Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 11:36:56 -0500
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] yankee in oz

I think the plan was to begin comments on RPT's "Yankee in Oz" now.

I enjoyed re-reading it, not so much for Tompy, who seems a bit stiff (the
drum-playing stuff, the main element in his characterization, seems nicely
researched, but doesn't seem to come alive for me), or even Yankee, although
his exuberant, impatient, yappy, affectionate, bull-dog determined (when he
grabs something in his teeth it stays grabbed) character does obviously come
out of her lifetime of loving dogs and animals generally. But the enjoyment
comes more out of the various scenes and characters, especially Jinnicky
(generally a favorite with her readers) and Aunt Doffi and the Lanternese
people. Aunt Doffi is one of the few times that we get a grown-up woman as a
major, and attractive character in an Oz story. (Seems kind of a pity she's
rescued as early as she is, and dropped off at Jinnicky's palace for safety,
instead of joining Tompy and Yankee and Jinnicky in rescuing the captured
Emerald Citians.) The Lanternese town is a type of small community that RPT
did once in a while, although not often -- the Fiddle Forest is the main
other one that comes to mind -- of magical and friendly beauty, enchanting
to the protagonists, and also to the reader. (The butterfly/flower girl,
Su-Posy, is somewhat similar, but doesn't play enough of a role to come
across strongly, I think.)

In the past, our discussions have pointed out problematic features of
Jinnicky's rule, with his (Black) subjects uncomfortable enough in their
lives and work as his ruby-miners in "Silver Princess" to be ready to join
Gludwig's rebellion, and getting stomped down for it with narrative approval
and only a bare hint that Jinnicky had been doing something wrong and will
be giving them a better deal in future. In this return to Jinnicky's Ev, RPT
seems to be trying to show him as a more democratic ruler, with his big
central castle echoed in smaller, but equally lavish dwelling-castles for
everyone else, and Jinnicky's claim that he and his subjects are equally
wealthy, through trading the rubies they get from their ruby mines, with
"share and share alike" distribution of the proceeds. (So why, one might
ask, does he get the great big castle and no share of the work of mining?
Well, I suppose he might argue that he needs the big space for
community-wide events, and we don't actually know that he doesn't spend any
of his time in the mines.)

I like Dick Martin's artwork for the story, too. The cover (I forget if this
was the same cover on later editions) is especially attractive, with the
characters in bright colors against a solid black background sky (except for
a Martin-faced crescent yellow moon). This technique of putting bright,
light characters against a solid black background was something that Neill
often did, always effectively, and it is here, too. The format of large
(typewriter-size) paper has been criticized for being out of step with the
Oz series as a whole, but it does have the advantage of showing off the
full-page illos especially well. Some striking examples are the frontispiece
(Jinnicky flying with Tompy and Yankee in the jinricksha), a Lanternese
woman dancing with Yankee while Tompy jams with the band, the giant
Badmannah (with a smiley-faced skull to the skull-and-crossbones insignia on
his shirt) carrying off Aunt Doffi.

Ruth Berman

Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 16:25:44 -0400
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: [Regalia] yankee in oz

Ruth:
>I think the plan was to begin comments on RPT's "Yankee in Oz" now.

I believe so.  Unfortunately, I've misplaced my copy, so I haven't had a
chance to reread it.  I remember it well enough to make a few replies and
comments, though.

>I enjoyed re-reading it, not so much for Tompy, who seems a bit stiff (the
>drum-playing stuff, the main element in his characterization, seems nicely
>researched, but doesn't seem to come alive for me)

I think Tompy comes across as a bit of an exaggerated character.  He's
eleven years old, yet he plays the drums AND several other instruments, and
is on the football team.  There are probably some eleven-year-olds in this 
situation, but he's hardly an everyman character, and is pretty much the
opposite of how I was at that age.

It bugged me somewhat how Tompy and Yankee get bored of listening to
everyone else's stories, while being incredibly eager to tell their own. 
Their Amcrican patriotism also struck me as a bit overdone, but I guess that
goes with the time period in which the story was written.  Oh, and Yankee's
calling Ozma a "doll" kind of rubbed me the wrong way.

>The butterfly/flower girl, Su-Posy, is somewhat similar, but doesn't play
>enough of a role to come across strongly, I think.

Incidentally, I think Melody Grandy's TIPPETARIUS gives some strong hints
that Su-Posy is the same as Zim's sister Fern.

