better, but GOODER,
so that the Rationalizer is easier in mind about allotting Approval.  For example,
when the Wizard says, "Oh no, my dear, I'm a very good man.  I'm
just a very bad Wizard," well, I think he's lying. He's a very much better Wizard
than he is a man, and is duly punished by the circumstances of his rehabilation,
fourteen books of subordination ["and how do you do THAT, Glinda?"] to
the female Trinity. This may be not at all unpleasant for him, rather like being
a Greek pedagogue in an enlightened Roman household, but he's out of the mold of
Twain's Duke and King, conmen whose comeuppance, if fitting, is blessedly short.
Still, to each his own. My wallpaper approach is just as offline as all others,
in the last analysis: In reading a book a century old, I fiddle with items I can't
stomach, reach some accomodation with the dread facts so they don't or won't bother me.

But at least-he preened-I don't claim that "The knout was really made of silk,
and quite light, so that being 'whipped' was really a very sensual, and indeed
improving experience." Ohlord, too long. But thanks mightily for the springboard.
Doug Parker

Date: Fri, 14 Mar 1997 15:54:36 +0500
From: rri0189 at ibm.net
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-13-97
 
AS LONG AS WE HAVEN'T FINISHED...
...the discussion of "Wizard", there are a couple more points I'd like to get in.

1.  Dorothy's whistle.  Where did it come from?  The
Queen of the Field Mice didn't give it to her.  The Queen said to just
"come out into the field and call" when the mice were wanted again.

2.  Someone brought up the question of road repair in Oz.  You'll
notice that the road gets rougher as the surrounding country gets wilder,
suggesting that this was an "abandoned" part of Munchkinland.  Might
I suggest that this part of Munchkinland was closer to the witch's castle (or
base of operations, whatever) than the part where Dorothy's house landed.

  This raises the question, what was the Wicked Witch of the East
doing in that part of the country?  Don't you think it coincidental
that her visit to that part of the country happened at about the same time
as the Scarecrow's creation?  Could there be some connection, like
the farmer accidentally using straw or cloth that the witch had enchanted
for another purpose?
 
Or perhaps the witch simply didn't encourage travel by her subjects to the
Emerald City, hence the barriers placed in their way (chasms in the road,
lack of bridges, things like that).  The less use a road gets, the more
disrepair it is likely to fall into (if we assume that Oz has American-style weather).

3.  Speaking of the Emerald City, are we to assume (not looking at the map,
or ahead to any other book) that the river goes all the way around the
Emerald Country?  (A useful precaution if you're afraid of invasion by
meltable witches.)

4.  About my previous commment on age and appearances.  I don't
know why (something to do with nutrition, no doubt) but people used to
look older than they do today.  I know for a fact that both of my
grandmothers looked older at seventy than their daughters did.  This
is not a child's memory, either, this is based on photographs.

  Nutrition probably had something to do with it, and harder work,
or a harder life.   I still don't think sixty is an outrageous
assumption for a woman described as having white hair and a wrinkled face
in 1899, but if it mollifies you to bump her age up to seventy (or even
eighty) be my guest.
 
I'd love to draw some parallel between Aunt EM and the City of EMeralds, but
for the life of me I can't.
-- Eleanor

Date: Sat, 15 Mar 97 10:10:40 (PST)
From: Dave Hardenbrook <DaveH47 at delphi.com>
Subject: Ozzy Things
 
WIZARD:
The only problem I see with the "water completely surrounding Emerald
City" theory is that the Wizard clearly didn't know witches could be
melted with water, otherwise he would have realized that killing Old Snarl-Spats
(= Bastinda = the Witch of the West) was within the realm of possibility, and
he would have then given Dorothy, &c. some other "very small task"
...Also, if he had but known, wouldn't he have long ago marched over there,
liquidated the two witches once and for all, and then people would really
have thought he was a Wonderful Wizard??!
 
 Dave

Date: Sat, 15 Mar 1997 20:37:22 -0500 (EST)
From: DavidXOE at aol.com
Subject: Ozzy Digest, 03-15-97
 
Eleanor:
I'd missed that. Where -did- Dorothy's whistle come from? And jumping ahead
a book, the Tin Woodman still has it in LAND.  As for roads, you've reminded
me of a book that I just finished reading last night - Carole Nelson Douglas's
CAT IN A DIAMOND DAZZLE.  There are several sequences that take place at the
MGM Grand in Vegas, with a lot of Oz references (and Douglas evidently knows
the books, since she refers to the "Tin Woodman" and not the
"Tin Man"). Anyhow, Midnight Louie, the cat who is one of the
protagonists in the series, came up with this amusing (if PG-13 rated)
quote: "By the way, do you have any idea  of why
the Yellow Brick Road is yellow?  This is real insider stuff, so
listen up. Toto. Yup. For a pipsqueak, he was mighty powerful in the elimination
department. Dogs will do it anywhere, you know." Maybe in Oz it would
possible to have a river go all around an area. (Think of the Trick River in
PG that flowed both ways.) But in general rivers flow downhill, and it's hard
for anyone but Escher to arrange for things to run downhill in a circle...

Sixty probably isn't an -outrageous- assumption for a woman with white hair
and a wrinkled face, but it's certainly at the young end for that description,
even in 1899. And Oz probably wasn't as hard on people as America
in those days, either.

Dave:
And even if the Wizard had known that water would liquidate the WWs, he'd have
to get close enough to them to toss water - which would mean getting past her bees
and crows and wolves, none of which he was really fitted to pass.
David Hulan

Date: Sat, 15 Mar 1997 23:58:19 -0500 (EST)
From: "Aaron S. Adelman" <adelman at ymail.yu.edu>
Subject: Amazing Coincidences in Oz?
 
1)  Eleanor, Gingemma was in where she was when her descendants collected on
her falling house insurance policy because she was sick and tired of her servant
Nimee Ammee falling in love with men who hadn't the sense to leave her alone
after suffering from multiple suspicious amputations, and so she decided to
collect the proper herbs to turn Nimee Ammee into an old hag so that no one
would fall in love with her again.  (See _Tin Woodman_.)
 
If I remember correctly, the Yellow Brick Road was falling into disrepair
not around where the Tin Woodman lived (which is near the probable location of
where Gingemma lived), but further west in the Central Blue Forest, which is
where the Cowardly Lion and the kalidahs lived.  The explaination for the
Scarecrow being alive is given in _The Royal Book of Oz_, which, interestingly
enough, despite being written by Thompson during her term as Royal Historian of
Oz and hence being highly cannonical, has been attacked previously in the
Digest.  I won't give the specifics here, but it has nothing to do with
Gingemma, but rather underground politics.  As such, I must theorize one of 
two things:  1) The Magic Machine forces events to happen out of accordance
with untouched probability just to have fun or irritate Glinda.  
This would definitely explain why an anomalously large number of magical events out
of proportion to most of the other people in the Oz books have happened to
Dorothy.  2) The Scarecrow coming to life at a convenient time is just a
coincidence.  By extension, Dorothy is just unlucky.  I don't think one
can claim even just from Wizard that the Emerald City is surrounded by a river.
  Dorothy and company did not encounter any river going west.
 
Aaron Solomon (ben Saul Joseph) Adelman
   
adelman at yu1.yu.edu

Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 07:59:05 -0800 (PST)
From: earlabbe at juno.com (Earl C. Abbe)
Subject: Ozzy Digest Submission
 
In the 3/15 Digest, Doug Parker says that the Wizard <is duly punished by
the circumstances of his rehabilitation, fourteen books of subordination
>.  I agree and I think that as we go through the books we will
be able to note several instances that show his subordination- although accepted
-- still does chafe.  

Date: Sun, 16 Mar 1997 13:57:23 -0500 (EST)
From: Nathan DeHoff <LNVF at grove.iup.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-15-97
 
Eleanor:
In Tin Woodman, it is reported that the WWE lives in the same forest in
which Dorothy discovered the Tin Woodman, and that she was in the vicinity
of Dorothy's falling house to gather herbs with which to enchant Nimmie
Amee (the girl that Nick Chopper loved).  The WWE might have placed some
of the barriers on the YBR, although there is no definite evidence of this.
  It is notable that, in Royal Book, the Scarecrow takes much the
same path through the Munchkin Country that he did in Wizard, but it was not
mentioned that he encountered any obstacles other than the Munchkin River.
--
Nathan Mulac DeHoff
lnvf at grove.iup.edu or vovat at geocities.com
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Corridor/5447/

Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 12:50:13 -0500 (EST)
From: CrNoble at aol.com
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-17-97
 
A final comment (sort of) on _The Wonderful Wizard of Oz_:
 
There's been some discussion by people wondering what a Neil-illustrated
edition would have looked like.  A possible glimpse may be found on the
pictorial endpapers of the _Road to Oz_ first edition.  (The same endpapers
are used on the R&L "white" editions.)  The endpapers are a of collage of
different Oz and Baum characters.  Towards the bottom right of the left
endpaper, there appear to be Neil illustrations of the Wicked Witch of the
West and a winged monkey.  Has anyone else noticed this?
 
-- Craig Noble

Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 15:24:36 -0500 (EST)
From: RMorris306 at aol.com
Subject: Recent Ozzy Digests
 
 
Eleanor wrote:
 
<<Or perhaps the witch simply didn't encourage travel by her subjects to the
Emerald City, hence the barriers placed in their way (chasms in the road,
lack of bridges, things like that).  The less use a road gets, the more
disrepair it is likely to fall into (if we assume that Oz has American-style
weather).>>
 
   Supposedly, Baum modeled the weather of Oz on that of the part of America
he found most pleasant: Southern California. (Leaving out the earthquakes,
except when (as in DOTWIZ) his characters were *in* Southern California.
 
