Lucky Bucky in Oz by John R. Neill
In my write-ups of The Wonder City of Oz and Scalawagons of Oz, I argued that John R. Neill was doing something different to what L. Frank Baum and Ruth Plumly Thompson usually did; if we were to use Farah Mendlesohn's categories, Neill's first two books were more akin to immersive fantasies than the usual portal/quest fantasies of an Oz book. His third and (sort of) final Oz novel, however, sees him revert to a classic Oz formula: an American child comes to Oz and needs to journey to the Emerald City. Neill's implementation of this formula probably owes more to Thompson than to Baum; the explanation for the trip is far-fetched even by Oz standards (Lucky Bucky is on a tugboat whose boiler explodes, propelling him through the air all the way to the Nonentic [sic] Ocean) and he gains a faithful animal companion (in this case, a living wooden whale). Shades of Yellow Knight or Speedy, perhaps.
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| Originally published: 1942 Acquired: October 2023 Read aloud: December 2023–January 2024 |
The book starts quite promisingly. Bucky Jones lands on a volcanic island—one that belches out foodstuffs and is inhabited by bakers perennially under siege by pirates looking to steal their pies; that is to say, "pie-rates." The pirates are using the wooden whale Davy Jones as their base of operations, and soon they end up stranded on the island while Bucky ends up on the whale. Bucky wants to go home, and Davy (who assumes the two must be cousins) says their best bet is the journey to the Emerald City and ask Ozma. Davy must travel up and down rivers, over land, and even across the Deadly Desert to make this journey. Davy is a bit dour but faithful, Bucky is eternally optimistic. It's a good pairing and a classic formula.
Unfortunately, it's much like Thompson's work in another way; it's one of those books where nothing very interesting seems to happen on the journey. Bucky and Davy arrive somewhere, they leave, they arrive somewhere, they leave. There is very little actual danger and even less cleverness; the one time you might imagine them having to do something interesting (when an underground river takes them into the Nome Kingdom), they get bailed out by Number Nine (whose been monitoring their progress on the Wizard's tattle-scope) via the Ambassa-door. When they get to the Deadly Desert, Polychrome randomly shows up to use the rainbow to help them across, in a scene ripped straight out of Purple Prince. Indeed, the whole set-up of intriguing characters on an utterly forgettable journey comes is highly reminiscent of that book. By the time my son and I got to the end and looked at Bucky's journey on the Oz Club map, he couldn't remember what the Zerons they met in an early chapter were—and neither could I.
Meanwhile, in the Emerald City, Ozma initiates a very period-appropriate public works project, putting the people of the city to work painting Oz's history on the walls of her palace (or of the city itself, Neill seems to get them confused). The Wizard supplies magic paint, and Jack Pumpkinhead paints such a good picture of Mombi that the picture comes to life and flies off. Later, so do a bunch of other sorcerers and witches from Oz history (these all being original characters) and dozens of paintings of the Wizard. This is fun stuff, but ultimately goes nowhere. Mombi is pretty easily defeated, and even though she hides in Davy Jones, never actually threatens our heroes.
Still, in the usual Neill fashion, one has the sense of Oz as a bizarre place where anything can happen. When Davy Jones reaches the core of the Winkie Country, he finds the rivers abruptly end. This turns out to be because the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman had the Wizard get rid of them, because they were constantly falling in them! (Recalling, it seems, Little Wizard Stories, among others.) Weird things are always happening in Oz, even between books. There are flying bellows-birds, and a country of uncles (including the Uncle Sam, which confused my son, as he's just called Bucky's uncle, and he wanted to know how Bucky's uncle got there). We learn the Tin Woodman has six nieces, who all married tinsmiths; I want to know more about his extended family! We learn that there was a time when Ozma, Glinda, and the Wizard used to hunt witches together (between Dorothy and the Wizard and Road to Oz?), and that a sorcerer named Old Trickolas Om was the worst to ever bedevil them, besides Mombi herself; the exploits of many of these other witches and sorcerers are briefly detailed, and we even learn that many dark magicians inhabit the Winkie wilderness yet, assaulting innocent travelers. Wow. What I like about Neill is that he just goes for it... even when, admittedly, it doesn't make a lot of sense.
(There is some very bad internal continuity in this book; many events simply cannot happen in the sequence described. At one point, Number Nine sees Davy Jones enter the Nome Kingdom and travels there to intervene. Then he returns to the Emerald City, and the painting of Mombi comes to life, and it takes refuge in Davy around the same time he and Bucky meet the Zerons... which happened before they went to the Nome Kingdom. Time travel? Wonder City received a massive edit... but on the other hand, Lucky Bucky didn't receive one it desperately needed.)
As always, though, my son enjoyed it immensely. The sheer exuberance of Neill's Oz is perfect for a five-year-old, and he really liked the ending, where the bakers' volcano is moved to a lake near the Emerald City, and Davy gets a job delivering its wares—plus, the Wizard uses the volcano to send up firework displays at night. Why not?
Here's my son's picture of Lucky Bucky:
(I for one would have liked to have known why Bucky abruptly decides he'd rather live in Oz than go home. This book overall is better than Scalawagons for an adult reader... but still not up to much. Certainly reading it aloud is the way to go, though.)
Next up in sequence: The Runaway in Oz
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