Erin Reads: classic Oz, full-of-queer-people edition

Even knowing what it actually means in context, I get a smile every time these books go on about Oz being “full of queer personages.”

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Here’s something I didn’t think about until I listened to book 3 (Ozma of Oz) and book 4 (Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz) back-to-back:

Book 3: Dorothy’s adventure starts when she gets swept off a boat, which she’s on because she’s in the middle of a boat trip with Uncle Henry.

Book 4: Dorothy’s adventure starts when she falls into the ground during a California earthquake, where she is because she’s traveling back to Kansas from the same trip.

She’s gone on vacation once here, and gotten sidetracked for magical adventures on both ends of the journey. Henry and Em must be thinking “good lord, kiddo, you can’t travel anywhere without mysteriously vanishing along the way, can you?”

(Of course, in the next book she’s walking down a normal Kansas dirt road when it goes all magical. Can’t win.)

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And another thing! During this mundane-world vacation (it’s a trip to Australia, which is supposed to be good for Uncle Henry’s health), Dorothy and Henry meet “some friends.” They’re never described in any detail, we just know Dorothy is traveling alone at the start of Book 4 because her uncle went on ahead, while she stayed with these friends for a few days.

In San Francisco.

This book was published in 1908. The history of the SF gay scene goes back pre-1900, with its firs “notorious” gay bar founded in…1908.

I’m not saying Dorothy definitely hung out with cool grown-up lesbian mentors in San Francisco, I’m just saying…historically speaking, it’s a serious possibility.

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Okay, getting back to the (non-figurative) fairy-country content here…

Book 4 marks a huge shift for the series, in that it’s a really blatant case of “wow, no overarching plot here at all, they’re just wandering from set piece to set piece until the author gets bored.”

Of the previous volumes, Book 3 had the most cohesive plot, without any random detours. This one is all detour. Then they hit a dead end — literally, they get stuck in a cave with no way out! — and Dorothy signals Ozma to teleport them safely to Oz. Princess ex machina.

Book 5 (The Road to Oz) is The One Where Everyone Gets Genre-Savvy.

When things initially go weird, Dorothy’s reaction is “eh, this happens a lot, I’ll probably end up in Oz eventually.” And then she literally adds “Uncle Henry and Aunt Em have told me they’re used to this by now, so they won’t be too worried.” Her party keeps running into magical towns where the leaders say “oh, hey, it’s the famous Dorothy! We’ve read about you.”

And when they finally make it to the Emerald City, Ozma reveals she’s the one who started their journey by making things go weird in the first place. Sure, she could’ve just transported Dorothy instantly to the palace, but apparently she thought Dorothy would have more fun getting there via adventure.

What a good girlfriend.

I mean, good platonic friend.

Everything about Ozma attracted one, and she inspired love and the sweetest affection rather than awe or ordinary admiration. Dorothy threw her arms around her little friend and hugged and kissed her rapturously.

I mean, good platonic friend with rapturous kissing that I am going to sit here and enjoy no matter how Baum meant it.

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Speaking of Baum, the poor guy’s author’s-notes get a little more strained with every book. “Welp, the children keep asking for Oz so I’m giving them more Oz, the little tyrants, haha! No really, I love children and only want to make them happy, aaaaand apparently what makes them happy is not buying any of my other books.”

He really pushes it in book 5, where the big glittery finale of book 5 is Ozma’s birthday — involving a fifty-cameo pileup referencing every non-Oz book Baum had written. It…did not help their sales the way he was hoping for. (You know what I would have read? A spinoff series about Ev. We spend time there in book 3, see the royals as cameos in book 5, and then never visit the place again. Why didn’t you ever write that, L. Frank?)

Honestly, I’ve read a lot of Baum’s non-Oz books, and none of them clicked the way the Oz ones did. But it’s been long enough that I couldn’t tell you why. Maybe that’ll be the next re-listening project.

Erin Reads: Dorothy Must Die, then some Oz Original Flavor

Latest relief for my long work day: an epic re-listen of the Oz books — all fifteen of Baum’s. (Librivox has free recordings of the whole set!)

The inspiration to do this was kicked off after listening to the unsubtly-titled Dorothy Must Die, one of the endless Darker And Edgier modern Oz fan-sequels. The premise of this one: an adult Dorothy came back to Oz, went grimdark along with her friends, and took over. Our heroine is a modern-day US girl — a grouchy trailer-park teenager with pink hair — who’s been summoned to help overthrow her.