 <<About my previous commment on age and appearances.  I don't know why
(something to do with nutrition, no doubt) but people used to look older than
they do today.  I know for a fact that both of my grandmothers looked older
at seventy than their daughters did.  This is not a child's memory, either,
this is based on photographs.  Nutrition probably had something to do with
it, and harder work, or a harder life.  I still don't think sixty is an
outrageous assumption for a woman described as having white hair and a
wrinkled face in 1899, but if it mollifies you to bump her age up to seventy
(or even eighty) be my guest.>>
 
     I suspect that's because a lot more people (especially women, but a lot
of men as well) are inclined to dye their hair, use skin conditioners, and
(definitely men) wear hairpieces to cover up bald heads. My grandmothers both
had white hair before they were 60; my mother's would have been gray even
earlier if she hadn't dyed it.
 
Rich Morrissey

Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 16:32:51 -0700
From: Tyler Jones <Tyler at apprentice.com>
Subject: Oz
 
Eleanor:
I would definitely agree that the Wicked Witches (and others like them) would
tend to want to restrict travel by their subjects, in order to have a 
greater amount of power over them. As far as I know, we have little if
any hard info on where the WWE lived. Does anybody have any leads?
 
I do not have access to my maps right now, but ISTR that the river in
question flows south, forming a large chunk of the Winkie/Gilikin border,
then skirts the Munchking country for a little while, before finally flowing
into lake Quad near the city.
 
I'll go on record as believing that there are some creatures that could
only have been created by magic.
 
Around and around...
In some non-FF book, there is a circular river, but it is outside of Oz.
 
Water, water everywhere, so let's all melt a witch:
In the non-FF _oz and the Three Witches_, the Wizard is relating the details
of his first visit to Mombi. He noticed that Mombi got very nervous when
he produced a bottle of water for a magic trick, but he says he did not
know the reason why. Otherwise, he said, he would have doused her.
 
Nathan:
We can assume that, by the time of _Royal Book_, Ozma had removed much of
the unpleasantness of the Yellow Brick Road, whether natrual or magical
barriers.
 
--Tyler

Date: Tue, 18 Mar 1997 19:48:48 -0800
From: Nathan Mulac DeHoff <vovat at geocities.com>
Subject: Ozzy Digest
 
Tyler:
In _Tin Woodman_, Nick Chopper and his companions visit the WWE's old 
house.  It stands in the same forest in which Nick was discovered in 
_Wizard_.
-- 
Nathan Mulac DeHoff
lnvf at grove.iup.edu or vovat at geocities.com
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Corridor/5447/

Date: Wed, 19 Mar 1997 20:30:50 -0500 (EST)
From: DavidXOE at aol.com
Subject: Ozzy Digest, 03-18-97
 
Tyler:
We know that the WWE lived fairly near to Ku-Klip, since the travelers in TW
go from her house to Ku-Klip's in some relatively small fraction of a day.
(Besides, it apparently lies between Nick Chopper's cottage and Ku-Klip's,
and Nick was able to make his way to Ku-Klip's after losing a leg without too
much difficulty.) I think we have better evidence as to the location of the
WWE's home than we do of the WWW's or the GWN's.
 
Actually, there's a circular river in DOT AND TOT. But it has to work by
magic.
 
Jeremy:
Speaking of the whistle reminds me - how would the Tin Woodman blow it in
LAND? He doesn't have any lungs. (Of course, there's the related question of
how the TW and Scarecrow took a course of Professor Woggle-bug's education
pills in LOST PRINCESS.)
 
David Hulan

Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 15:53:46 -0800
From: Nathan Mulac DeHoff <vovat at geocities.com>
Subject: Oz Matters
 
David:
It's true that the texts don't really tell where the WWW's home is
located.  It is definitely west of the Emerald City, and Haff and Martin
place it near Marshland.  Considering how long it took Dorothy and her
companions to reach the castle in _Wizard_, this might actually be too
close to the EC.  As for the GWN's home, we know that Tattypoo lived in
Mombi's old house, which was near the Gillikin Mountains.  Haff and
Martin seemed to have given this a reasonable location on their map.
--
Nathan Mulac DeHoff
lnvf at grove.iup.edu or vovat at geocities.com
http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Corridor/5447/

Date: Thu, 20 Mar 1997 21:41:24 -0500 (EST)
From: "Aaron S. Adelman" <adelman at ymail.yu.edu>
Subject: Mombi and Dorothy (Ozzy Digest)
 
3) David, I'm not sure how the Tin Woodman was able to blow a whistle, but
I suppose that he and the Scarecrow could "swallow" pills by inserting
them into their insides.
 
Aaron Solomon (ben Saul Joseph) Adelman
adelman at yu1.yu.edu

Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 10:27:24 -0800
From: "Stephen J. Teller" <steller at pittstate.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-19-97
 
> Rich:
> In _Lost King_, it is actually Dorothy, not Mombi, who suggests the
> execution of Mombi.  The Queen is clearly not the only one who is feeling
> rather mean, and, as far as I know, Mombi never did anything to Dorothy.
> 

It should be noted that in THE COWARDLY LION OF OZ Dorothy throws a
bucket of water on Notta Bit More just because he was dressed like a
witch.  This strikes me as an even more intolerant act because it
suggests that witches (or old women that look like witches) should be
summarily executed.
 
Steve T.

Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 14:02:05 -0500 (EST)
From: ZMaund at aol.com
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-20-97
 
Responding to David Hulan's post:
 
IMHO the river in Merryland is not circular!  It is in the shape of a
half-circle. I say this with great confidence because I wrote the opinionated
cartographic article in the _Bugle_  a few years back, and everybody knows
that if it's in the Bugle, it must be true.
 
-- Patrick Maund

Date: Fri, 21 Mar 97 12:54:45 (PST)
From: Dave Hardenbrook <DaveH47 at delphi.com>
Subject: Ozzy Things
 
PARDON ME FOR "BREATHING":
Perhaps the Scarecrow and Tin Man, while not needing to breathe to
sustain their lives, can make use of air for things like blowing whistles.
I'm very doubtful of their abiltity to ingest pills or anything else though...
 
 
    -- Dave

Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 19:21:33 -0500 (EST)
From: DavidXOE at aol.com
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-21-97
 
Nathan:
The time it would take to get from the EC to the WWW's castle isn't really
that clear from WIZARD, since Dot & Co. don't get all the way there before
they're waylaid by the Winged Monkeys, and on the way back they get lost and
wander aimlessly for a while before enlisting the aid of the WM. It appears
to be rather less than a two-day walk, but more than one. (The Fab Four
travel one full day with no incident. That night and the next day they're
beset by the witch's animal allies. After that she sends the Winkies from her
castle to meet them; they do that and run back to the castle, all long enough
before the end of that day that there's time for the witch to summon the WM
and for them to capture the adventurers, so the latter must have gotten
fairly close to the castle that day despite a lot of delays.)
 
Aaron:
I'm sure the Tin Woodman and Scarecrow could insert pills into their body
cavities, but since there would be nothing to dissolve the pills, how would
they take effect?
 
Patrick:
>IMHO the river in Merryland is not circular!  It is in the shape of a
>half-circle. I say this with great confidence because I wrote the opinionated
>cartographic article in the _Bugle_  a few years back, and everybody knows
>that if it's in the Bugle, it must be true.
 
When I said "circular" I was using the term loosely, meaning that water
flowed continuously in a closed path. What we know about the river in
Merryland is that  if you go into it off the main river (I forget if it's
specifically identified as the Hudson, but it obviously is) you come out
upstream of the place you went into it. I have no opinion as to the physical
shape of the river in Merryland; it could flow in a pentacle shape for all of
me.
 
David Hulan

Date: Fri, 21 Mar 1997 19:24:52 -0800
From: Bob Spark <bspark at pacbell.net>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-21-97, 03-20-97
 
     In reference to David Hulan's problem with the Tin Woodman's
ability to blow the whistle, lacking lungs, a similar objection could be
raised to his voluntary movements because he lacks muscles.  There are
problems with the Scarecrow's and Jack Pumpkinhead's physical abilities
also.  I surmise that the whole thing is, as we who were raised Catholic
were taught in catechism classes, "A mystery that must be taken on
faith".
 
Bob Spark

Date: Sat, 22 Mar 1997 22:20:01 -0500
From: Tyler Jones <tylerjones at compuserve.com>
Subject: Oz
 
Witches and water:
In the non-FF (and some say blasphemous) _A Barnstormer in Oz_, Farmer said
that some old (I am not sure if he specified wicked) witches dissolved when
coming in contact with water becuase they made use of extraphysical
electricity to keep their bodies going long after they should have died.
 
--Tyler Jones

Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 00:30:46 -0800
From: serenadb at sos.net (Serena  DuBois)
Subject: Oz Digests 3/21 on
 
Steve Teller said in reference to Dorothy's attitude about witches:
 
>It should be noted that in THE COWARDLY LION OF OZ Dorothy throws a
>bucket of water on Notta Bit More just because he was dressed like a
>witch.  This strikes me as an even more intolerant act because it
>suggests that witches (or old women that look like witches) should be
>summarily executed.
 
