The Marvelous Land of Oz
August 1st, 2006 @ 12:20 amNB: In my quest to figure out whether I’ll like Wicked (second book listed) better if I feel like Gregory Maguire actually based some of his depictions of Oz on things I don’t remember from the Oz books and the lesser known Oz books, I am reading all the L. Frank Baum Oz books. Previously, The Wizard of Oz.
Maguire got nothing from this except the whole Ozma getting dethroned thing. I finished this a month ago, but couldn’t find the right way to write about it.
This book is slightly ridiculous. It’s hard to evaluate The Marvelous Land of Oz for what it is - a children’s book and a sequel (a sequel to a great example of the genre at that) rather than just a book. But it’s a goofy, daffy book. It’s weirdly “feminist” for 1904 - everyone who makes anything happen is a woman (Jinjur, Mombi, Glinda) and the men all kind of fall into good luck and the fruits of the women’s labor. At the same time, the women who aren’t named Glinda are consistently terrible. For example, Mombi’s just evil for evil’s sake - well, she really wants to be a witch and isn’t allowed so she’s full of misdirected, crotchety-old lady anger. Jinjur’s army of girls (armed with knitting needles, see, beacuse they’re girls) wants to storm the Emerald City so they can steal the emeralds and other jems to make jewelry (not to finance other wars or anything, but to make pretty jewelry, see, beacuse they’re girls). Amusingly, Jinjur’s girls were actually rebelling because they wanted a little more out of their futures than to cook and clean for husbands - Betty Friedan would be proud.
In this, the second book in the Oz series, The Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and Glinda return for the festivities with a random assortment of friends, enemies, and obstacles. Their adventures are interesting if silly and laden with puns (my god the puns, some make you giggle, some make you want to rip your eyes out). The end though, is great, especially in the gender-swapping tolerance and the surprisingly just outcome of who gets to rule Oz.