>In this return to Jinnicky's Ev, RPT seems to be trying to show him as a
>more democratic ruler, with his big central castle echoed in smaller, but
>equally lavish dwelling-castles for everyone else, and Jinnicky's claim
>that he and his subjects are equally wealthy, through trading the rubies
>they get from their ruby mines, with "share and share alike" distribution
>of the proceeds. (So why, one might ask, does he get the great big castle
>and no share of the work of mining?

Really, you could say much the same thing about the arrangement in Oz, as
described in EMERALD CITY.  The book describes Oz as having a cooperative
economic system, yet Ozma and her favorites get to live in a nicer home than
pretty much anyone else.

I think it could be argued that Jinnicky, as the ruler, is doing an
important job that no one else could fill (much as Ozma is described as
doing in various books), and so is entitled to more than his subjects.

With the Cold War mentality that comes out in Tompy and Yankee's lines, it's
kind of interesting that the description of Jinnicky's kingdom describes
what's basically a communist system in a positive light.

As I pointed out back on Nonestica when SPEEDY was the BCF, Badmannah's drag
net is quite similar to Loxo's magic magnet, but while Loxo never seems to
use his magnet for anything illegal, Badmannah is a big-time thief.  He's
sort of like what Loxo COULD have been, but wasn't.  While Badmannah is a
giant, though, I don't think he's anywhere near as big as Loxo.  Is there a
description of Badmannah's size?

The storm that brings Tompy to Oz is specifically identified as Hurricane
Hannah, which pretty firmly dates the story to 1959.  This was the year
after NASA was officially founded, and I believe it was the same year that
the United States launched monkeys into space.

The ending of YANKEE is a bit of a strain on my willing suspension of
disbelief, since there's no evidence of NASA having launched a dog named
Yankee into lunar orbit, yet the book indicates that his flight made
national news.
--
I'll still be right where you left me, if you manage to forget me,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 09:02:57 -0500
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] yankeeing

"Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com> wrote:
> I think Tompy comes across as a bit of an exaggerated character.  He's
> eleven years old, yet he plays the drums AND several other instruments,
> and is on the football team. ... It bugged me somewhat how Tompy and
> Yankee get bored of listening to everyone else's stories, while being
> incredibly eager to tell their own.  Their Amcrican patriotism also struck
> me as a bit overdone, but I guess that goes with the time period in which
> the story was written.  Oh, and Yankee's calling Ozma a "doll" kind of
> rubbed me the wrong way. >

Interesting set of  points. I tend to agree, although I think Yankee's
calling Ozma  "doll" goes with doggish bounciness.

> Really, you could say much the same thing [questioning how egalitarian the 
> set-up which includes better accommodations for the ruler] about the
> arrangement in Oz, as described in EMERALD CITY.  The book describes Oz as
> having a cooperative economic system, yet Ozma and her favorites get to
> live in a nicer home than pretty much anyone else. I think it could be
> argued that Jinnicky, as the ruler, is doing an important job that no one
> else could fill (much as Ozma is described as doing in various books), and 
> so is entitled to more than his subjects. >

Could be. It takes a castle-sized place to host diplomatic and territorial
functions, presumably.

> While Badmannah is a giant, though, I don't think he's anywhere near as
> big as Loxo.  Is there a  description of Badmannah's size? >

Not directly, but he can go inside caves, and mountain caves aren't usually
big in comparison with the surrounding mountain. Loxo is something closer to
mountain size, isn't he?

Ruth Berman

Date: Thu, 28 Oct 2004 15:50:08 -0500
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] tompy's end run

"Nathan Mulac DeHoff"
<xornom at hotmail.com> wrote:
> I think Tompy comes across as a bit of an exaggerated character.  He's
> eleven years old, yet he plays the drums AND several other instruments,
> and is on the football team.  There are probably some eleven-year-olds in
> this situation, but he's hardly an everyman character, and is pretty much
> the opposite of how I was at that age. >

I commented that I basically agree with this, but it occurs to me that we
may be judging too much from ideas of what a "football team" means for older
ages. At 11, Tompy is probably inbetween 5th/6th grade -- still in
elementary school. I don't think kids that age then (maybe not now, either?)
were playing formal football matches. My grade school had several football
"teams" (I was on one of them, I recall with surprise), enough to let

everyone play who wanted to, but the games the teams played were against
teams from the same grade, lasting for the 15 minutes of recess. This isn't
the sort of big deal that you get with high school football.