It…has its ups and downs. A female sidekick character gets killed off fairly early, in such a nasty way that I thought it had to be a fakeout, but nope. It uses the character designs from the MGM movie — e.g. Dorothy has technicolor-red shoes (which are also evil, of course…possibly so evil that they’re what caused her to go grimdark in the first place).

There was a point when I was underwhelmed, and considering dropping the book without finishing it…when suddenly Ozma shows up.

So I stuck around.

For once, a series that doesn’t just take the MGM movie and make up its own backstory for everything else! The author has clearly read Baum! Ozma and Mombi both have roles in the plot., and there are cameos from later books — the Nome King, the Shaggy Man, Polychrome. The main character has seen the movie, recognizes those characters, but is clueless about the bookverse ones, which is a shame. There’s one book-backstory-related twist that she only gets in the last few pages, when I saw it coming halfway through the story.

Anyway: the whole thing builds to a confrontation which fizzles out in order to end on a sequel hook. Instead of picking up the sequels to see more beloved characters get name-dropped, I figured I’d go back to the originals.

Plus, I want to see Dorothy being awesome, not a stock Sexy Evil Overlord with Dorothy’s name.

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The weird thing is? In the book version of The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy does…almost nothing.

That is, she goes through a bunch of adventures, but it’s all her bumbling aimlessly along whatever path someone sends her down. The party goes through challenges that (in classic fairy-tale style) are neatly solved by the Scarecrow doing smart things, the Tin Man doing loving things, and the Cowardly Lion doing brave things. Dorothy gets none of that. I kept expecting her to take initiative or make a suggestion, and nope. She’s the little kid that they, parentally, protect.

Dorothy spends book 2 (The Marvelous Land of Oz) being an unseen Ozian legend, and only returns to the narrative in book 3 (Ozma of Oz) — and, aha, here’s the Dorothy I remember! It feels like a couple of years must have passed on Earth, because she’s distinctly older. The story opens with her going out into a storm to rescue Uncle Henry, which is how she gets swept into adventure in the first place. She’s brave and determined. She gets involved in conversations and plans with her party.

When the Wicked Witch kept her prisoner, little Dorothy obediently went along with it, doing what she was told. (In the movie, she throws water on the Witch as part of defending the Scarecrow; in the book, it’s basically an accident.) When Princess Langwidere of Ev tries to order her around, older Dorothy puts her foot down, and responds to getting locked in a tower by flagging down a rescue party. Development!

Plus, there’s a sequence where she’s just rescued an even littler kid, and she takes on the protective caretaker role for him. Super sweet.

Book 3 is just overall such a good read. There’s a complicated plot that everything ultimately fits into. The Nome King is a great villain — I had forgotten that he isn’t introduced as Obviously Unsubtly Evil. He seems jolly and affable! Dorothy’s first impression is to be reminded of Santa Claus!

Then things get eerier and more ominous, one step at a time. There’s a scene with Ozma in the Nome King’s caverns — it has genuine atmosphere. She has to pick the right enchanted bauble from a museum’s worth of ornaments and treasures, and she only has one more guess — so she decides to put it all in fate’s hands, closes her eyes, and guesses the next thing she touches without ever seeing what it is. The writing is downright haunting.

Also, this is the book where Dorothy and Ozma meet for the first time, and instantly adore each other, and it’s wonderful.

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I would rec Ozma of Oz all on its own, but you gotta read books 1 and 2 first.

Even if the writing of the first book can be pretty wobbly, it’s worth it just to clear all the MGM-related fanon out of your head and re-establish what’s really part of bookverse continuity. For Baum’s loose values of “continuity.”

Book 2 puts Oz through a revolution — literally, the palace gets taken over and everything — which lays the groundwork for what becomes the Ozian status quo in all the books to follow.

Also: it features an early (1904!) example of literary Weird Gender Stuff, that’s not treated as icky or shameful or dysfunctional in-universe. The LGBTQ appeal of Oz didn’t start with Judy Garland (chill though she was). That bell had already been ringing for decades.

Book 2 is also the one that features a parody of suffragettes, and it doesn’t read as terribly affectionate to modern ears. The thing to keep in mind is that Baum was an active feminist. As in “secretary of his local Women’s Suffrage Club” feminist. As in “when Susan B. Anthony came to town, she crashed at his place” feminist.

So. Get your backstory down, get your worldbuilding foundations in order, then you can dive into the world of Dorothy Being Awesome and Ozma Being Elegant and general Dorothy And Ozma Being Best Girl Friends.