from the land of oz

[jeannekins]

so i'm almost done with my 5th oz book.  is it just me, or is dorothy really annoying?  i can't even really describe what it is about her that bug me so much.  maybe it's that she's so earnest all of the time.  and naive.  and trusting.  and her damn little dog.  the thing is untrained and allowed to do whatever the hell it wants.  and then she '

Comments

weather

[jennesaisquoi]

Of course I wore a lightweight jacket to work today and sent the kids to school in sneakers instead of boots. That will teach me to not check the forecast in the morning!

Re: weather

[jeannekins]

well, the forecast is only right about half the time, anyway...

[vancemarr]

is it just me, or is dorothy really annoying?

It's not just you. That's just one of many reasons I never liked Wizard of Oz (the movie anyway). Never got into it as a kid. Don't like it as an adult. Didn't particulalrly like any of the characters. It never inspired any sense of wonder for me. It was just another old movie.

That view makes me a heretic in the eyes of most people, especially here in Mr. Baum's back yard, so to speak, but there it is.

[jeannekins]

i was thinking that it was just the movie dorothy that was so annoying - because of the way she was portrayed. the movie version is actually much more likable than the book version. scary.

[maxmomvt]

I think the movie did the Oz books a serious misservice... some entertaining, charming books will be ever-dismissed because of the first story/movie. Are the books fine literature that will stand up to the test of time? Maybe not. Still, I think there are still interesting messages in the stories. L. Frank Baum started out to write a political parable, and, kind of like the Harry Potter books, the story sort of took off without him. He was the J.K. Rowling of that time... thousands of children kept begging him for more Oz stories. So maybe the books don't measure up to our present-day expectations... our kids are growing up on the darker magic of Harry Potter rather than the escapism Oz stories, but there is a thread that connects them.

[vancemarr]

While I have not read the Oz books, I am familiar with the political parable/satire angle that Baum was going for, and I think the nature of his satire holds the key to why Dorothy comes off as hapless.

Basically, Baum was lampooning the populist movement of his time, which was largely centered in the midwest. It's largely an attack on William Jennings Bryan and the now-obscure, but then hot-button issue of bimetalism. Baum could fairly be described, I think, as a bourgeois East Coast elitist. In that sense, the whole thing is sort of a precursor to today's Red State/Blue State culture wars, with smug liberals on the coasts making fun of what they perceive to be stupid rednecks out in the heartland.

So if you look at story with the background knowledge that Baum was a New Yorker trying to show how the rubes out in Kansas were politically backward, then Dorothy's less-than-positive traits might make more sense.

[papadick]

just ease on down the road.

[jeannekins]

i was thinking about the wiz and singing that very song to myself earlier today. i think i need to introduce it to my nieces.

[bixxy]

I agree that while both versions of Dorothy are insufferably dumb/helpless, the movie version is slightly less annoying. The book version of Dorothy annoys me because she seems so down-home practical on the one hand, but whenever the shit hits the fan, she has, like, no resources. Apparently the denizens of Oz find her exotic and therefore charming?

[maxmomvt]

I loved the Oz books as a kid... it's been a few years since I've read them and Dorothy was never my favorite character. However, the books are coming up on 100 years old (if they aren't already... I haven't done my internet research). I think readers, especially the children these books were mostly geared toward (for many of the Oz books were written by request of Baum's fans) had very different expectations of characters. If folks were still reading the Bobbsey Twins and other books of that era, I expect we'd find those characters similarly simplistic... the books were written in an era when women were not expected to do more than become wives and mohers. Dorothy is no Hermione Granger, that's for sure. Yet Dorothy had her fans... the Oz books were the escape fiction of that time... literally. Times are hard at home? Get a transport to Oz!

[maxmomvt]

not to ruin the suspense for you, but Toto will talk... I forget the book, but it turns out he's been f'ing with everyone, pretending he can't talk in some strange, canine power play.

[jeannekins]

thank god. i've seriously been hating that annoying little thing. somehow, i don't think it's going to be quite as satisfying as i'd like, considering the age of the books, but it's definitely something to look forward to!