Ruth Berman

Date: Fri, 29 Oct 2004 19:52:19 +0000
From: "J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net>
Subject: [Regalia] YANKEE (not the eliminated kind)

Ruth Berman wrote:
> I enjoyed re-reading it, not so much for Tompy, who seems a bit stiff (the 
> drum-playing stuff, the main element in his characterization, seems nicely 
> researched, but doesn't seem to come alive for me)

Yes, I recall thinking that he seemed a bit toy-soldierish. That
impression is even stronger given all of Martin's drawings of him in
full uniform.

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
> I think Tompy comes across as a bit of an exaggerated character.  He's
> eleven years old, yet he plays the drums AND several other instruments, and
> is on the football team.

Yes, Thompson doesn't seem to have realized that in American society
there are band kids and there are football kids, and the groups rarely
overlap. Our last two US presidents, for instance, have been band kids
(in one case, actually a cheerleader) who apparently yearned to be jocks.

Ruth Berman wrote:
> The Lanternese town is a type of small community that RPT
> did once in a while, although not often -- the Fiddle Forest is the main
> other one that comes to mind -- of magical and friendly beauty, enchanting

> to the protagonists, and also to the reader.

It's also unusual as a Thompson community of humanoids with unusual
physical makeup who don't demand that their visitors conform or depart.
It really is a nice interlude, as I recall.

> In this return to Jinnicky's Ev, RPT
> seems to be trying to show him as a more democratic ruler, with his big
> central castle echoed in smaller, but equally lavish dwelling-castles for
> everyone else, and Jinnicky's claim that he and his subjects are equally
> wealthy, through trading the rubies they get from their ruby mines, with
> "share and share alike" distribution of the proceeds. (So why, one might
> ask, does he get the great big castle and no share of the work of mining?
> Well, I suppose he might argue that he needs the big space for
> community-wide events, and we don't actually know that he doesn't spend any
> of his time in the mines.)

Yes, it looks like Thompson realized that she couldn't write about a
nation of black people the same way she did before WW2 and the start of
the civil-rights movement, so she no longer uses the term "slave." Yet
she still describes Ginger (unnamed) as a "faithful bell boy" and shows
three more black boys serving Tompy and Yankee with no words but a
"grin." Am I wrong in remembering that Thompson introduces a cook for 
Jinnicky in this book?

In PURPLE PRINCE Jinnicky remarks about his subjects being happy to see
him off, an offhand remark that might presage the revolt in SILVER
PRINCESS. We could decide that there's been some sort of reform in
Jinnicky's society, with him giving his subjects more social equality
and freedom, even though at the end of SILVER PRINCESS he seemed to be
exercising a very firm hand (leaving some rebels petrified as a warning
to his surviving slaves).

I notice that Thompson includes a character--a teammate on Tompy's
football team--named "Fats Waller." Hmmm.

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
> I think it could be argued that Jinnicky, as the ruler, is doing an
> important job that no one else could fill (much as Ozma is described as
> doing in various books), and so is entitled to more than his subjects.

In addition, Jinnicky is a wizard (and perhaps even a magical being). So
he can accomplish a lot for his subjects with less physical labor.

I think being a miner so close to the Nome Kingdom would be a
particularly hard challenge. (I've worked that into the plot outline of
a book that remains nothing but a plot outline at this point.)
Jinnicky's magic might be important for protecting his employees from
Nomes angry at losing their rubies.

*****SPOILER*****

One aspect of YANKEE I never liked was the revelation toward the end
that Jinnicky has enchanted Yankee, allowing him to talk for an hour
every afternoon.

One of the messages of WIZARD is that a child going to Oz has to decide
between magic, wealth, and status on one hand, and home on the other.
That dividing line breaks down in later books, especially Thompson's but
even in Baum's when he links his non-Oz books to the series. Yet the
idea that one must leave magic behind in Oz still seems like an
important theme in the books. It's also an excellent example of what
author Susan Fletcher (a friend of Eloise McGraw) calls "the price of
fantasy." Going homw with a dog and still being able to chat with him
seems like eating your cake and still having it.

Of course, for a dog as bouncy as Yankee, losing the ability to talk
might seem unfair and too awful to bear. In DOROTHY & WIZARD Jim and
Eureka are able to manage the transition, even eager to return to
America--but in their cases they've behaved somewhat poorly in Oz and
feel out of place. All the other animals from the Great Outside World
who start to talk in Oz end up staying.