I would like to suggest that considering Dorothy's extreme youth (discussed
in detail in previous posts) at the time of WWOZ (and the troubles she was
put through because of them at that time) that she has developed some kind
of anti-bad-witch fixation (perhaps augmented by the GWN's magic kiss) which
makes her normally balanced  character go a bit off center when they show
up. Think how Gloma panicked when she realized that Dorothy and Pigasus were
her unwanted guests in Wishing Horse? She was sure she was on the list for
liquidation (I LOVE that word by the way! So descriptive!). It could be tied
to their witchy looks because Gloma turned out to be not only neutral in
witchyness if not outright Meddling Good [I have my own personal doubts and
biases about "Good People" meddling in others' business more often than not
when not asked!] but beautiful as well under her black dip. Dorothy is left
with a reaction that says, "Trouble happens when bad witches show up! Let's
liquidate them!"  And to a certain extent unfortunately, evil and ugly seem
to be intertwined in her mind! Neither of these are PC attitudes, but the
thing I have always liked about Dorothy is that she is NOT one of those
hideously good heroines of children's literature, but a real person in her
own right with faults as well as virtues (such as loyalty to her friends!).
 
   SerenaDB

Date: Sun, 23 Mar 1997 16:50:36 -0800
From: "Stephen J. Teller" <steller at pittstate.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 03-22-97
 
> 
> Steve:
> Presumably an "old woman who looked like a witch" wouldn't be seriously
> harmed by being doused with water. Dorothy's pre-emptive strike in COWARDLY
> LION would only be effective against witches, and probably only against
> wicked witches. We don't know for sure what would happen to a good witch if
> she were immersed, but it's strongly implied (though not explicitly stated)
> that Glinda went into the water in SCALAWAGONS. (Certainly she went looking
> for a bathing suit, but maybe she just wanted to soak up some rays.)
> 
> David Hulan
> 
 
> Stephen:
> You made a good point when you mentioned Dorothy's reaction to Notta in
> _Cowardly Lion_.  It may be that Dorothy's experiences with the WWW made
> her terrified of witches (which is kinda ironic, when you consider that
> old Bastinda, or whatever her name was, was afraid of Dorothy), but the
> Emerald City-ites in general seem to be rather "witchophobic" in
> _Cowardly Lion_.  Could this have been due to an unrecorded incident in
> which a witch invaded the Emerald City.
> 
> --
> Nathan Mulac DeHoff
 
> Stephen:
 
> Dorothy's water-bucket act against Notta was only half-intolerant, since
> an old woman who only LOOKED like a witch would not have melted.
> Nevertheless, it was probably wrong of Dorothy to assume that this
> unknown person deserved to be destroyed.
> 
> --Tyler Jones
 
I wish to note that in my very favorite Thompson Book, THE WISHING HORSE
OF OZ, the otherwise virtuous and good Gloma, Witch of the Black Forest,
tries to destroy Dorothy preemtively because Dorothy has a terrible
reputation as a witch destroyer.  When she fails she resigns herself to
her fate and asks that her innorcent subjects be spared.  You see how a
reputation for destructiveness can cling (especially when you consider
her behavior towards Notta-Bit-More and Mombi!
 
Steve T.

Date: Mon, 24 Mar 1997 07:22:24 -0800 (PST)
From: earlabbe at juno.com (Earl C. Abbe)
Subject: Ozzy Digest Submission
 
In the 3/21 Digest, Steve T. responds, <It should be noted that in THE
COWARDLY LION OF OZ Dorothy throws a bucket of water on Notta Bit More
just because he was dressed like a  witch.  This strikes me as an even
more intolerant act because it suggests that witches (or old women that
look like witches) should be summarily executed.>  
   
Interesting observation -- a pattern is emerging here.  Perhaps Dorothy's
experience with the WWW traumatized her so that she finds it difficult to
react dispassionately to anyone she perceives to be a witch.  

Date: Wed, 26 Mar 1997 09:45:36 -0600 (CST)
From: Ruth Berman <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu>
Subject: ozzy digest
 
Steve Teller and others on Dorothy's reaction to Notta's witch
impersonation: Back when the Digest was discussing liquidation, it was
suggested that water does not melt all witches (as various people have
noted, Glinda doesn't seem to worry about water) but may affect
specifically only wicked witches, withered by long malice.  That still
raises ethical problems, as a specific witch with wicked intentions may
(for reasons of prudence) not be going to do any wicked acts.  But
Notta, in his witch impersonation, is running full-speed at Dorothy and
gesturing wildly, and those are factors that should be considered, too,
in Dorothy's reaction.  It really would look as if she's dealing with a
wicked witch who is about to do something wicked to her.  (And she
has maybe 30 seconds to decide.)  After all, as various people have
pointed out, if she's wrong in thinking that the apparent witch is a witch,
she won't have done any more harm than dousing someone.  (Oz being
what it is, she doesn't need to worry about producing a fatal heart
attack if it's just an old woman with a weak heart.)  If RPT was actually
assuming that only wicked witches are meltable (and she may have
been -- as others have pointed out, Gloma does not mention having any
fear of water), then Dorothy doesn't even have to worry that she might
be melting a good witch.
 
Ruth Berman

Date: Fri, 04 Apr 1997 12:43:21 -0500 (EST)
From: DavidXOE at aol.com
Subject: Ozzy Digests
 
3/26:
Ruth:
Good point about Dorothy thinking Notta was trying to attack her. When
confronted by an apparent witch who's possibly making magical gestures at
oneself, the best way to avoid finding oneself a frog or an ornament or
something of the sort is probably a bucket of water.
 
David Hulan

Date: Thu, 25 Dec 1997 02:28:35 +0000 (GMT)
From: Richard Tuerk <Richard_Tuerk at tamu-commerce.edu>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 12-24-97
 
In the Digest for 12-24-97 J. L. Bell wrote in part:    
>  Do folks agree that Dorothy's self-image undergoes a big change after
>WIZARD?
 
Actually, her self-image undergoes a big change in _Wizard_ itself, as do
the self-images of the Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, and the Tin Woodman.
They become much more assertive, among other things.  Compare the way they
act on their first trip to the Emerald City and on their return trip after
the Wicked Witch of the West is dead.  They are no longer willing to sit
idly by and put up with the delays of the Wizard, for one thing.
 
Rich Tuerk (Richard_Tuerk at tamu-commerce.edu)

Date: Sat, 27 Dec 1997 18:08:31 -0500 (EST)
From: Ozmama <Ozmama at aol.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 12-27-97
 
Dorothy's self-image: Rich T. has pretty well said it for me.  Dorothy undergoes 
major  growth during _Wizard_.  In that sense, the book is an early example of
American bildungsroman...very early, in fact, since my on-line Webster's says 
that "bildungsroman" didn't appear in the language until 1910.  But, just because 
the word didn't exist, that doesn't mean that the form wasn't around.  Baum 
clearly showed her coming of age...her growth...as a major theme.  She's really 
a remarkably  confident little girl after this book. People forget how focused
_Wizard_ is and how good a writer Baum could be. Perhaps  we take Baum 
too much for granted because so much of his later writing was cranked out in 
a hurry and was (forgive me, but it's the correct term) hack work.  _Wizard_, 
for all its faults, was not hack work.  It was, and still is, a terrific piece
of juvenile fiction. I prefer to remember L.F.B. for this piece of writing
more than for his anti-Amerindian stuff.  Yes, it exists, and yes, it reflects an uncomfortable aspect or 
"our hero," but it doesn't represent the whole man and his contribution to 
literature. 
 
Sorry for the lecture. Didn't know I was gonna do that, but I think I'll let it stand.  
I'm kinda weary of all the flap about the Aberdeen stuff, and just want to keep 
a balance, y'know?   
 
     --Robin

Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 23:19:01 -0600
From: d.godwin at minn.net (David G.)
Subject: The Wizard and Zen of Oz
 
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz:
If you haven't read WWiz in a while, you might want to go back and do so.
You may be in for some surprises. I recently reread this first and
foundational Oz book after having gone through the rest of the FF, the QFS,
and a few others (Roger Baum, ECP, _Visitors, Wicked, Wisdom of Oz, Zen of
Oz_, Rushdie, etc.) It had been a while since my last reading of this basic
Oz text. It's not the same book when it's read in the light of the
subsequent canon. I was astonished to learn that --
 
The Quadling country is not immediately south of the Emerald City. The
forest of the fighting trees, the Dainty China Country, and the mountains
of the Hammerheads intervene. After you leave the EC, it is a two-day
journey to Quadling country through a very rough landscape. A similar
situation seems to obtain with regard to the Munchkin territory, separated
from the EC by a generally wild and unpopulated area featuring a deep
forest swarming with kalidahs.
 
Most of the citizens of Oz are no bigger than a six-year-old child (i.e.,
Dorothy).
 
Although many meals are described in detail, not once does any human being
eat any meat of any kind.
 
At this point in Ozstory, death seems to be quite common. Dorothy's house
lands on the WWE and kills her, the TW speaks of his parents' having died,
a couple of kalidahs fall to their deaths, the TW kills a wildcat, the TW
kills forty wolves, the Scarecrow forty crows, and the TW forty bees,
Dorothy melts the WWW, the CL kills the giant spider (which had previously
eaten a lot of animals), and so on. Not many of these deaths are natural,
but some are. Glinda's youthful appearance, like that of Zixi of Ix, is due
to her magic arts, not to any cessation of aging in Oz.
 
