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strange_complexOne of the things that happened when I moved into my lovely proper new house here in Leeds is that I finally took possession of all the accumulated gubbins which I had left behind with my parents when I first moved out at the age of 18. Mainly, this meant the books of my childhood and my teens - with which I am now at leisure to get nostalgically re-acquainted.
The Oz books were, in no uncertain terms, the central axis of my childhood. In fact, see this picture of me reading to my little friends on my sixth birthday?
Well, that's an Oz book I'm reading to them - The Land of Oz, I think, judging from the colour of the spine. I had all fourteen of the original L. Frank Baum series, in lovely bright paperback covers as published by Del Rey, and read them religiously and repeatedly from the ages of approximately four to seven years old. (I had a random hardback copy of Lucky Bucky in Oz, too, but even as a child, I sneered at it and looked down upon it for not being a 'proper' Oz book). Dorothy, the Wizard, Ozma and all their little friends were fiercely real to me, and I was quite, quite convinced that the magical Land of Oz existed, if only one knew how to get there.
I selected this volume as a means of re-visiting the series partly on the grounds that I wanted to read a fairly 'ordinary' book from the series - and that rather ruled out the first three, which very much define the parameters of the Land of Oz as it then exists in the rest of the series. It also had the advantage of having Dorothy and the Wizard as central characters, which was a plus because obviously they are very much central to the series, but don't always feature very heavily after the first few books. But, above all, I chose it because I had vivid memories of the Braided Man of Pyramid Mountain, whom they meet part-way through the story, and I wanted to find out why I'd liked him so much that he had stuck in my mind for what must be more than twenty years (*wibble!*).
The basic story is of the Odyssean type - Dorothy and a boy named Zeb get stuck deep under the surface of the Earth after an earthquake, hook up with the Wizard (I can't tell you how nearly I typed 'Doctor' then), and have to undertake an epic journey through a series of weird and wonderful lands before they can get home again. In the event, in fact, they fail, getting stuck in an underground cavern where they can see the sky, but can't reach it - but that's OK, because it then turns out that Dorothy could have sent a special signal to Ozma and had them transported safely to Oz all along... which rather undermines the whole point of the story up till then, but never mind.
Plot-holes like that don't bother you when you're five years old, anyway - and as for the rest of it? No wonder I loved it! Baum is endlessly imaginative, serving up vegetable people who grow on plants, invisible folk plagued by invisible bears, aggressive wooden gargoyles and hungry baby dragonettes in quick succession - not to mention a whole host of other inventive fine details. His prose is also absolutely gorgeous - light, simple and vivid, without seeming in the least bit patronising. This book is exactly 100 years old, but it hardly feels like it, and I hope the series as a whole retain their status as children's classics for a very long time to come.
Arguably, things start to drag a bit at the end of the book, when about five chapters are devoted to what is basically a hit-parade of all the chief characters from the books so far - surely rather self-indulgent when this is only the fourth. And I was also rather puzzled as to why the character of Zeb was in the book at all, given that he barely seemed to do anything other than provide a handy means of transport via the hansom cab which he was driving when he and Dorothy fell into the centre of the Earth. But, like I say, you don't really read these books for their tightly-honed plotting, but rather for their fantastical settings and sunny characters.
As for the Braided Man, I couldn't have put a finger on it when I was a child, but actually I think what I probably liked about him most of all was his touching loneliness. He lives in a cavern half-way up a mountain, and it's blatantly obvious that no-one ever passes, since the stairs which pass by him in either direction lead from the nice-but-dangerous land of the invisible bears at the bottom of the mountain to the downright hostile land of the gargoyles at the top. As a result, the Rustles for silk gowns and Flutters for flags (both of which I assumed were real items I wasn't familiar with as a child, rather than JOKES FFS!) which he makes in his cavern are piled high in unsold boxes up to the ceiling, and Dorothy and the Wizard end up buying some of them out of pity, in exchange for a much-coveted blue ribbon for his braids. But, despite all this, he is kindly and sweet-natured, and not in the least bit self-pitying - just genuinely thrilled to have seen some passers-by and sold some of his goods after all this time. Quite what it says about me that I should be so taken by such a character, I think had better remain left unexplored...