J. L. Bell                 
JnoLBell at earthlink.net

Date: Sat, 30 Oct 2004 13:48:25 -0500
From: David Hulan <dhulan at wideopenwest.com>
Subject: [Regalia] Comments

Nathan:
>> I think Tompy comes across as a bit of an exaggerated character.  He's
>> eleven years old, yet he plays the drums AND several other
> instruments, and
>> is on the football team.
>
> Yes, Thompson doesn't seem to have realized that in American society
> there are band kids and there are football kids, and the groups rarely
> overlap. Our last two US presidents, for instance, have been band kids
> (in one case, actually a cheerleader) who apparently yearned to be
> jocks.

When you're 11 or so the line of demarcation isn't as strong as it is
by high school. I remember that when my brother was 11 he was in Little
League football (with uniforms and such - not as big a deal as high
school football, but something that was significant locally), though by
the time he was in high school he was a band person. This was in about
1950, so even earlier than the time of YANKEE.

J.L.:
> All the other animals from the Great Outside World
> who start to talk in Oz end up staying.

Ultimately, but Eureka did go back to the US with Dorothy at the end of
DOTWIZ before (mysteriously) turning up back in Oz in PATCHWORK GIRL. I
wrote a short novel explaining this, which is available on-line, though
I'm not sure at the moment of what the URL is. If anyone's interested,
say so (either here or with direct e-mail) and I'll find it for you.

David Hulan

Date: Sun, 31 Oct 2004 00:00:14 -0400
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: [Regalia] YANKEE (not the eliminated kind)

J. L. Bell:
>Am I wrong in remembering that Thompson introduces a cook for Jinnicky in
>this book?

She does.  I believe the cook gives Doffi his hat to wear after she prepares
a spectacular meal.

>I think being a miner so close to the Nome Kingdom would be a particularly
>hard challenge. (I've worked that into the plot outline of a book that
>remains nothing but a plot outline at this point.)

I guess that just goes to show that great minds think alike, or perhaps that
this is a fairly obvious idea, because one of my earliest ideas for an Oz
story started out with some of Jinnicky's miners accidentally digging in the
Nome Kingdom.  Like your story, it never really went very far past the
outline stage, but it was going to involve Jinnicky and Kaliko teaming up to
stop some rebel Nomes who wanted to restore Ruggedo.
--
I'll still be right where you left me, if you manage to forget me,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Mon, 1 Nov 2004 13:56:29 -0600
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] more intersections

 "J. L. Bell"
<jnolbell at earthlink.net> wrote:
> One aspect of YANKEE I never liked was the revelation toward the end that
> Jinnicky has enchanted Yankee, allowing him to talk for an hour every
> afternoon. >

Yes, that feels a bit odd. In a way, it's not much different from having
Ozma arrange to look in on Dorothy every so often in Kansas. It's different
in operations, as the Magic Picture stays in Oz in the process, so doesn't
call for having magic work in the outside world, but similar in emotional
effect. As you commented, Yankee seemed like a character who would suffer
more from losing speech than would Jim or Eureka -- although I suppose we
could guess that wanting to be able to talk again would be part of Eureka's
reason for wanting to get back to Oz (as it is in David Hulan's story of how
she did.)

Ruth Berman

Ruth Plumly Thompson, Dick Martin

Date: Tue, 09 Nov 2004 20:53:42 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net>
Subject: [Regalia] YANKEE remarks

Thanks, Ruth Berman and David Hulan, for the reminder that Tompy is
still young enough to be doing both football and band. Most folks who've
written about him here still seem to agree that he's a little too
impressive to see as a real boy. He's a prodigy in the band, a prodigy
on the team. Thompson seems to have felt that (after Bob Up) her
American boys had to be paragons. With Peter and Speedy that worked
since she bumped them up against their own images of masculinity
(generals, barons, pirates) and femininity (Marygolden, Gureeda). Tompy
just tromps on through.

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
< perhaps that this is a fairly obvious idea, because one of my earliest
ideas for an Oz story started out with some of Jinnicky's miners
accidentally digging in the Nome Kingdom. Like your story, it never
really went very far past the outline stage, but it was going to involve
Jinnicky and Kaliko teaming up to stop some rebel Nomes who wanted to
restore Ruggedo.>>

Given the options in the first two lines, I'm going with the first. In
my case, I imagine the Nomes taking Jinnicky's miners hostage on a
fairly regular basis, rather like the Tripolitan "pirates" seizing
mariners in the Mediterranean in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
The miners learn to wait it out, glad for the break from working, while
their boss negotiates with the Nome King for their ransom. And that
ransom is--what else would a Nome King demand from a wizard?--some magic.

<<With the Cold War mentality that comes out in Tompy and Yankee's
lines, it's kind of interesting that the description of Jinnicky's
kingdom describes what's basically a communist system in a positive
light.>>

Neat point.