After getting his courage from the Wizard (as he supposes), the CL really
is courageous and without fear. In later books, esp. RPT's, his cowardice
reasserts itself (because of its comic potential, I think, but
incongruously from the OzHist POV).
 
The CL chooses to live forever in the great forest between the Hammerheads
and the China Country,. In later books, he turns up as a regular inhabitant
of the EC.
 
At this point in time, Glinda is a mere witch, not yet a sorceress. She
evidently has no GBR. There is nothing to indicate that she ever knew of
Dorothy's existence before she showed up on her doorstep (unlike the movie,
where Glinda and the GWN are the same person).
 
Glinda's hairstyle is definitely described as long ringlets falling over
her white gown. Perhaps she changed her hairstyle to the (unattractive,
IMHO) Neill-style hairnets after she became a sorceress. It would be
interesting if someone were to write a book detailing this phase of
Glinda's career. If she is in training to be a sorceress, who is her
mentor? Not Lurline, because that's fairy magic. Does she have access to
some ancient books of magic and is slowly becoming a self-taught magic
worker? Of course, from the OzLit POV, all this just reflects LFB's
changing ideas about the character, but it does lead to interesting
speculations.
 
- 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
 
David Godwin wrote about WIZARD:
<<After getting his courage from the Wizard (as he supposes), the CL really
is courageous and without fear. In later books, esp. RPT's, his cowardice
reasserts itself (because of its comic potential, I think, but
incongruously from the OzHist POV).>>
 
Both comic potential, I think, and because cowardice is the only thing that
sets this Lion off from other lions, making him an interesting (and
non-frightening) character. Baum re-establishes the Lion's cowardice early
in OZMA, though he also makes clear that (as in WIZARD) his fears don't get
in his way when he has to act bravely. 
  I tie the Lion's relapse to the fact that the Wizard's courage--a liquid
to drink--leaves no visible or audible trace. To remind himself that he has
brains, the Scarecrow need only note the pins and needles that occasionally
stick out of his burlap scalp. To recall his heart, the Tin Woodman can
hear the rattle in his chest. But the Cowardly Lion has no such reminder,
and after leaving the forest [do we really know the full story why?] he has
no deferential subjects to remind him he's king of beasts, either. 
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Sun, 7 Mar 1999 23:23:56 -0500
From: Tyler Jones <tnj at compuserve.com>
Subject: Oz
 
David Gowdin:
Interesting observation on the territories of Oz in early times. I once
speculated that the four quadrants of Oz were not always under the control
of one unbroken line of rulers. Ruth Berman took that idea a step further
and speculated that the entire area of each quadrant was not always even
thought of as being part of that area.
 
She also added that there were probably large uninhabited areas of the
wilderness that were ruled by nobody. There may have been several
"No-Man's" lands all over Oz, with the traditional Munchkin, Quadling, etc.
countries existing only in their core areas.
 
As for meals, I haven't read it in a while, but I seem to remember the
meals being described as pleasing to children: cookies, pie, cake, etc. Did
you come across any vegetables?
 
The many incidents of death have led to the theory that deathlessness was a
gradual change that became complete only with Ozma's ascension to the
throne.
 
I remember a passage in one of Baum's books about the Cowardly Lion moving
from the forest to the Emerald City. It must have been _Ozma_, _Dotwiz_ or
_Road_. Apparantly, he heard of Ozma taking the throne and he journeyed to
EC to meet her.
 
Can anyone remember this passage? It must have been early Baum.
 
My response to Glinda's title is long and has it's own message, probably
somewhere below :-)
 
Tyler Jones

Date: Thu, 11 Mar 1999 23:35:39 -0600
From: d.godwin at minn.net (David F. Godwin)
Subject: Oz Food
 
Tyler Jones wrote:
>As for meals, I haven't read it in a while, but I seem to remember the
>meals being described as pleasing to children: cookies, pie, cake, etc. Did
>you come across any vegetables?
 
No cookies, no vegetables. Before she leaves her mobile home (made mobile
by the cyclone), Dorothy has bread and butter. She packs the remaining
bread in a basket and has some fruit from nearby trees. She arrives at
Boq's in time for the party, where they have fruits, nuts, pies, and cakes.
On the rest of her journey, she subsists on the bread she has with her,
fruit from trees along the route, and nuts gathered by the Scarecrow. The
C. Lion offers to kill her a deer, but the TW objects. Near the EC, they
stop at a farm where Dot has porridge, scrambled eggs, and white bread.
After that, the descriptions are not so detailed. When they set off against
the WWW, they take a provision of "good things to eat" prepared by the
"pretty green girl" (Jellia?).
 
Another interesting point about WWiz concerns the use of money in Oz. In
the EC, Dorothy sees someone paying for green lemonade (Ozade?) with green
pennies. Then there's the business of Tip and the ferry in _Land_. We can
of course theorize that Ozma did away with money in Oz (perhaps provoked to
do so by her/his experience with the ferryman), or so inspired the
citizenry with love that they gave "each according to his need" after she
came to the throne, but that money remained in use in relatively isolated
places such as Ragbad.
 
- David G.

Date: Sat, 8 May 1999 22:40:26 -0400
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com>
Subject: KABUMPO and other weighty things
 
Sean Duffley wrote:
<<Most overrated:-- Wizard.  Yes, it's sacrilege ... please hold back on
the flames, folks ... Wizard was the last Baum book I read.  As
ground-breaking as it is, with many important themes, I find it slow-going
and the writing hopelessly blah.  Re-reading it with my 8-year-old two
years back, he wasn't particularly impressed, either.>>
 
But on this I disagree. As I grew up with the series, I too came back to
WIZARD late and seldom, and thought it slightly overrated. But on rereading
it as an adult, I began to appreciate it on a more mythic level. Unlike
Baum's other Oz books, we know this one started as an oral tale, and it
retains some of that antique rhythm and power, as well as showing some of
the faults of the genre when transfixed in prose. 
  WIZARD's writing is indeed at a more basic level, with lots of
repetitions or formulas, as when all three of Dorothy's companions speak in
turn. The characters of the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman (and Lion, after
drinking his courage) aren't as complex as they grow to be. All secondary
characters introduced between Boq and Mr. Joker are types with labels
instead of names--the "pretty girl," the "farmer," the "Wicked Witch," the
"tall soldier." The plot is a linear quest, without the twists of LAND and
MAGIC and other books. But when I make those criticisms, I feel like I'm
condemning the ODYSSEY for saying "wine-dark sea" too often and building
too much tension before Odysseus slays the suitors. 
  WIZARD is as much myth as novel, and therefore doesn't measure up on a
yardstick for novels anymore than PATCHWORK GIRL measures up on a yardstick
for myths. 
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

From: "W. H. Baldwin" <wbaldwin at plvwtelco.net> 
Subject: Geozify
Date: Sat, 04 Sep 99 21:10:20 PDT
 
  This thread is not related to the BCF:
  Having been confused by divergences between later Oz books and the
  Haff/Martin map of Oz, I turned to what might be termed The Father
  of all Oz Books, the Baum Wizard of Oz. As a result, I am no longer
  confused -- in this matter, at least -- and can state positively
  that Munchkins live in the East and Winkies live in the West. In
  chapter 2 it is stated that Munchkins are the people who live in
  "this land of the East" and there is talk of "the West country,
  where the Winkies live." In chapter 3 it is stated that "In this
  country of the East, blue . . ." etc. So that's it for me: bottom
  line, final authority, first causes, and all that -- Winkies West,
  blue Munchkins East. Alliterative, so should be easy to remember,
  and if the maps show otherwise, the maps are wrong.

  But. I also found something I didn't expect, something which
  knocked my Ozian cartological assumptions completely awry. For in
  chapter 18 it is stated that Glinda's castle "stands on the edge of
  the desert" and "the road is straight to the south." So Dorothy and
  friends leave the E.C. "at a brisk pace" for a visit to Glinda and
  all the first day are still in "green fields." The second day, they
  have various adventures, but nothing is mentioned about the
  Quadling country. On the third day they have a couple adventures,
  enough let us say to last maybe into early afternoon, and _only
  then_ go over a hill and into the Quadling country. That's two and
  a half days "at a brisk pace" and they're still in the green zone
  and long out of sight of the E.C.!

  Right. Now they're in the Quadling country and they ask someone
  "How far is it to the castle of Glinda?" They're told "It is not a
  great way," and indeed it's not, for they reach it that afternoon.
  Mama mia, that sure doesn't sound like the Oz I've thought I was
  familiar with lo these many years. I only read Wizard once because
  I couldn't identify with the uncaring treatment of the indigenous
  wildlife, but look what I missed. This sure doesn't jibe with the
  picture of four triangle-shaped countries meeting in the center of
  a rectangle at the E.C. Under those conditions, one should be able
  to walk right out of the E.C. into any of the four other countries
  almost immediately.

  Okay, now in chapter 12, when Dorothy and crew are leaving to find
  the WWW, they are told to "keep to the West, where the sun sets..."
  So they leave the E.C. and almost at once we are told that they are
  "in this country of the West." This is as it should be under
  conventional wisdom.

  So what have we got here? In the absence of more information, we
  know that in the West the Winkie country borders very closely upon
  the green zone _and_ the E.C. In the north and east, we don't have
  anything to go on, but toward the south we have the E.C. roughly in
  the center of the country (an assumption) but with an extended
  green zone reaching toward the Quadling country with a
  two-and-a-half-days to half-day ratio, or 83% of the way from the
  E.C. to the desert! I gotta tell you, this don't look nothin' like
  four triangles to me. But this is exciting! I feel like an explorer
  freed from triangles and striking out into unknown polygons! What
  wonders will we find?

