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A review by sidharthvardhan
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum
5.0
It is always feels great to return to simple world of children books. This one is a perfect example of how children books are supposed to be; and like all children books, it is a fabulous piece of imagination. Its greatness can be best described by the fact that someone like Salman Rushdie has taken pains to write about the movie it inspired.
People are trying to read it as a economic parable, but author himself never made such a claim. Let us, for a change, see a duck as a duck and let it be one.
Dorothy (the name came from Baum's dead niece, who his wife loved like the child she never had), the child protagonist is able to maintain her innocence even as she accidentally kills the two bad witches - something missing in so many children stories; except of course she is someone who slaps lion when it attacks her dog.
Baum combines fantasy elements (like witches) with real life things like scarecrow and lion; and also the industrial tin man. Munchkins are akin to farmers and winkies to industrialists.
One of its most important themes is that 'there is no place like home' - even when Dorothy's home is a grey and sad area; she is willing to return to it after seeing wonderful places. The character of oz (perhaps a satire on powerful people with all his fear, loneliness, manipulation and yet internal good hardheartedness) is able to inspire self belief in Dorothy's comrades by using a kind of placebo magic. The characters continue to ask him to help them even when they come to know that he is an impostor.
There is just too much of parody in it. There are many examples- The fact that witch should be afraid of darkness, that a little girl slapped lion, the way two witches die or in the secret of 'great and terrible' wizard of oz' who gives title to book; and the fact that Dorothy's three friends each want one of three key qualities - brains, heart and courage; not knowing they already possess them.
People are trying to read it as a economic parable, but author himself never made such a claim. Let us, for a change, see a duck as a duck and let it be one.
Dorothy (the name came from Baum's dead niece, who his wife loved like the child she never had), the child protagonist is able to maintain her innocence even as she accidentally kills the two bad witches - something missing in so many children stories; except of course she is someone who slaps lion when it attacks her dog.
Baum combines fantasy elements (like witches) with real life things like scarecrow and lion; and also the industrial tin man. Munchkins are akin to farmers and winkies to industrialists.
One of its most important themes is that 'there is no place like home' - even when Dorothy's home is a grey and sad area; she is willing to return to it after seeing wonderful places. The character of oz (perhaps a satire on powerful people with all his fear, loneliness, manipulation and yet internal good hardheartedness) is able to inspire self belief in Dorothy's comrades by using a kind of placebo magic. The characters continue to ask him to help them even when they come to know that he is an impostor.
There is just too much of parody in it. There are many examples- The fact that witch should be afraid of darkness, that a little girl slapped lion, the way two witches die or in the secret of 'great and terrible' wizard of oz' who gives title to book; and the fact that Dorothy's three friends each want one of three key qualities - brains, heart and courage; not knowing they already possess them.