Ozoplaning with the Wizard of Oz by Ruth Plumly Thompson, illustrated by John R. Neill
Ruth Plumly Thompson's last few Oz books (the stretch from
Speedy in Oz to
Silver Princess) seemed to show her cutting free of Baum's world and restrictions, fully embracing Oz as a land of
her creation, focusing on her original characters and exploring new plot structures—largely, I think, to her benefit. But this book, her last contribution to the "Famous Forty," very purposefully returns to Baum's world and characters.
Was this because she knew it would be her last, a sort of farewell tour? I don't think so, because the author's note at the beginning seems to very strongly imply she will be back for the next one! Rather, it was 1939, and something happened in the world of Oz that year that would change it forever... just not in the books. It was the year of the MGM film, and of course Thompson's publisher would want to have a tie-in edition on the shelves.
But they couldn't! While Reilly & Lee held the publishing rights to every Oz book from Marvelous Land onward, the publishing rights to the original Wonderful Wizard were held by Bobbs-Merrill. So Thompson and her publisher instead came up with a book that would be a direct sequel to the first, focusing on the main characters of that book. At the beginning, the Wizard has planned a special dinner for all the people involved in Dorothy's first visit to Oz: himself and Dorothy, of course, but also the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, the Cowardly Lion, Jellia Jamb (the Emerald City maid who takes care of Dorothy, though she goes unnamed until Marvelous Land), and the Soldier with the Green Whiskers. (The Guardian of the Gates is invited, but declines to leave the gates; there's no mention of other key characters from the first book like the Queen of the Field Mice or the leader of the Winged Monkeys.)
I would assume Thompson and her publisher had no idea exactly who from the first book would end up on screen, but were trying to get what they thought would be prominent film characters front and center in the book. Additionally, you'll see on the cover how "THE WIZARD OF OZ" is written quite big while "OZOPLANING WITH" is in smaller type; from a distance, it looks like a book called The Wizard of Oz. You liked the movie, now read the book! Kind of, anyway.
But it's hard for me to imagine anyone picking up this book on the strength of the film and enjoying it. One problem is the characters Thompson chooses to focus on. She gives the principal roles (for the first half of the book, anyway) to Jellia Jamb, the Soldier with the Green Whiskers, and the Tin Woodman. They accidentally blast off on one of the Wizard's new ozoplanes, and the other characters try to catch up with them on the other one. I assume this is because Jellia and the Soldier had never been focal characters in the thirty-two previous Oz books, and though Baum had reused the Tin Woodman a lot, Thompson had never given him anything to do in her eighteen previous ones.
This leads to a number of problems. First and foremost, Jellia doesn't even make it into the film, and the Soldier is just barely in it. Second, Thompson seems unable to commit to Jellia as protagonist; while she leads the action in the first half of the book, she abruptly ceases to be the focal character in the second half, once the second group catches up, and the Wizard suddenly becomes the protagonist. Ideas seeded in the first half—Jellia being a maid forced to act the role of ruler—go nowhere.
Second, though Thompson writes a fun Soldier with the Green Whiskers (his obsession with pickles is an addition my five-year-old found hilarious), she forgets what little backstory Baum had given him. Though admittedly Baum doesn't state it outright, the character of Omby Amby in Ozma of Oz, Dorothy and the Wizard, and Emerald City is clearly meant to be the same person. But here, Thompson gives him the groanworthy name of Wantowin Battles! I changed it back to "Omby Amby" when reading aloud, though I did like the hints of backstory we get here: why would a Munchkin be a tall person with green facial hair? No wonder he left home and enlisted in the Wizard's army!
Third... is this the Tin Woodman? Thompson had not ever used him before—and reading this book, one is grateful she avoided the character so long. Thompson's Tin Woodman is an imperialist and a bully. The kindhearted man of the original novel is nowhere in evidence. It's impossible to imagine someone going from the movie (or the first book) to this one and recognizing him except in shape. (Thompson mostly calls him "Nick Chopper" in narration, causing my son to ask who that was. It's been so long since he's really been in a book, he'd forgotten his proper name! I then began editing it to "Tin Woodman" most of the time when reading aloud.)
But this is the plight of most of the characters from the original novel. The Scarecrow never does anything clever here, the Cowardly Lion has some good funny moments but never does anything brave. Worst of all, Dorothy just shrinks into the background rather than take charge as she usually does. And these are all characters that Thompson usually does well by! I don't know what happened, maybe the forced nature of this installment caused her to really phone it in, but the result is a book that totally fails to capture the magic of the one it's supposed to follow up. For me, at least, Thompson's final Famous Forty contribution is her worst book since her first one.
It has its moments; the assault of Strut of the Strat on the Emerald City is handled well, particularly the Tin Woodman's defiance of him; my son correctly guess what had happened to Ozma's safe when it seemingly exploded. The two deer characters are fun (though naming one "Shaggy" confused my son; does Thompson even remember the Shaggy Man?), and the Wizard does indeed get to be a bit clever. My son said he enjoyed it... though he was less likely to just ask to read more of it than he has been with the last few Oz books, and we sure dragged through the last few chapters especially.
Basically any of Thompson's previous five books would have made a better "finale" to her run than this one. That said, she later wrote two more Oz books, so we're not done with her yet. But before we get to those, we have the wares of John R. Neill, Jack Snow, and Rachel Cosgrove to sample...
* * *
As I have remarked around here before, I owned all of the Baum books as a kid, but only a few of Thompson's: just Silver Princess and Ozoplaning. What other Thompsons I read, I got through interlibrary loan. As I've reread them, though, nothing has really sparked a memory of reading them before, except I do remember "Ozamaland" from Captain Salt. So I've been wondering: which Thompsons did I actually read? All of them? Just some of them?
When cleaning out my office recently, I found the answer to this question. In a pile of papers dating back to the late 1990s, I found a printout of a spreadsheet I must have made circa 1997:
You'll see that it contains all of the Oz books I knew about then: most but not all of the Famous Forty (e.g., Merry Go Round in Oz is missing, though I did own that one as a kid; that must postdate this list), plus a couple quasicanonical ones (e.g., Runaway in Oz), "borderlands" books (e.g., Magical Monarch of Mo and Dot and Tot in Merryland), and many later continuation books, mostly those published by Books of Wonder (e.g., How the Wizard Came to Oz, The Glass Cat of Oz).
Plus, my own then-forthcoming magnum opus, The Bubble to Oz! I think I wrote the first two chapters of this; I wonder what happened to it. It was about my brother and sister traveling to Oz in a magic bubble like the ones from Road to Oz.
They're sorted chronologically, of course; the "Read" column indicates if I owned it ("O"), read it but didn't own it ("R"), or had no experience of it ("N"). From this, we can see that at the time I wrote the list, the Famous Forty books I had borrowed from the library were:
I would never have guessed. None of these books struck a chord of memory aside from Captain Salt. I guess this makes sense, as I read each one just the once... but still, I am surprised. I would never have thought I read Jack Snow's in particular!
I did find my childhood ratings pretty interesting. My 10/10 Oz books were:
Though I would still rate Wizard and Patchwork Girl highly, many of the other ones on this list do not hold up for me as an adult. Emerald City and Ozoplaning, really!? I guess I will soon see if Jack Snow's two books hold up.
On the other hand, the only "7" I gave to a Famous Forty novel was to the very next one we are reading... John R. Neill's Wonder City of Oz. Uh oh.
Next up in sequence: The Wonder City of Oz