  I know that in later books the east/west and north/south relative
  positions and hue descriptions are at least statistically
  consistent, but is it anywhere _categorically stated_ that all four
  countries are triangularly shaped?
  W. Baldwin

From: CruentiDei at cs.com
Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 02:24:18 EDT
Subject: Oz
 
Warren:
Interesting notes from the first book. I can't remember if it was
ever stated for an absolute fact that the four quadrants are indeed
triangular shaped, but they seem to be.
 
Tidbits from _Wizard_ aside, the bulk of evidence seems to indicate
that Oz is a rectangular shaped country, with the Emerald City in the
middle, and four blunted triangle-shaped countries. There does seem
to be a sizeable green area surrounding the city that is not part of
any of the four quadrants.
 
In _Wizard_, our friends seemd to journey a fair distance through a
no-mans land between the Munchkin COuntry and E.C. There may have
been another such area to the south. It is to be remembered that back
then, the zones of political control may not have been as
all-encompassing as they are today. There may have been large tracts
of land that did not consider themselves part of Oz at all, although
the color-scheme was probably consistent.
 
In Chapter 12, "The Search for the Wicked Witch" it is not clear that
they immediately left the E.C. and entered the territory of the WWW.
They walked a fair distance before entering the land of the Winkies.
 
Since the WWW lived closer to the Emerald City than her colleagues of
other compass points, we can assume that her territory came closer to
E.C. than the others. However, I do believe that the green country
surrounding E.C. extends a modest and (relatively) equal distance in
all directions.
 
Of course, I've been wrong before, and I may be trying to "adjust"
the evidence to support the conclusions that I've already decided
upon.
 
I hope I'm not doing that, though, since that is something that I
vigorously oppose in all walks of life, including Oz.
 
Tyler Jones

From: Ozmama at aol.com
Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 02:44:22 EDT
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-11-99
 
Warren: If you come up with any answers about the elusive time and
space and directional properties of Oz, let us know.  No one's ever
really been able to resolve all of the discrepancies/inconsistencies.
I guess we'll have to live with "Oz as fiction" in these cases. I
gave up trying to figure it out years ago. Easier to just accept it
as fiction.

Date: Sun, 12 Sep 1999 16:59:21 -0500
Subject: Oz
From: "David Godwin" <d.godwin at minn.net>
 
W. H. Baldwin:
I really enjoyed your comments about re-reading WWiz. Here's my
attempt at an explanation, for what it's worth: Although the "Winkie
Country" seems to have referred to what we in America would call "the
West" generally, "the Quadling country" originally referred only to
the settled area in the remote south, and nothing but a vast
wilderness separated it from the EC. After Ozma took the throne, Oz
as a whole became more civilized, settlements sprang up in the
wilderness area north of the Quadling country but south of the EC,
and the whole southern area then became known as the Quadling
country.
 
As for "the green area," my own idea is that grass is green
everywhere in Oz and that nothing has any unnatural color. _Ozma of
Oz_ refers to "the green slopes and wooded hills of the beautiful
Land of Oz " which they see when they first enter the Munchkin
country. The people of the various regions may favor the different
colors, and perhaps such wildflowers as grow there are predominantly
of one color due to the fairy enchantment, but trees do not have red
leaves (for example), and blue ducks do not swim in Munchkin ponds.
This viewpoint is reinforced in some Oz books, refuted in others.
 
ISTR that several Oz books in the FF definitely state that Oz is
rectangular, that the EC is in the center, and that there are four
countries, one each to the north, south, east, and west.  I don't
know if triangles are ever mentioned, but the descriptions of the
flag of Oz certainly seem to imply them. (I can't think where any of
these descriptions are just at present). Also, the map published in
_Tik-Tok_, which Baum certainly must have seen, shows the four
countries of Oz as (roughly) triangles.
 
Looking at _The Dictionary of Imaginary Places_, the map of Oz seems
to be modeled on the Haff-Martin map, but - perhaps to fit the page
without printing the map sideways - it seems to have been redrawn as
a vertical rectangle rather than the horizontal one we're so used to
seeing.  Some things seem to be distorted as a result. For example,
the Scarecrow's tower is within spitting distance of Thi and the
Merry-Go-Round Mountains.
 
- David G.

From: "W. H. Baldwin" <wbaldwin at plvwtelco.net> 
Subject: Digest 9/13
Date: Mon, 13 Sep 99 22:39:03 PDT
 
Tyler,
  I'm going back over _Wizard_ again with an eye to seeing if I can
  get an east-west estimate of Oz. That may help in establishing an
  aspect ratio for the country. I was just so struck with the
  Quadling country discrepancy that I didn't go any farther. You're
  quite correct as regards the limits of the E.C. on the Winkie side.
  Despite _Grampa_, where it seems to border right on the E.C., in
  _Wizard_ it says that the Dorothy party walked until late afternoon
  ("the sun shone hot in their faces";"before night (they) were tired
  and lay down"). In the next paragraph it says that the WWW was
  "angry to find them in her country," so the border is fuzzy here,
  somewhere between a half-day and a full day's walk.

Ozmama,
  I doubt that I'm going to cause any major revision in the Oz map as
  it exists. Even if I did discover a revolutionary new concept of
  Oz, it would never be accepted. The present depiction is too
  established, the Oz establishment too hidebound to relent, and
  heretics are killed, symbolically one hopes. Seriously, it's just
  that the Quadling country reality gap (then vs. now) seems
  altogether too large to just ignore. To think of trying to resolve
  every inconsistency would be unrealistic, because I believe that
  after LFB wrote _Wizard_ without any clear plan to continue the
  series indefinitely (for which I am grateful; I dislike to the
  extreme the present-day trend of deliberate trilogies, or
  double-trilogies, or whatever) Oz jes' kinda grew, like Topsy. What
  I'm interested in mainly is simply following it through _from the
  beginning_ to see if I can find just where it began to diverge, and
  through the agency of which author.

David G,
  There is much in what you say. I glossed over the intervening text
  because I was intrigued mostly by the geography, but indeed the
  Dorothy group has several hair-raising adventures after leaving the
  E.C. But as soon as they reach "the country of the Quadlings," all
  is glorious, with fields of grain and paved roads yet! Just why

  they're paved I dunno, but there they are.
  As far as the "green area" is concerned, I realized after the fact
  that this was not necessarily an E.C. green. I think that your, my,
  Baum's, and whoever commissioned the covers for the del Rey
  editions' chromographic schemes coincide. The del Rey covers _are_
  Oz, I think. Regardless of what was said in later books, it's
  apparent that Baum began with that same vision. Also, I later
  thought of at least two other explanations for an extended green
  area. One would be a river valley, which would be a richer green
  perhaps than the surrounding countryside, but I can't take this
  seriously because it's hard to posit a river originating close by
  the deadly desert. The other would be something like a "king's
  highway," or in this case a queen's highway, which might perhaps be
  a decaying remnant left over from pre-Lurline days. That might make
  more sense _if_ some sort of ancient capital used to exist where
  the E.C. now stands; it would have made it easier to maintain the
  ruler's liaison with Glinda, who's been around a long time.

  Regarding later books and maps, see my comment to Ozmama. The whole
  point of this exercise is to begin again _at the beginning_ with no
  preconceptions and see where it all comes out. Let the chips, etc.
  etc. It ought to be of some interest, and fraught with pitfalls.
  For example, I have already realized that I made an unwarranted
  assumption in my analysis of _Grampa_, which you've by now read. It
  was pure serendipity to find a confirmation of the bordering-strip
  concept of the Quadling country there, and if I ever get to
  _Grampa_ again in this project, that will have to be dealt with
  along with the east-west reversal. It may not get that far. I will
  say, though, that a preliminary scan of _Land_ has already revealed
  an impossible journey that will require a modification (but not a
  negation) of the model. More to come.
 
  W. Baldwin

From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com> 
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-13-99 (2)
Date: Mon, 13 Sep 1999 21:47:10 PDT
 
Tyler:
>Tidbits from _Wizard_ aside, the bulk of evidence seems to indicate that Oz
>is a rectangular shaped country, with the Emerald City in the middle, and
>four blunted triangle-shaped countries. There does seem to be a sizeable
>green area surrounding the city that is not part of any of the four 
>quadrants.
 
I think that Thompson clearly described Oz as an oblong-shaped land
with four triangular countries in several books.  _Handy Mandy_ is
one that comes to mind.  I'm not sure if Baum ever did, but that's
certainly the impression that one gets from his works, and from the
map on the _Tik-Tok_ endpapers.
 
>In _Wizard_, our friends seemd to journey a fair distance through a no-mans
>land between the Munchkin COuntry and E.C. There may have
>been another such area to the south. It is to be remembered that
>back then, the zones of political control may not have been as
>all-encompassing as they are today. There may have been large tracts of 
>land
>that did not consider themselves part of Oz at all, although the
>color-scheme was probably consistent.
 
I think this makes sense.  There's still the question of why the
different quadrants have these dominant colors, but it might be part
of the result of Lurline's enchantment, or some other magic.
 