The Oz books were, in no uncertain terms, the central axis of my childhood. In fact, see this picture of me reading to my little friends on my sixth birthday?
Well, that's an Oz book I'm reading to them - The Land of Oz, I think, judging from the colour of the spine. I had all fourteen of the original L. Frank Baum series, in lovely bright paperback covers as published by Del Rey, and read them religiously and repeatedly from the ages of approximately four to seven years old. (I had a random hardback copy of Lucky Bucky in Oz, too, but even as a child, I sneered at it and looked down upon it for not being a 'proper' Oz book). Dorothy, the Wizard, Ozma and all their little friends were fiercely real to me, and I was quite, quite convinced that the magical Land of Oz existed, if only one knew how to get there.
I selected this volume as a means of re-visiting the series partly on the grounds that I wanted to read a fairly 'ordinary' book from the series - and that rather ruled out the first three, which very much define the parameters of the Land of Oz as it then exists in the rest of the series. It also had the advantage of having Dorothy and the Wizard as central characters, which was a plus because obviously they are very much central to the series, but don't always feature very heavily after the first few books. But, above all, I chose it because I had vivid memories of the Braided Man of Pyramid Mountain, whom they meet part-way through the story, and I wanted to find out why I'd liked him so much that he had stuck in my mind for what must be more than twenty years (*wibble!*).
The basic story is of the Odyssean type - Dorothy and a boy named Zeb get stuck deep under the surface of the Earth after an earthquake, hook up with the Wizard (I can't tell you how nearly I typed 'Doctor' then), and have to undertake an epic journey through a series of weird and wonderful lands before they can get home again. In the event, in fact, they fail, getting stuck in an underground cavern where they can see the sky, but can't reach it - but that's OK, because it then turns out that Dorothy could have sent a special signal to Ozma and had them transported safely to Oz all along... which rather undermines the whole point of the story up till then, but never mind.
Plot-holes like that don't bother you when you're five years old, anyway - and as for the rest of it? No wonder I loved it! Baum is endlessly imaginative, serving up vegetable people who grow on plants, invisible folk plagued by invisible bears, aggressive wooden gargoyles and hungry baby dragonettes in quick succession - not to mention a whole host of other inventive fine details. His prose is also absolutely gorgeous - light, simple and vivid, without seeming in the least bit patronising. This book is exactly 100 years old, but it hardly feels like it, and I hope the series as a whole retain their status as children's classics for a very long time to come.
Arguably, things start to drag a bit at the end of the book, when about five chapters are devoted to what is basically a hit-parade of all the chief characters from the books so far - surely rather self-indulgent when this is only the fourth. And I was also rather puzzled as to why the character of Zeb was in the book at all, given that he barely seemed to do anything other than provide a handy means of transport via the hansom cab which he was driving when he and Dorothy fell into the centre of the Earth. But, like I say, you don't really read these books for their tightly-honed plotting, but rather for their fantastical settings and sunny characters.
As for the Braided Man, I couldn't have put a finger on it when I was a child, but actually I think what I probably liked about him most of all was his touching loneliness. He lives in a cavern half-way up a mountain, and it's blatantly obvious that no-one ever passes, since the stairs which pass by him in either direction lead from the nice-but-dangerous land of the invisible bears at the bottom of the mountain to the downright hostile land of the gargoyles at the top. As a result, the Rustles for silk gowns and Flutters for flags (both of which I assumed were real items I wasn't familiar with as a child, rather than JOKES FFS!) which he makes in his cavern are piled high in unsold boxes up to the ceiling, and Dorothy and the Wizard end up buying some of them out of pity, in exchange for a much-coveted blue ribbon for his braids. But, despite all this, he is kindly and sweet-natured, and not in the least bit self-pitying - just genuinely thrilled to have seen some passers-by and sold some of his goods after all this time. Quite what it says about me that I should be so taken by such a character, I think had better remain left unexplored...