J. L. Bell                 
JnoLBell at earthlink.net

Date: Sun, 12 Dec 2004 23:07:44 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net>
Subject: [Regalia] YANKEE where Oz iz

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

At first, like that other intrepid space traveler Buzz Lightyear, Yankee
thinks he's landed on a "strange planet" [15]. But then he theorizes
that Oz is ""between the earth and outer space" [17]. Later he tells
Tompy, "But we are not on earth. We're way up here in Oz" [31].

Thompson apparently adopts this theory toward the end of the book when
she writes, "they had dropped to a lower level leaving the Land of Oz
and Ev far behind" [91]. This is when Yankee loses his ability to talk.

There are other oddities in the location of Oz in YANKEE. When Tompy is
picked up by the hurricane, it blows him "eastward" from Pennsylvania

[14], meaning it takes him over the Atlantic or [gasp!] New Jersey. OZMA
and SCARECROW implied Oz was in the Pacific Ocean; PIRATES and this book
imply it can be reached via the Atlantic. (And, of course, GIANT HORSE
offers an even stranger route, downward.)

Then to get home, Yankee's doggy sense of direction insists the route is
"due east" [16]. And he doggedly keeps to this path until Jinnicky comes
along [27, 47]. Page 18 implies that Yankee wants to go "due west,"
however. I'm guessing that Thompson originally wrote YANKEE with the
Winkies in the east, as in her most recent Oz books, and that Fred Meyer
or whoever edited the manuscript for the Oz Club gently corrected her on
that--but missed one of the references. Thus, Yankee would have
originally headed west, reversing Tompy's storm travel.

YANKEE's final confusing clues about Oz's location appear during Tompy's
journey home. Leaving Jinnicky's castle, the jinrikisha first passes
over the Deadly Desert [90], implying it must go at least somewhat
southward from Ev. But then Thompson shows us Tompy and Yankee flying
"from South to North America" [91], northward.

In SILVER PRINCESS Thompson created anuther space traveler who might
have been able to explain Tompy and Yankee's journeys. However, even
though Jinnicky mentions having come from a visit to Randy in Regalia
with Kabumpo [52], he doesn't say a word about Planetty.

J. L. Bell                 
JnoLBell at earthlink.net

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 14:16:53 -0600
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] southey, directions, unique scarecrow

"J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net> wrote:
> There are other oddities in the location of Oz in YANKEE. When Tompy is
> picked up by the hurricane, it blows him "eastward" from Pennsylvania
> [14], meaning it takes him over the Atlantic or [gasp!] New Jersey. OZMA
> and SCARECROW implied Oz was in the Pacific Ocean; PIRATES and this book
> imply it can be reached via the Atlantic. (And, of course, GIANT HORSE
> offers an even stranger route, downward.) >

Neill's "Lucky Bucky" is another one who reaches Oz via the Atlantic.

> Then to get home, Yankee's doggy sense of direction insists the route is
> "due east" [16]. And he doggedly keeps to this path until Jinnicky comes
> along [27, 47]. Page 18 implies that Yankee wants to go "due west,"
> however. I'm guessing that Thompson originally wrote YANKEE with the
> Winkies in the east, as in her most recent Oz books, and that Fred Meyer
> or whoever edited the manuscript for the Oz Club gently corrected her on
> that--but missed one of the references. <

I recall hearing that he did -- and speculation that this is a reference he
missed sounds plausible.

> YANKEE's final confusing clues about Oz's location appear during Tompy's
> journey home. Leaving Jinnicky's castle, the jinrikisha first passes over
> the Deadly Desert [90], implying it must go at least somewhat southward
> from Ev. But then Thompson shows us Tompy and Yankee flying "from South to
> North America" [91], northward. >

Perhaps the jinrikisha got a trifle lost?

Ruth Berman

Date: Mon, 13 Dec 2004 22:00:31 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net>
Subject: [Regalia] YANKEE and other Oz books

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
<<>>I don't recall any arrival in the Reilly & Lee series
>>expressing such surprise: "Hey, I didn't believe Oz existed!" Anyone?

GNOME KING has Peter telling Ruggedo that he read a book about Oz, but
didn't know it was real.>>

It turns out Tompy in YANKEE has the same experience. He knows about Oz
from "several Oz books but considered them to be just fairytales"
[24].