David Godwin:
>As for "the green area," my own idea is that grass is green everywhere in 
>Oz
>and that nothing has any unnatural color. _Ozma of Oz_ refers to "the green
>slopes and wooded hills of the beautiful Land of Oz " which they see when
>they first enter the Munchkin country. The people of the various regions 
>may
>favor the different colors, and perhaps such wildflowers as grow there are
>predominantly of one color due to the fairy enchantment, but trees do not
>have red leaves (for example), and blue ducks do not swim in Munchkin 
>ponds.
>This viewpoint is reinforced in some Oz books, refuted in others.
 
In _Land_, Tip tells Jack that EVERYTHING in the Gillikin Country is
purple, and the same presumably holds true for the other countries.
Not only that, but the purple becomes fainter as one approaches the
Emerald City, and the Gillikin Country extends to an area fairly near
the Emerald City, since there's a sign in Gillikin territory
indicating that it is only nine miles from the capital.
 
Baum modifies the color scheme a bit in later books.  By _Patchwork
Girl_ (or possibly even earlier), he seems to have come up with a
fairly permanent model for the colors.  The grass, leaves, and dirt
do not usually take on the local color (as Tip said they did in
_Land_), but many (not all) of the flora and fauna do.  (The Foolish
Owl and the Woozy are both blue, but the animals in the Gillikin
Forest of Gugu aren't all purple.)  Thompson seemed to use this same
model for the colors throughout her books, but Neill used a color
scheme closer to that in _Land_.  In fact, the local colors were even
more prominent in Neill's books than they were in _Land_; Number
Nine, for instance, was described as having blue skin.
 
>For example, the Scarecrow's tower
>is within spitting distance of Thi and the Merry-Go-Round Mountains.
 
I doubt that the Scarecrow is doing all that much spitting at them,
though, considering his constitution.
 
Nathan

Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 10:02:04 -0400
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com> 
Subject: Ozzy quizzicality
 
 
Warren Baldwin wrote about WIZARD:
<<in chapter 18 it is stated that Glinda's castle "stands on the edge
of the desert" and "the road is straight to the south." So Dorothy
and friends leave the E.C. "at a brisk pace" for a visit to Glinda
and all the first day are still in "green fields." The second day,
they have various adventures, but nothing is mentioned about the
Quadling country. On the third day they have a couple adventures,
enough let us say to last maybe into early afternoon, and _only then_
go over a hill and into the Quadling country. That's two and a half
days "at a brisk pace" and they're still in the green zone and long
out of sight of the E.C.!>>
 
Actually, they're in a "brown zone," at least as designated by the
color of Denslow's drawings in the first edition. This wild, wooded
area isn't mentioned again in the Oz series, nor ever given a name to
parallel Quadlingland and the like. Baum seems to have erased it from
his memory or his mental map shortly afterward. In terms of Ozian
history, we might presume that Glinda extended her influence north,
or that Quadlings migrated to unused land there, once there was no
longer value in isolating her stronghold from Oz and the Witches. 

Have you read Michael Riley's OZ AND BEYOND, Warren? That recent
book spends most of its pages looking at how the landscape of Oz
and its continent changed as Baum's view of them regularized and
expanded. 
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Tue, 14 Sep 1999 11:17:22 -0700
From: Stephen Teller <steller at pittstate.edu> 
Subject: Ozzy Stuff
 
On the matter of the colors of Oz in WWof O, it should be mentioned,
if it hasn't been already, that the colors of the page illustrations
in the original edition changed with the territory in which they took
place.

In Kansas they were gray, in the Munchkin Country  Blue, in the
Emerald City Green, in the Winkies Yellow.  However, when Dorothy and
her friends left the Emerald City to seek Glinda, the colors changed
from Green to Brown, not becoming Red until the Hammerheads.  Emerald
City Green is composed of Munchkin Blue and Winkie Yellow, and
unnamed territory Brown mixes Quadling Red with Blue and Yellow (or
Green).

(There is no Gillikin Purple in this book).
 
Steve T.

Date: Tue, 14 Sep 99 13:01:08 CST
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at maroon.tc.umn.edu> 
Subject: grampa in oz
 
Warren Baldwin: Yes, in "Wizard" the territory from Fighting Forest
to Hammerheads is outside of Quadling country.  I don't think it
follows that it's inside the Emerald-green territory.  Denslow (who
was working closely with Baum in the book's design) had the illos in
that section printed in a color different from either the green of
the Emerald sections or the red of the Quadling section -- it's a
brown color.  

(Incidentally, if you don't have the Books of Wonder facsimile
edition, you might want to consider getting it -- the color work is
quite beautiful.)  It looks more as if this territory is an
independent no-mans- land during "Wizard."  By the time of "Tiktok,"
when the endpaper map showed this territory as part of the Quadling
country, presumably the political situation had changed. 
 
Ruth Berman

From: "W. H. Baldwin" <wbaldwin at plvwtelco.net> 
Subject: Geozify 2
Date: Sat, 18 Sep 99 20:40:53 PDT
 
  More adventures with _Wizard_!
  Having discovered the possibility that the geography and topology
  of Oz may not be -- or at least at one time were not -- the same as
  that which I've always accepted (see "Geozify"), I've become
  curious to see whether there remains more knowledge to be gleaned.
  Therefore I've returned to that fount of all knowledge Ozian and
  the first of its histories: _Wizard_.

We've discovered that the distance from the E.C. to the deadly desert
in the south is about a three-day journey, but what about Oz east to
west? In
  Chapter 2 Dorothy finds herself in Munchkinland in the early
  morning. She learns that the E.C. is "exactly in the center of the
  country," and also that "at the east, not far from here, there is a
  great desert." Now, "not far" is rather vague, so for a purpose of
  my own which will become clear at chapter 11, I'm going to equate
  "not far" to a quarter-day's walk. The "great desert," of course,
  must be the eastern border of Oz, the deadly desert. In
  Chapter 3 Dorothy starts out for the E.C. Since we know that
  Munchkinland is in the east of Oz, she must be walking toward the
  west. At the end of day 1 she overnights in the home of the rich
  Munchkin, Boq. Starting out again on day 2, she is told it's a
  "long way to the E.C. and will take many days." She teams up with
  the Scarecrow.
  Chapter 4. They enter a forest, and at days' end spend the night in
  an apparently deserted cottage.
  Chapter 5. Day 3. They're still in the woods and find the Woodman.
  Chapter 6. Still in the woods day 3. They meet the Cowardly Lion.
  Chapter 7. At end of day 3 they camp out in the woods. Day 4: They
  must cross a deep gorge, flee from some Kalidahs, are stopped by a
  wide river.

They spend the night on its banks.
  Chapter 8. Day 5. They finally get across the river after being
  carried downstream, then encounter the poppy field, where Dot, Lion
  and Toto are overcome. Scarecrow and Lion carry D. and T. to
  safety, but must leave Lion.
  Chapter 9. Still morning of day 5. Subjects of the Queen of the
  Field Mice help get Lion out of the poppies. The group eats
  "dinner." Now in them olden days, "dinner" meant the noon meal,
  what you sophisticates are calling "lunch" these days the last I
  heard, so it's been a busy day so far.
  Chapter 10. Finally, in the afternoon, after 4-1/2 days time, they
  find themselves in a green zone but not yet at the E.C. Note that
  this is not just an area of green grass, green fields, or green
  trees. It's an area within the jurisdiction of the E.C. because the
  houses are green, the fences are painted green, and the people
  dress with a green theme. (An aside: Curiously, Dorothy refers to
  this green zone as "the Land of Oz," as though the phrase
  designated this area only and "Oz" meant only the great Wizard.
  That the rest of the book uses it to reference the entire country
  makes it even more curious.) And its extent is such that they don't
  reach the E.C. that day, but spend the night at a private residence
  in the zone.

  Chapter 11. Day 6. The group starts off at sunup, still walking
  west presumably, and "soon" sees the glow of the E.C. Must be a
  pretty powerful glow that they can see it in broad daylight, even
  with the sun at their backs. In any event, they don't actually
  reach the city until afternoon, about 5-3/4 days after Dorothy's
  start. What can we generalize from this?

Well, if you add in the 1/4 day between the starting point and the
eastern deadly desert, we might say that the distance from the E.C.
to the eastern border of Oz is about a full six-day journey.
  Of course, some of you may question equating a time measurement to
  a distance, but if you think about it, you realize that we do much
  the same thing almost every day. We say "Oh, it's about a 30-minute
  drive to (wherever)" instead of using a distance. Also, I'm not
  using these times as an absolute measure, but rather as a relative
  one. In spite of the fact that our travelers sometimes are delayed
  in one fashion or another, I still think it's allowable on the
  premise that all these three- or four-adventure days will average
  out over the long run. Exactly what these relative measures may
  mean in terms of actual miles is a debate in itself, and in the
  interests of conserving space I don't plan to get into that here.
  There's another conclusion to be drawn from the data. You may
  remember that in "Geozify" I postulated an extended green zone from
  the E.C. to the border of the Quadling country in the south. For
  several reasons I've dropped this notion, but that doesn't mean
  that a green zone doesn't exist.

In fact, using the facts and travel times mentioned in chapters 10
and 11, we learn that to the east of the E.C. there is a definite
green area as distinctive as the colorful areas of the four main
countries, and it's a full day's journey in extent: fully 1/6 of the
way to the eastern border!

