The Marvelous Land of Oz
Encyclopedia : T : TH : THE : The Marvelous Land of Oz
The Marvelous Land of Oz, commonly shortened to The Land of Oz, published in 1904, is the second of L. Frank Baum's books set in Land of Oz, and the sequel to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. It is the only book in the series in which Dorothy Gale does not appear. This and the next 34 Oz books of the famous forty were illustrated by John R. Neill. The book was made into a Canadian animated feature film of the same name in 1987.
General Jinjur's Army of Revolt was a parody of the Suffragette movement, with which Baum was very familiar; his mother-in-law was the famous suffrage activist Matilda Joslyn Gage.
Plot
The protagonist is a boy named Tip, who for as long as he can remember has been under the guardianship of a witch named Mombi in the Gillikin Country. As Mombi is returning home, Tip plans to frighten her with a scarecrow he has made. Since he had no straw available, Tip instead made a man out of wood and gave him a pumpkin for a head, naming him Jack Pumpkinhead. Mombi isn't fooled, and she takes this opportunity to demonstrate the Powder of Life that she bought from another sorcerer. She sprinkles the powder on Jack, bringing him to life and startling Tip, whom Mombi catches and threatens with revenge.
Tip leaves with Jack that night and steals the Powder of Life because Mombi plans to turn him into a marble statue in the morning. As they head for the Emerald City, Tip uses the Powder to animate the Saw-Horse so Jack can ride him -- for even though his wooden body doesn't tire, it can get worn away from all that walking. Tip loses them as the tireless Saw-Horse gallops faster and he meets with General Jinjur's all-girl Army of Revolt which is planning to overthrow the Scarecrow, who's ruled the Emerald City since the end of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Marching with the Army, Tip meets again with Jack, the Saw-Horse, and now the Scarecrow as they flee the Emerald City in Jinjur's wake.
The companions arrive at the castle of the Tin Woodman, who now rules the Winkie Kingdom, and plan to retake the Emerald City. On their way back they are diverted by the magic of Mombi (whom Jinjur recruited to help her apprehend them), joined by the Highly Magnified and Thoroughly Educated Wogglebug, and aided by the Field Mice and their queen. Jinjur and her soldiers are scared by the Field Mice out of the main palace, but they still occupy the Emerald City itself. The Scarecrow proposes manufacturing a flying beast called a Gump by which they can escape through the air. Tip animates this collection of palace furniture with the Powder of Life, and they fly off, with no control over their direction, out of Oz and land in a nest of Jackdaws with all of the birds' stolen goods.
In their attempt to drive the Jackdaws from their sanctuary, the Scarecrow's straw is taken away and the Gump's wings are broken. Using the Wishing Pills they discover with the Powder of Life, Tip and his friends escape and journey to the palace of Glinda the Good. They learn from Glinda that the rightful ruler of Oz, a girl named Ozma, was hidden by the Wizard of Oz long ago and that she is the rightful ruler of the Emerald City, not the Scarecrow (who didn't really want the job anyway). Glinda discovered that the Wizard made three visits to Mombi, but not what they were for. She therefore accompanies Tip, Jack, the Saw-Horse, the Scarecrow, the Tin Woodman, the Wogglebug, and the Gump back to the Emerald City to see Mombi. The witch tries to deceive them by disguising a chambermaid as herself (which fails), but manages to elude them as they search for her in the Emerald City. Just as their time runs out, the Tin Woodman plucks a rose to wear in his lapel, unaware that this is the transformed Mombi!
Glinda discovers the deception right away and leads the pursit of Mombi, who is finally caught as she tries to run across the Deadly Desert in the form of a fast- and long-running Griffin (though later books state that anyone who touches the Desert is transformed into dust). Under pressure from Glinda, Mombi admits that the Wizard brought her the infant Ozma and that she used her magic to transform her into a boy -- Tip, the boy who she'd been guardian of. As first he's shocked to learn this, but Glinda and his friends help him to accept his destiny, and Mombi performs her last spell (Or is it? In The Tin Woodman of Oz, the Scarecrow asks a boy who'd been given twenty legs whether Mombi had transformed him, based on a physical description of her).
The restored Ozma (whose physical appearance differs considerably between this book and the next, Ozma of Oz) leads her friends in retaking the Emerald City. The Tin Woodman and the Scarecrow, now stuffed with paper money that's worthless in Oz except as stuffing, return to the Winkie Country with Jack Pumpkinhead, the Gump is disassembled at his request (though his head, which was a hunting trophy, can still speak), Glinda returns to her palace in the Quadling Country, the Wogglebug remains as Ozma's advisor, and the Saw-Horse becomes her personal steed.
Adaptations
In addition to being part of the basis for Baum's The Fairylogue and Radio-Plays, it was the final 1910 Selig Polyscope Oz film, it has been brought to the screen several additional times. The Land of Oz, a Sequel to the Wizard of Oz was a two-reel production by the Meglin Kiddies made in 1931 and released in 1932. The film was recently recovered, but the soundtrack of the second reel is missing. The Wonderful Land of Oz (1969) was a studio-bound production from independent filmmaker Barry Mahon, which starred his son, Channy, as Tip. Mahon had previously produced nudie films, so the book might seem like a natural; however, those films were made in New York, while Oz was made in Florida, and neither Caroline Berner (as Jinjur) nor the rest of her army were drawn from his former casts. Filmation's Journey Back to Oz (1971), recast the army of revolt with green elephants and Tip with Dorothy, but was essentially an uncredited adaptation of this book. Elements from this novel and the following one, Ozma of Oz, were incorporated into the 1985 film Return to Oz featuring Fairuza Balk as Dorothy. It is also adapted in Ozu no Mahōtsukai and the Russian animated film, Adventures of the Emerald City: Princess Ozma (2000).Noel Langley registered an unproduced script with the U.S. Copyright Office which framed the story as the deam of an orphaned girl named "Tippie".
With music by Frederic Chapin, Baum wrote a musical based on the play titled The Woggle-Bug, which expanded the role of the title character, played by Fred Mace, and introduced him at the beginning after Fred Stone and David C. Montgomery balked at reprising their Scarecrow and Tin Woodman roles in a new production, resulting in the total omission of the characters and replacing the Scarecrow with a Regent. The play opened and closed unsuccessfully in Minneapolis. Baum was accused of self-repetition, while Chapin's score was praised. The Marvelous Land of Oz returned to Minneapolis stages in 1981, in a musical composed by Richard Dworsky, with a book by Thomas W. Olson and lyrics by Gary Briggle, who originated the role of the Scarecrow. This play stayed close to the novel, eliminating some stage-difficult moments and expanding the role of Jellia Jamb. The play was premiered by The Children's Theatre Company and School of Minneapolis, and a recording of the production was made available by MCA Video. The professional and community theatre rights to the play are currently available. The Woggle-Bug script has not been published, though it has been preserved on microfilm. Its songs have been published, and though now out of print, were reprinted in 2001.
External links
|
Wicked (Wicked (book series)>The books | The musical)
| |
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.