We can even narrow down which Oz books Tompy must have read. He doesn't
recognize Jinnicky [50], but he does recognize the name of Kabumpo [52].
That means he must have read KABUMPO and/or LOST KING, but not JACK
PUMPKINHEAD, PURPLE PRINCE, SILVER PRINCESS, or WISHING HORSE.

Furthemore, Tompy recognizes some Ozian celebrities by sight, including
not just the obvious ones but Jellia and Betsy Bobbin [61]. That seems
like an amazing feat, given how Neill drew these characters and in how
few books they appeared prominently.

Though Tompy has been "on television programs" as a musician before his
adventure [13], he may not watch much television himself. He speaks of
"an Alfred Hitchcock mystery" [66], so he's aware of pop culture. But he
doesn't mention the MGM WIZARD in connection to his picture of Oz.

Thompson tells her readers that "you and I and most people know" about
Oz [27], but she doesn't acknowledge how most people did by the time of
her writing.

Nathan DeHoff wrote:
<<Yankee's calling Ozma a "doll" kind of rubbed me the wrong way.>>

I saw where Yankee uses the term for Aunt Doffi [68], but don't recall
him calling Ozma the same. Tompy declares Doffi a "regular stunner" on
the same page. Other period phrases that haven't dated well include
Tompy exclaiming, "Crazy!" [14] and, "Man, it's crazy!" [51] Tompy also
picks up a post-WW2 pop-culture phrase that Percy used in HIDDEN VALLEY:
"Large economy size" [36].

All in all, I think there's more than a passing resemblance between
Percy and Yankee, as exuberant, slangy animal companions who started out
life as lab animals. Considering that Cosgrove planned to send Percy to
Oz on a rocket, not a kite (a fact Thompson wouldn't have known), the
resemblance gets sort of uncanny.

<<It bugged me somewhat how Tompy and Yankee get bored of listening to
everyone else's stories, while being incredibly eager to tell their
own.>>

To be fair, they usually sit through the other people's stories before
trying to tell their own. They make no such complaint about the
Lanternese because those people never insist on telling their visitors
anything. (And all this is really for our benefit as readers; we know
Tompy's and Yankee's stories, and don't need to sit through them again,
even in short form.)

Yankee feels that lack of reciprocity more keenly than Tompy [41].
Eventually Thompson shows Tompy relating his adventures to Aunt Doffi
[66]. And at the end of the book, Thompson provides a scene in which
Yankee gets to tell his entire story to the neighborhood dogs [93].

Does Thompson as the storyteller identify with her protagonists' desire
to relate their adventures? In YANKEE "Tompy" stands for "Thomas P.,"
but it also echoes the name "Thompson." Tompy, a dedicated musician, is
the first American child who comes to Oz with a very strong artistic
bent along with the more common athleticism. (Within the greater
fairyland area, Tandy showed talent as a visual artist.)

Ironically, Thompson *wasn't* allowed to tell this story after she wrote
it. Reilly & Lee rejected the manuscript for YANKEE in the early 1960s.
And then the firm brought out MERRY GO ROUND. There are some
coincidental similarities between that book and the manuscript in
Thompson's desk drawer. Both Wackajammy and Roundabout have lazy
populations who want their rulers to solve all their problems, and who
are excellent at baking wonderful treats. Thompson could probably
recognize the quality in the McGraws' plot and writing, but she must
have ended up feeling as frustrated and ill-used as Yankee.

According to Michael Patrick Hearn's afterword to the Oz Club edition of
OZOPLANING, Thompson thought about removing the Oz references in YANKEE
and trying to sell it elsewhere. I presume she considered Jinnicky her
creation, not tied to the Oz universe. She would have had to find
another crisis at the end besides the capture of Ozma's palace. Even
without Oz, however, YANKEE would have remained a very Ozzy story, just
like ENCHANTED ISLAND. And without the resonance of its predecessors in
the series, I don't think it would have been a very compelling fantasy.

Ruth Berman mentioned Dick Martin's drawing of:
<<the giant Badmannah (with a smiley-faced skull to the
skull-and-crossbones insignia on his shirt) >>

The smiley face appears in pictures of Badmannah on pages 58 and 59.
While the language of the book may date to a decade or more before, this
graphic is definitely from 1972.

