What Oz, What Was, and What Could Have Been (original) (raw)

Was, by Geoff Ryman – My friend Tavie lent me this book because of the Oz connection. It’s weird how she’ll read books related to Oz, but not the actual Oz books. Anyway, in one of the first issues of The Baum Bugle I ever received, there were two reviews of this that were basically polar opposites, with one reviewer loving the book and the other hating it. I thought it was a pretty good read, but it was very dark. It presents the real Dorothy as an abused girl. Uncle Henry rapes her, and Aunt Em kills Toto. As a result, she becomes a bully at school. When L. Frank Baum serves as her substitute teacher for a little while, he resolves to give her the life he wished she had. Historically, Baum’s presence as a teacher in Kansas is quite unlikely, as he received little formal education and was not known to have spent much time in the state. In a more modern setting, an actor named Jonathan who has had an Oz obsession with childhood is dying of AIDS, and is determined to track down the story’s background before he goes. I was reading the end of this while in the doctor’s office today, and I have to say that’s probably not the best place to be seeing symptoms of AIDS described. There are also a few chapters about Judy Garland and her family, and while they fit the tone and structure of the book, I don’t feel they add that much to the narrative. Overall, it’s a call not to forget childhood, and a defense of escaping into fantasy. I have to wonder if Ryman, who mixes elements from Baum with MGM (for instance, Uncle Henry’s last name is Gulch, but there’s no indication as to how that would influence the movie script when Baum didn’t do anything with it), was familiar with Oz books beyond the first one. He might well have at least read Ozma of Oz, since he makes a mention of Ev, suggesting that “Öz Ev” is Turkish for “real home.” No idea whether there’s any truth to that, but a Google Search does reveal that there’s a restaurant with that name in Ankara.

This entry was posted in Book Reviews, L. Frank Baum, Oz, Oz Authors and tagged dorothy gale, geoff ryman, judy garland, ozma of oz, the baum bugle, the wizard of oz (1939), the wonderful wizard of oz, was. Bookmark the permalink.