Haff and Martin show a rather symmetrical area around the E.C., but
not to that extent in the east; reasoning from statements coming up
in the next segment, I can't think the area is that regular.
  So okay, we now have at least an estimate for the east and south.
  What about the west and the north? _Wizard_ doesn't say much about
  the north in this first book, but a little is revealed about the
  west during Dorothy's quest for the WWW:

  Chapter 12. Dorothy and party leave the E.C., walking west. In
  chapter 19 it mentions "the green fields and bright flowers that
  stretched about the E.C. on every side," but Dot is also told
  before she starts out that the Winkie country is wild and untamed
  and that there is no road to the witch's castle because no one
  wants to go there. So we can assume that they definitely pass
  through some sort of green zone here to the west as well, but not
  nearly so extensive as it is to the east, because when they do find
  themselves "in this land of the west," it's not yet afternoon.
  Arbitrarily, I'm going to fix it at about 1/3 day, or only a third
  of the extent of the green zone to the west. But the walking is
  rugged, and before night (let's say 3/4 day) Dot calls a halt and
  goes to sleep. The attack by the witch's wolves occurs while she's
  in slumberland. Day 2 is a busy one. Before they go very far
  they're attacked by the witch's crows, then the witch's bees, then
  the witch's Winkies. As if this weren't enough, they wind up
  attacked by the winged monkeys, who capture Dot, Lion and Toto and
  take them to the witch's castle.

  Now there are two interesting things about all this. (1)What with
  all the attacking going on, I don't think there's much journeying
  being done today.

Not only that, but the witch's Winkies have to leave the castle,
march to where the expedition is, fight, be repulsed, and march or
flee back to the castle. All this is taking time, too, and it means
that our group must be pretty darn close to the witch's castle, and
if they were doing much walking at all they'd soon be knocking at the
drawbridge. The upshot? I think that in two days they've moved only
about as much as they did in one day in the east. (2)This means that
the witch's castle must be only about a day's unobstructed travel
from the E.C. No wonder Oz is so nervous at the mention of the WWW!
Looks like if she ever found out that Oz was a humbug, she could have
taken over the country in about two days, tops!

  Chapter 13. Unknown number of days later. The WWW is melted, and
  our triumphant delegation starts out to return to the E.C., walking
  west.

Shouldn't take long this time! It's said that they knew the correct
way to go because they'd be facing the rising sun. Well, at noon they
get lost!

They know which way is up, but not east or west. Wouldn't you think
they'd get a clue at sunset? In any event, they camp out. Day 2:
they're still lost. Guess they've forgotten the hint about the rising
sun. Tramp, tramp, tramp. Still lost. It says they walk "day by day"
for an undetermined number of days. Go figure. Finally, they call the
Queen of the Field Mice, who tells them the E.C. is a "great way off,
for you have had it at your back all this time." In other words,
they've been walking west, with the _setting_ sun in their faces!
Sacre bleu! What do we learn from this? (No character assassination,
please.) That the western portion of Oz is at least several days
journey in extent; the exact number is open to interpretation.

  What do we know from Geozify and Geozify 2?

  SUMMARY:
  Oz is a country centered around its capital, the E.C. We know this
  because it is given that the E.C. is in "the exact center." Using
  relative units corresponding to a day's travel on foot, the
  distance from the E.C.
to the southern border is 3. The distance from the E.C. to the
eastern border is 6 relative units. We will assume the country is
symmetrical, else the E.C. would not be in the "exact center." For
aesthetic reasons and reasons of orthodoxy, we will further assume
that it is a rectangle, although it could just as well be circular or
elliptical. So we have a rectangular country 12 units wide by 6 units
deep, a 2/1 ratio. (Put two 3-1/2 inch floppies together side by side
and you come pretty close to this.) If you want to argue about travel
times in the east, we can knock off a day for their being sidetracked
by the river. This yields a rectangular country 10 units wide by 6
units deep. (This is about the shape of an ordinary pocket-book. Not
one of those weaselly "trade paperbacks," just the regular pb.) Along
the southern border next to the deadly desert lies the narrow
Quadling country, 1/2 unit deep in the center, 1 unit deep in the
west, unknown in the east. This country may or may not extend to the
eastern or western borders of Oz.* In the east is the Munchkin
country, in the west the Winkie country, both bordering on their
respective deadly deserts there, in the south with the Quadling
country and possibly with the southern desert in part, and somewhere
also with one another. In the north is the Gillikin country, shape
and extent unknown. Presumably somewhere it borders with the Munchkin
and Winkie countries and with at least part of the northern deadly
desert, but this is purely speculation; its situation might just as
easily be completely different.

  A very curious-looking Oz by present-day standards, but not too far
  off the mark so far, I think. And probably grounded firmly enough
  to say that if you ever see a map of Oz that's square, or worse,
  one that looks like a post card standing on end (and apparently at
  least one Digester had seen both), why, you will know that you're
  looking at a gross misrepresentation that's nothing at all like the
  real Oz!

  *In case you're still stuck on the pie-slice shape for Oz
  countries, there seems to be still more roundabout confirmation for
  the strip-country concept in chapter 18, where talk of travel to
  "the land of the south" is treated as though the land were a long
  way off. If it were a pie-slice, the northern point would be quite
  close to the E.C.

  I just thought of an elliptical Oz while composing this. The idea
  really seems intriguing, but a bit much to tackle right now, so for
  present ozplorations I'll stick to the rectangular model. Next up,
  Geozify 3, a search for further evidence in _Land_.
  W. Baldwin

From: "W. H. Baldwin" <wbaldwin at plvwtelco.net> 
Subject: Gremlins
Date: Sat, 18 Sep 99 21:07:53 PDT
 
  Just found a typo in my Geozify 2 post. It should read " . . .or
  only a third of the extent of the green zone to the _east_."
  W. Baldwin

From: Ozmama at aol.com
Date: Sun, 19 Sep 1999 20:30:03 EDT
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-18-99
 
Warren:
"Oz jes' kinda grew, like Topsy. What I'm interested in mainly is
simply following it through _from the beginning_ to see if I can find
just where it began to diverge, and through the agency of which
author."
 
Agreed.  Hard as it is for some of us to admit sometimes <g>, Oz is a
*literary* creation.   I'm interested to know what you discover, sir.
Was the first major geozify problem the map endpapers? 
 
--Robin

Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 10:24:53 -0500
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com> 
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-11 thru 9/18-99
 
9/18:
Warren:
I imagine the roads in the Quadling Country are paved for the same
reason that the Romans paved their roads; for foot traffic paved
roads are a lot easier to travel, especially in wet weather.
Conversely, most roads in northwest Europe between Roman times and
the late 19th century weren't paved because paved roads are harder on
horses, and the people who made that kind of decision usually
traveled with horses, either riding or driving. Since most
indications are that horses were rare or nonexistent in Oz at the
time of _Wizard_, paving roads would make sense.
 
David Hulan

From: CruentiDei at cs.com
Date: Sun, 26 Sep 1999 00:06:15 EDT
Subject: Oz
 
Warren:
Your continuing study into the Oz of the first book only is
fascinating. Most discussions of the changing nature of Oz have up
until now mainly revolved around magic, characters, and the tone of
stories. AFAIK, this is the first time that the changing perception
of Geography has been studied in such detail.
 
You noted that in the first book, Dorothy referred to the green zone
as "The Land of Oz". I have heard that this is what Baum originally
intended: That "The Land of Oz" was only the green zone, and each of
the four quadrants were separate nations. As I understand it, Baum
changed his mind before the book was published, and expanded "Oz" to
include the entire area. Apparantly, he did not manage to take all of
the earlier references out of there.
 
The same thing happened in _Scarecrow_, since Baum originally wanted
Jinxland to be outside of Oz.
 
Your 2:1 ratio sounds pretty good. The maps are usually 1.3:1, which,
interestingly enough, is the same as we use in my fantasy
role-playing games.
 
Also, am I correct in assuming that you have determined that the
green zone itself extends a 1/3 day journey to the west, and a one
day's journey to the south and east? we have not yet had an estimate
on it's extent to the north, but that may come when you dig into
_Land_.
 
Tyler Jones

Date: Tue, 5 Oct 1999 17:07:14 -0500
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com> 
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 09-24 thru 10-3-99
 
9/24:
Warren:
>   Chapter 11. Day 6. The group starts off at sunup, still walking west
>presumably, and "soon" sees the glow of the E.C. Must be a pretty powerful
>glow that they can see it in broad daylight, even with the sun at their
>backs.
 
I would assume that the "glow" was the light reflecting from the
emeralds that are found throughout the city, in which case the
daylight would enhance it rather than drowning it out.
 
>Using relative
>units corresponding to a day's travel on foot, the distance from the E.C.
>to the southern border is 3.
 
Well, maybe. Remember that a portion of the journey was done via
Winged Monkey Express, which we know is far faster than walking.
(They carried Dorothy and company back to the EC in a few hours,
covering a distance that had taken them several days to walk.) The
book says only that the monkeys took them "over the hill," but it
might easily have been the equivalent of a day's walk. For that
reason I don't think you can get an accurate estimate of the aspect
ratio of Oz from the available information in _Wizard_. But I
appreciate the work you've put into analyzing travel times.
 
>For aesthetic reasons and
>reasons of orthodoxy, we will further assume that it is a rectangle,
>although it could just as well be circular or elliptical.
 
In _Wizard_ it could be, but later books frequently refer to Oz as
"oblong," or rectangular; it's not just "orthodoxy."
 
