Annals of Reading: Rereading Glynda of OZ, 2022

Last night I was tired after a stimulating and energetic day and didn't want to read heavy nonfiction. So I read the second half of Glynda the Good, an Oz book- I had read the first half last week on a tired night. I have maybe 15 Oz books, which were my mother's, and then cherished by my brother and me. L.Frank Baum wrote the first one in 1904, I believe; mine are not first editions, but were published in the 20s and 30s, filled with art deco drawings that I find enchanting. 

I have sometimes thought that I became an anthropologist not because of my childhood living outside the country and having my father talk about his work in public health and “meeting people where they are” to convince them to practice medical good habits, but rather because of the Oz books, which are like cultural science fiction. Oz is filled with very different life-forms, peoples whose shapes and practices are passing strange. One that I remember is people who caught their toes and became hoops and that's how they traveled, like wheels. I hope that I will find that book. Another one included a very vain princess who changed her head when she tired of the color of her hair or the shape of her cheekbones and she had a whole closet full of different heads. The one I just finished reading, Glynda the Good, includes a people called the Flatheads, whose heads are flat because their brains are not in their heads but rather in cans, and each person carries his brains around with him. 

 Well this one is set initially in the palace of Glynda who is a good sorceress, and she is visited by Dorothy and Ozma of Oz who is the grand ruler of all of Oz although she is a girl, actually a fairy of perhaps 13 or 14 years old. Dorothy is her sidekick and she has been made a princess by the lovely Ozma.  Glynda has a magic book in which all the news of things happening in all of Oz is written down as it happens.  As they look at the news they find that there are people in a far off corner of the kingdom called the Skeeters and the Flatheads and they are about to go to war with each other. Ozma and Glynda had never even been aware of their existence before this news, and presumably vice versa.  So Ozma and Dorothy set off  to bring peace to the two peoples and prevent them from fighting and to let them know that they are actually under the benevolent rule of Ozma. They arrive and various things ensue and they find out why these people want to destroy each other or will be soon at war.  The Flatheads have flat heads and I forget why but their brains have been removed and they are kept in cans. Each person has his can of brains but their wicked ruler has stolen the brains of several others and has become much smarter and is therefore the ruler. They make their way over to the Skeeters who live in a glass dome surrounded by a giant moat, but bridges can shoot out from it magically to allow the Skeeters to get in and out across the moat; also boats, which can be submarines if the dome is underwater, but can surface as boats. Their arrogant and wicked Queen, an “older girl” of perhaps 15 or 16, has stolen the magic of some very good fairies who were there earlier and has turned them into very special fish who live in the moat, where they cannot work magic (she has stolen their implements, and although Baum doesn’t say this, I suspect that their lack of opposable thumbs also is a disadvantage). But the fish put a curse somehow on the queen so that if any harm comes to them, she will immediately lose her powers. So it is in her interest to keep them alive, whereas the Flatheads would like the fish dead so they can triumph over the Skeeters.

 This arrogant young queen of course does not accept the fact that young Ozma is her ruler, as she is too arrogant and in any case she never heard of Ozma. When the wicked queen sees that the Flatheads have come to  destroy the power of the Skeeters by poisoning all the fish in the moat or lake, she causes the dome to submerge so that arrows etc, will not harm it, and she goes out forthwith to harm or capture the Flatheads, leaving most of her subjects and of course Dorothy and Ozma in the submerged dome. Unfortunately for her, the  Flatheads accidentally turn her into a beautiful swan with diamond eyes and she forgets all her magic, leaving the submerged Skeeters and the captured-underwater Ozma and Dorothy in a pickle, because they don’t know how to escape the submerged dome.  Eventually they are rescued, due to the efforts and good graces of Glynda and her entourage, who have come from the Emerald City when Glynda, recognizing that something is awry, has set out to help Ozma and Dorothy. The entourage consists of many assorted characters. These characters occasionally have good ideas, especially good ideas from little girls and unlikely sources of wisdom such as the Patchwork Doll. Their good ideas are somewhat fanciful or inchoate or impractical, but Ozma and Glynda receive them gladly and then mull them over and refine them, resulting in wise decisions which in the end rescue everyone. The wicked rulers of both Skeeters and Flatheads are dethroned and everyone becomes the happy and grateful subjects of the lovely and wise Ozma, so the visitors depart to return to their abodes in the center of the kingdom, the Emerald City, leaving these odd people on the periphery but now enjoying good government.

 So I get two things out of this. The first was that it was absolutely a colonial fantasy,  don't you think? Here is this benevolent and powerful ruler (not all-powerful, for she knows and can practice only good magic, fairy magic) who has to go to the far reaches of the kingdom to keep her subjects, who have never heard of her and think that they are autonomous, from fighting; and of course to bring them good government imposed from above, for which they are grateful.  I think that Ariel Dorfman, the author of How to Read Donald Duck, could be brought on board for this.  As I recall, he wrote about Babar in the same way. It's actually quite convincing. At least I found it so when I read it 30 or more years ago.

The second thing I got out of it was the extraordinary imagination of different ways of living and being in the world that L. Frank Baum imagined.  Flatheads with brains in cans! People who live in a glass dome that can go up and down in the water! I must read a few more Oz books  although I'm am pretty sure that I get the basic idea here, in order to grok on the variety of peoples he imagined. There is nothing particularly racist about this or anything like that, it's just that there is no doubt that the lovely Ozma and Dorothy and their ilk are the unmarked category of the right way to be in the world. But they are delighted to accept and accumulate the talents of other, non-standard, beings, which is very nice--the tin woodman, the scarecrow, the patchwork girl, the cowardly lion .... who all contribute to the common good by obeying and helping the rule of Ozma. There are other ways of being in the world --other shapes, other habitats-- and ways of life that can and do exist on their own, unconnected to the Kingdom of Oz, their only problem being that they have bad government internally which they are unable to solve by themselves, and they have  a tendency to fight with their neighbors, bringing things into gridlock, which may do no one any good.  Accepting the supreme and benevolent power of Ozma solves all their problems of internal governance and internecine strife.

And finally it was very interesting to see the combination of magic and mechanical engineering which allowed the giant dome to be lifted or submerged. A metal core extended with some magic powder and magic words which then allowed pumps to function and the core to lift the dome and submarines to come and go. I must reread Jules Vern which I really enjoyed when I was 12 or 14 and see how it compares. My belief is that Jules Verne was much more scientific. But one senses in this Oz book the fascination and admiration for large powerful industrial machinery, even if there is not the urge on Baum's part to really understand how it works. Magic powder and magic words are the engine behind the engine, but things clank and move and cogs and wheels circle together, and pumps in chambers allow submarines to come and go safely. The actual workings are not spelled out, but it is definitely a nod to industrial machinery and its marvelous capacities. 

And finally, what a nod to little girls! The assurance and reassurance that being your own sweet self will result in great success no doubt convinced me to go in the wrong direction in life!