J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at earthlink.net

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 13:56:17 -0600
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] wackajammian

"J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net> wrote:
> According to Michael Patrick Hearn's afterword to the Oz Club edition of
> OZOPLANING, Thompson thought about removing the Oz references in YANKEE
> and trying to sell it elsewhere. I presume she considered Jinnicky her
> creation, not tied to the Oz universe. She would have had to find another
> crisis at the end besides the capture of Ozma's palace. <

The capture of a palace belonging to some ruler with a different name would
probably have done well enough. I suppose the example of Bustabo, brought
from Oz to Sissajig suggests that she could have brought Jinnicky along to
an other-than-Oz kingdom without problems. Or, for that matter, she could
have given an equivalent magician another name and another home kingdom, and
it would have reminded everyone who knew him of Jinnicky, but it would have
prevented protests from the publisher. Maybe the story could have been more
tightly plotted in such a rewrite, if all the characters were subjects of
Wackajammy, or subkingdoms inside it, without specifying where Wackajammy
is. The palace captured could have been Aunt Doffi's, to the endangerment of
various courtiers inside, instead of a palace with Ozma the ruler inside,
and the magician and his assistants could have been the crown magician and
his assistants. (Or maybe cm and her assistants -- might have been possible
to do it as a story set in Sissajig, with Susan Figg instead of Jinnicky?
Unless using Sissajig would have infringed on any contract arrangements set
up for Sissajig with "Jack and Jill," maybe.)

> Even without Oz, however, YANKEE would have remained a very Ozzy story,
> just like ENCHANTED ISLAND. And without the resonance of its predecessors
> in the series, I don't think it would have been a very compelling fantasy.

>  >

Could be. But perhaps we would be speculating instead on where Wackajammy
might be found in the Borderlands?

Ruth Berman

Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2004 17:10:35 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: [Regalia] directions, unique scarecrow

Ruth:
>>YANKEE's final confusing clues about Oz's location appear during Tompy's
>>journey home. Leaving Jinnicky's castle, the jinrikisha first passes over
>>the Deadly Desert [90], implying it must go at least somewhat southward 
>>from Ev. But then Thompson shows us Tompy and Yankee flying "from South to
>>North America" [91], northward. >
>
>Perhaps the jinrikisha got a trifle lost?

That might be the best explanation.  If Oz IS on our world, it's probably in
the Northern Hemisphere, since, among other things, May is in springtime,
and there's a mention in CAPTAIN SALT of colder islands lying to the north. 
The fact that Oz contains arid deserts, perpetually frozen villages,
deciduous forests, jungles, and more within such a small area definitely
suggests that its climate is highly dependent on magic, and doesn't
necessarily follow the same rules as the climate in the Outside World, but I
still think Thompson definitely saw Oz as having the same basic seasons as
her home in Philadelphia.  Therefore, a location closer to South than North
America wouldn't really work all that well.



--
I'll still be right where you left me, if you manage to forget me,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 21:09:35 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net>
Subject: [Regalia] YANKEE go home

Ruth Berman wrote:
<<>YANKEE's final confusing clues about Oz's location appear during Tompy's
>> journey home. Leaving Jinnicky's castle, the jinrikisha first passes over
>> the Deadly Desert [90], implying it must go at least somewhat southward
>> from Ev. But then Thompson shows us Tompy and Yankee flying "from South to
>> North America" [91], northward. >


Perhaps the jinrikisha got a trifle lost?>>

Jinnicky wouldn't like to hear that!

This is an unusual case of a magical item transporting a child home from
Oz and not being lost along the way, like the Silver Shoes. Dorothy left
her Magic Belt with Ozma for fear of losing it the same way. But not
only does the jinrikisha survive the journey to Pennsylvania, but Tompy
has to work its controls to send it back--i.e., the magical device works
in Pennsylvania. Again, Thompson's Oz is not like Baum's.

J. L. Bell                  JnoLBell at earthlink.net

Ruth Plumly Thompson, Dick Martin

Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2004 22:23:23 -0500
From: "J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net>
Subject: [Regalia] YANKEE palace

Ruth Berman wrote:
<<>According to Michael Patrick Hearn's afterword to the Oz Club edition of
>> OZOPLANING, Thompson thought about removing the Oz references in YANKEE
>> and trying to sell it elsewhere. I presume she considered Jinnicky her
>> creation, not tied to the Oz universe. She would have had to find another
>> crisis at the end besides the capture of Ozma's palace. <


The capture of a palace belonging to some ruler with a different name
would probably have done well enough. . . . The palace captured could
have been Aunt Doffi's, to the endangerment of various courtiers inside,
instead of a palace with Ozma the ruler inside>>

I agree Thompson could have substituted another palace for Ozma's, but I
don't think it would have had nearly the power. We readers see almost
nothing of this palace before Badmannah nets it in the distance [61].
Therefore, while rationally we can agree that rescuing the building and
its inhabitants from the big bad man would be a Good Thing, emotionally
we don't feel any connection to it--except through the earlier Oz books
that Tompy's read, and that Thompson assumes we've read.

