Pirates in Oz by Ruth Plumly Thompson, illustrated by John R. Neill
My son is definitely slowing down on the Oz books; we started this one in December after finishing The Yellow Knight of Oz, but we didn't wrap up until early February.
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| Originally published: 1931 Acquired: December 2022 Read aloud: December 2022–February 2023 |
We tended to read in fits and starts: we'd read a number of chapters in quick succession, then we'd have a long gap where he wasn't interested. This meant that by the time we got to the end, there was a lot he didn't remember about the beginning! But more on that soon.
Pirates in Oz follows two parallel plotlines. In one, Ruggedo, still bereft of the power of speech (following the events of Gnome King) ends up in the silent country of Menankypoo, which he soon becomes ruler of. But in short order, the country is attacked by pirates. With the aid of Clocker, the Wise Man of Menankypoo, he becomes ruler of the pirates, and of course decides to lead them to conquer Oz.
Meanwhile, on the Octagon Isle, all of King Ato's people desert him because they think he's not imperious enough—all he wants to do is listen to books read by his Read Bird, Roger. Soon a pirate ship arrives, but with only one pirate. Samuel Salt is the captain of the Crescent Moon, but his pirates deserted him because all he wanted to do was explore and collect specimens. (They're the pirates who wound up with Ruggedo; the Octagonese also end up joining Ruggedo's band.) Samuel Salt, Ato, and Roger set off on the Crescent Moon, joined by Peter, the American boy protagonist of Gnome King and Jack Pumpkinhead, spirited to Nonestica for the third time. That's quite a lot of strands!
So the Crescent Moon sets off in search of the deserters from both Salt and Ato, both men doing their best to practice being "rough, bluff, and ready" in order to win their people back over. In classic Oz fashion, this means they have a series of weird misadventures, and in classic Thompson fashion, they're mostly based on terrible puns, such as the Nobodies of Nowhere, who have no bodies, just limbs and heads. Or there's the bananny goat, which can generate an unlimited supply of bananas from its horns... one that threatens to sink the Crescent Moon! I've in the past discussed how I'm not a big fan of how manic a Thompson Oz novel can be, with no room to breath between episodes, but a sea voyage narrative precludes such energy. You have to take days between each island landing! I enjoyed the places they went, though I wish there had been a tad more problem-solving on the way (Thompson did a good job of that in Jack Pumpkinhead), as it often seems like they just go somewhere, leave it, go somewhere, leave it, without difficulty.
I enjoyed all this: the characters are fun, and they get to change and evolve and discover themselves. Samuel discovers he just can't be a mean pirate, no matter how hard he tries; there's one sequence where they do steal stuff from another ship, and Samuel slyly pays them back. On the other hand, King Ato discovers that he doesn't have to be indolent, he really does enjoy being ship's cook and being useful. Peter pretty much just stays Peter, once again returning to America to be with his grandfather and captain his baseball team. This is his last ever appearance in a canonical Oz novel. Peter's first appearance only came into the public domain this year, so he would have been difficult for even fan authors to use up until now.
Based on our looking at the covers, my son had known for a long time this book featured a flying pig named "Pigasus," and he was looking forward to that immensely. So much so that for the first two thirds of the book he was constantly asking me where Pigasus was! When Pigasus does finally turn up, he thankfully is good fun; his power is that everyone who rides him is obligated to speak in (terrible) rhymes, which of course plays to Thompson's strengths as a writer.
At the end, the Crescent Moon catches up to the pirates in Menankypoo... only by that point Ruggedo and his pirates have already made it to the Emerald City. So Peter takes off on Pigasus, while Samuel Salt uses a convenient magic flask to make the Crescent Moon fly. Ruggedo is invisible, so he's able to steal the Magic Belt before anyone notices, and Peter arrives just as he's about to transform everyone into various inanimate objects. Peter distracts Ruggedo long enough for Samuel to show up and finish him off. To be honest, it's a bit unbelievable both how easily Ruggedo overcomes Ozma, the Wizard, and company, and how easy he is overcome in turn, but hey, is anyone reading these books for the action climaxes? Probably not.
Due to our spread-out reading though, my son had pretty much forgotten that Ato was a king deserted by his people, and that Ruggedo's pirates used to be Samuel's before all that was paid off at the end of the novel! Still he seemed to have a good time with a lot of the fantastical elements, even if he didn't really get the joke of Samuel and Ato trying to be mean all the time and failing. He reported he enjoyed the novel, and I think this is true.
We've been at this so long, though, his memory of the previous ones is getting so vague. When Trot turned up, he asked me who she was! Though, shortly thereafter, he reminded me of a minor plot element from Kabumpo in Oz that I didn't remember, and he even gave which book it was from by name. By the time we get to the end of these books we'll need to go back to the beginning to start over... only, by the time we get to the end, I bet he'll be reading chapter books by himself!
Next up in sequence: The Purple Prince of Oz
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