9/30:
Tyler:
Regarding Dorothy's referring to the green area as "The Land of Oz,"
it's also interesting to note that in _Land_ the references to the
Wizard, the Scarecrow, Pastoria, and Ozma all refer to their ruling
"the Emerald City," and not "the Land of Oz." There seems to be a
definite implication that the Tin Woodman and Glinda are independent
rulers of the Winkies and Quadlings respectively, and in no way
subordinate to the Scarecrow. It's only in _Ozma_ that Ozma appears
to have become the supreme ruler of the whole area encompassed by the
Deadly Desert.
 
Ruth:
I haven't gone through all 40 Oz books in detail on travel times, but
it's something that I've kept an eye on as I've reread the books
repeatedly. To put it mildly, there are serious inconsistencies,
although the majority of the journeys are reasonably consistent with
the 90 x 120 mile dimensions that fit with Thompson's numerical
example in _Wishing Horse_ (if you assume a 4x3 aspect ratio). But
both _Ozma_ and _Road_ seem to imply a much smaller Oz, as do all of
Neill's books.
 
David Hulan

From: "Warren H. Baldwin" <wbaldwin at plvwtelco.net> 
Subject: Responses
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1999 16:24:17 -0500
 
9/24
  Robin: <Was the first major geozify problem the map endpapers?> No,
  the first problem for me was the analysis of _Grampa_. _Then_, when
  I looked at the map, the problem was compounded no end. Since
  Geozify and Geozify2, I've discovered that the reversed
  Winkie/Munchkin scheme is used in several Thompson books. I can
  well believe that Haff and Martin had problems in geographical
  placement. In fact, in order to make things fit in some logical
  scheme I'd think one would have to make so many slithy assumptions
  that it would cast serious doubt on _any_ conclusions. I'm
  wondering whether the best solution to the dichotomy isn't also the
  easiest and the most direct: to simply acknowledge that the two
  views are different and exclusive. In other words, _we just have
  two maps_: The Oz of L. Frank Baum and The Oz of Ruth Plumly
  Thompson. As an Oz fan of long standing (and long sitting -- and
  the "long" I'll admit is only as long as a piece of string) I would
  find no quarrel with this at all; both worlds are enjoyable to me. 
Enough of this War of the Worlds, I say. Let us have peace for all
time, merrily, a piece of each. Huzzah!
 
9/30
  Tyler: I'm guessing that AFAIK=As Far As I Know. You're correct on
  the green zone being 1/3 day to the west, 1 day to the east. But to
  the north and south it's still up for grabs; not enough information
  in _Wizard_. All we know is that the green zone _is_ all around the
  E.C. My 2:1 ratio for Oz-as-a-whole may be a bit long, but
  possible. The 10:6 ratio is perhaps more probable, and corresponds
  to 1.76:1. The 1.3:1 ratio you mention is not, I suppose, out of
  bounds, but does seem a bit "blocky." I'm behind on getting to
  _Land_, but I _will_ get there. You could say I suffer from
  analysis paralysis at the present time.
 
10/6
  D. Hulan: <relative units> Um, yes, that's why I defined, or rather
  confined, the "units" to a day's travel _on foot_. Transport by air
  or magic is definitely out unless it can be in some way equated.
  Since these modes play greater roles in later books, I wanted to
  fix general dimensions as soon as possible, and I suspect
  succeeding tomes may only be useful for refining borders, etc.
  "Hill" is ambiguous, but I interpreted it as merely a gentle rise
  in the local landscape which would not have been an obstacle except
  for its inimical occupants. And young Dorothy was at that time
  unsophisticated in the use of magical tools. Instead of getting the
  monkeys to take her directly to Glinda, she just has them carry her
  "over the hill," so I doubt it was any great distance. Besides, I'm
  over the hill, too, and know that nothing mysterious resides there;
  the other side of the hill merely amounts to a reduced distance to
  the final destination. <In _Wizard_ it could be, but later books .
  . .> Ah, but that's the point. What does _Wizard alone_ say, and
  where does it begin to diverge?
  W. Baldwin

Date: Wed, 20 Oct 1999 17:48:13 -0500
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at ntsource.com> 
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 10-11 & 15-99
 
10/11:
Warren:
> And it _is_ explicitly stated in one of the
>Thompson books, and perhaps in others as well, that the four countries are
>triangle-shaped and meet at the E.C. zone. This view is absolutely
>irreconcilable with the earliest Baum writing and must have given Haff and
>Martin fits.
 
I don't think it's "absolutely irreconcilable." You've made a good
point about the description of the Quadling Country in _Wizard_. It
certainly appears that at the time of Dorothy's first trip to Oz, the
Quadling Country was a more or less rectangular strip along the
southern edge of the country. But this doesn't preclude Ozma from
having "donated" the wilderness zone between the central QC and the
green country to Glinda sometime between _Wizard_ and _Emerald City_
(at which point the QC appears to come quite close to the EC). The
two maps would only be "absolutely irreconcilable" if you postulate
that there were no political changes in Oz, except for the change of
supreme ruler, after _Wizard_. We're not, after all, talking about
immutable physical geography here, but regional boundaries. Cf. the
change of British shires for administrative districts around 1970.
For instance, Sussexshire became two separate districts, whereas
Herefordshire and Worcestershire were combined into one. IIRC, parts
of Warwickshire and Staffordshire were combined into a new "West
Midlands," and the rest of them were attached to other districts. I'm
going by memory here on specifics, but I've looked at the two maps
and they're very different - even though Great Britain didn't change
its physical geography at all.
 
David Hulan

Date: Fri, 7 Apr 2000 23:49:43 -0400
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com>
Subject: casting away allusions
 
Here's an interesting sentence from Nathaniel Hawthorne's sketch "Old
News," part 1, first published in 1835: "The first pages of most of these
old papers are as soporific as a bed of poppies."

         In 1893, Alice Morse Earle quoted this metaphor in CUSTOMS AND
FASHIONS IN OLD NEW ENGLAND [264]. She was also discussing colonial
printing, but aside from that context she didn't allude explicitly to
Hawthorne; that implies her educated turn-of-the-century readers should
have been familiar with the phrase.

         I suspect "as soporific as a bed of poppies" inspired Baum's Poppy
Field. He certainly seems to have expected his readers to accept a bed of
poppies as soporific: "Now it is well known that when there are many of
these flowers together their odor is so powerful that anyone who breathes
it falls asleep, and if the sleeper is not carried away from the scent of
the flowers, he sleeps on and on forever." Michael Patrick Hearn didn't
quote Hawthorne in the first edition of ANNOTATED WIZARD, and I suppose
it's too late for the upcoming second.
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Tue, 18 Apr 2000 18:24:48 -0500
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at mail.ntsource.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 04-15-2000
 
J.L.:
I don't know any reason to believe that Hawthorne was the inspiration for
Baum's poppy field. The soporific properties of poppy juice (laudanum) had
been well-known for centuries by then (I think it was used in Classical
times; certainly by Elizabethan), and the extension of that to a belief
that simply being in a poppy bed could also cause sleep is unlikely to have
been original with Hawthorne. I imagine that both Hawthorne and Baum (and
Earle) were simply referring to a widespread folk belief, without any
direct connection from one to another.
 
David Hulan

Date: Sun, 23 Apr 2000 22:08:24 -0400
From: "J. L. Bell" <JnoLBell at compuserve.com>
Subject: HUNGRY for more
 
David Hulan wrote:
<<I don't know any reason to believe that Hawthorne was the inspiration for
Baum's poppy field. The soporific properties of poppy juice (laudanum) had
been well-known for centuries by then (I think it was used in Classical
times; certainly by Elizabethan), and the extension of that to a belief
that simply being in a poppy bed could also cause sleep is unlikely to have
been original with Hawthorne.>>
 
Then we should be able to find an earlier or contemporary reference. Since
lying in poppies isn't really soporific, the connection between sleep and a
bed of those flowers (as opposed to an extract from them) is a literary
creation--a metonymy that must have come from some author. With Hawthorne's
"as soporific as a bed of poppies" phrase still quoted near the last turn
of the century, and his writing part of the literature Baum read, he seems
like a plausible source. (As I recall, some critics have seen a link
between another Hawthorne tale and Jack Pumpkinhead.)
 
J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at compuserve.com

Date: Mon, 8 May 2000 11:00:46 -0500
From: David Hulan <davidhulan at mail.ntsource.com>
Subject: Re: Ozzy Digest, 05-06-2000
 
J.L.:
 >Then we should be able to find an earlier or contemporary reference. [To a
 >bed of poppies being soporific.]
 
And I expect that an extensive literature search would find such
references, but I'm not about to try reading a lot of 18th and early 19th
century literature (which I have a hard enough time reading when I have to,
much less doing it for fun) in an effort to find them. Maybe Hawthorne did
originate it, but I beg leave to doubt it. And while Baum may well have
read Hawthorne's quote, it doesn't sound to me like something that would
inspire an "Aha!" reaction and carry over into his fiction. I think it much
more likely that the idea of a poppy field's being soporific was just a
general belief of the time; sure, someone probably was the first to suggest
it, and it could have been Hawthorne, but it's going to be hard to convince
me that he was a direct inspiration for Baum.
 
 >(As I recall, some critics have seen a link
 >between another Hawthorne tale and Jack Pumpkinhead.)
 
This, I'd have to say, seems much more plausible as a link; the
pumpkin-headed scarecrow of that story may indeed have suggested a
pumpkin-headed Oz character to Baum (especially since he had already used a
scarecrow to good effect in an earlier book, and Jack was probably intended
to fill the role in the musical Baum was envisioning when he wrote _Land_
that the Scarecrow had played in the musical _Wizard_).
 
David Hulan