The Wackajammy palace would have been familiar to YANKEE readers, so it
could have been substituted. On the other hand, so far the book has
hinted that the Wackajammians are lazy fools who don't realize how lucky
they've been to have Aunt Doffi, and don't really deserve to have her
back. Again, I can intellectually agree that it would be good to restore
Wackajammy, especially if Aunt Doffi said so, but that goal wouldn't be
as compelling as restoring Ozma's palace to the Emerald City.

All in all, the climactic struggle in YANKEE seems to run in fits and
starts, as in other Thompson novels (e.g., ROYAL BOOK). As usual, she
relies on amazing coincidences: "By sheer luck" Tompy drums his way
into
the first cave [69], and Jinnicky manages the same feat with the second
[80]. Jinnicky is dubious about being able to use the dragnet, but it
works perfectly for our heroes on their first try [75]. There's a
confusing and not totally explained separation of palace celebrities
from Ozma. (Among those celebrities, incidentally, is Sir Hokus [87];
even Thompson seems to have come to regret dispatching him to Corumbia.)

There's a big dramatic moment at the end of chapter 14 when Tompy says
he won't leave "my dog" behind [70-1]. In a tightly constructed plot
that would be a crux of both his inner and outer storylines: his
psychological breakthrough or expression of loyalty would be acted out
in this decision to risk capture by staying with Yankee, and that in
turn would lead to solving the greater problem. But here Jinnicky
quickly rescues the dog without affecting the bigger problem one bit.

J. L. Bell                 
JnoLBell at earthlink.net

Date: Mon, 20 Dec 2004 15:54:42 -0600
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] magics

"J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net> wrote:
> This ["Yankee" jinnricksha] is an unusual case of a magical item 
> transporting a child home from Oz and not being lost along the way, like
> the Silver Shoes. Dorothy left her Magic Belt with Ozma for fear of losing 
> it the same way. But not only does the jinrikisha survive the journey to
> Pennsylvania, but Tompy has to work its controls to send it back--i.e.,
> the magical device works in Pennsylvania. Again, Thompson's Oz is not like 
> Baum's. >

Could it be a factor that Jinnicky does not live in Oz, but in Ev, and
perhaps the Borderlands are in some ways a trifle more attuned than Oz to
the Outside world and better able to get magic to function in both?

Ruth Berman

Date: Wed, 29 Dec 2004 14:35:21 -0500
From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: [Regalia] magics

Ruth:
>"J. L. Bell" <jnolbell at earthlink.net> wrote:
>>This ["Yankee" jinnricksha] is an unusual case of a magical item
>>transporting a child home from Oz and not being lost along the way, like
>>the Silver Shoes. Dorothy left her Magic Belt with Ozma for fear of losing
>>it the same way. But not only does the jinrikisha survive the journey to
>>Pennsylvania, but Tompy has to work its controls to send it back--i.e., 
>>the magical device works in Pennsylvania. Again, Thompson's Oz is not like
>>Baum's. >
>
>Could it be a factor that Jinnicky does not live in Oz, but in Ev, and
>perhaps the Borderlands are in some ways a trifle more attuned than Oz to
>the Outside world and better able to get magic to function in both?

Well, the Magic Belt and Tik-Tok are also from the Ev area, and Glinda
thinks that neither of these would work probably in the Outside World.  I
think it's more likely that the Jinrikisha is just a different type of
magic, although it's also possible that Glinda was wrong.
--
I'll still be right where you left me, if you manage to forget me,
Nathan
DinnerBell at tmbg.org

Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2004 14:03:00 -0600
From: "Ruth Berman" <berma005 at umn.edu>
Subject: [Regalia] jinnish magic & stout art & hny

"Nathan Mulac DeHoff" <xornom at hotmail.com> wrote:
[answering my comment, "Could it be a factor [in the USA workability of the
Jinnricksha] that Jinnicky does not live in Oz, but in Ev, and perhaps the
Borderlands are in some ways a trifle more attuned than Oz to the Outside
world and better able to get magic to function in both?"]
> Well, the Magic Belt and Tik-Tok are also from the Ev area, and Glinda
> thinks that neither of these would work probably in the Outside World.  I
> think it's more likely that the Jinrikisha is just a different type of
> magic, although it's also possible that Glinda was wrong. <

Yes, those examples make your suggestion sound the more likely one.
 
Ruth Berman