01 The Wonderful Wizard of Oz
Feb. 11th, 2015 09:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethThis book was not especially wonderful, on account of not having the songs in it, and also the pictures in the edition I downloaded being ugly and in the wrong places. There's also nothing particularly enthralling about the prose style. But it was interesting to read.
The movie missed out like half the book. And also it made far less of the things Oz did humbug. Like, the emerald city was in fact super shiny, instead of just being everyone told to wear green glasses so they believe it to be emeralds. Which isn't very plausible, except if you believe a wizard could do terrible things to you if you didn't wear the glasses every minute of every day.
also the movie was cleverer when it gave them the brain, heart and courage. and did not fill the scarecrow's head with pins, which doesn't seem like a terribly good idea to me, even if it's meant to make him sharp.
In the book they meet all four of the witches, one for North South East and West, and also the Wizard in the middle. But I still don't know what their powers are meant to be. The North one can disappear, the first wicked witch got landed on, the second wicked witch could command different animals but since they could all talk that didn't seem strictly very magic, and the one in the south could explain things so Dorothy could get home. Whatever great and terrible powers they're meant to have, they don't show them off. The promise the winged monkeys made to obey whoever had the gold cap meant they did most of the things. And that wasn't very magic, unless keeping promises is magic. So it's interesting because there's no whizz bang in the people... but every single thing about the world is very magic indeed. Everything talks, everything moves, getting bits chopped off is a minor inconvenience, and wicked witches get all dried up inside, which is why they melt in the water. Nothing reacts very much like here. The good witches are almost the most normal ones.
So everywhere is color coded and we meet the blue, yellow, green and red people. And there's scary beasts to chase them, and trees, including some that fight back, and crows for the scarecrow to defeat, and some large piles of corpses that are more disturbing in a story where everything except Toto talks. Also they meet porcelain people who are very fragile, and hammerhead people who have no arms but headbutt everyone.
The tin woodman cut off all his parts having accidents trying to work hard enough he could afford to get married.
And Kansas is all grey and dry and bleak at the start, it's not just boring, it's dying of dry. Which is why dry is wicked and what happens to the witches.
There's an economic critique and some uncomplimentary things about the willingness of people to be ruled, sort of worked in around the adventures.
Also there's things that never end up relevant, like the scarecrow says he's only scared of a lit match, but he never gets on fire. Dorothy throws water at the witch because the witch stole one of her shoes. Just got angry and threw the bucket. That's not the nice polite little girl version.
And everyone ends up kings, except Dorothy who just goes home. The Scarecrow rules Oz, the Tinman rules the kingdom the wicked witch left, and the Lion rules a forest full of nice beasts.
See everything I'm noticing is just ways it's different than the movie. It's still a story about how helping other people ends up helping you, and how you have inner resources that are quite enough without needing more from wizards, but it has a few extra incidents and meets more people. And it's not half as grand. Smaller. More humbug.
If I could just read it for itself I might have a different reaction. But then if it was just a random kids story from the long before I probably wouldn't think of reading it.
The movie missed out like half the book. And also it made far less of the things Oz did humbug. Like, the emerald city was in fact super shiny, instead of just being everyone told to wear green glasses so they believe it to be emeralds. Which isn't very plausible, except if you believe a wizard could do terrible things to you if you didn't wear the glasses every minute of every day.
also the movie was cleverer when it gave them the brain, heart and courage. and did not fill the scarecrow's head with pins, which doesn't seem like a terribly good idea to me, even if it's meant to make him sharp.
In the book they meet all four of the witches, one for North South East and West, and also the Wizard in the middle. But I still don't know what their powers are meant to be. The North one can disappear, the first wicked witch got landed on, the second wicked witch could command different animals but since they could all talk that didn't seem strictly very magic, and the one in the south could explain things so Dorothy could get home. Whatever great and terrible powers they're meant to have, they don't show them off. The promise the winged monkeys made to obey whoever had the gold cap meant they did most of the things. And that wasn't very magic, unless keeping promises is magic. So it's interesting because there's no whizz bang in the people... but every single thing about the world is very magic indeed. Everything talks, everything moves, getting bits chopped off is a minor inconvenience, and wicked witches get all dried up inside, which is why they melt in the water. Nothing reacts very much like here. The good witches are almost the most normal ones.
So everywhere is color coded and we meet the blue, yellow, green and red people. And there's scary beasts to chase them, and trees, including some that fight back, and crows for the scarecrow to defeat, and some large piles of corpses that are more disturbing in a story where everything except Toto talks. Also they meet porcelain people who are very fragile, and hammerhead people who have no arms but headbutt everyone.
The tin woodman cut off all his parts having accidents trying to work hard enough he could afford to get married.
And Kansas is all grey and dry and bleak at the start, it's not just boring, it's dying of dry. Which is why dry is wicked and what happens to the witches.
There's an economic critique and some uncomplimentary things about the willingness of people to be ruled, sort of worked in around the adventures.
Also there's things that never end up relevant, like the scarecrow says he's only scared of a lit match, but he never gets on fire. Dorothy throws water at the witch because the witch stole one of her shoes. Just got angry and threw the bucket. That's not the nice polite little girl version.
And everyone ends up kings, except Dorothy who just goes home. The Scarecrow rules Oz, the Tinman rules the kingdom the wicked witch left, and the Lion rules a forest full of nice beasts.
See everything I'm noticing is just ways it's different than the movie. It's still a story about how helping other people ends up helping you, and how you have inner resources that are quite enough without needing more from wizards, but it has a few extra incidents and meets more people. And it's not half as grand. Smaller. More humbug.
If I could just read it for itself I might have a different reaction. But then if it was just a random kids story from the long before I probably wouldn't think of reading it.