Thursday, August 2, 2012

The Appeal of Dorothy Gale






Chapter 8  The Valley of Voices,  Chapter 9  They Fight the Invisible Bears  Chapter 10  The Bearded Man of Pyramid Mountain,  Chapter 11  They Meet the Wooden Gargoyles,  Chapter 12  A Wonderful Escape  Chapter 13  The Den of the Dragonettes



Dorothy, the Wizard, Zeb and the animals  find themselves in the beautiful Valley of Voe which is populated by invisible people and dangerous invisible bears.


An invisible bear attacks them and the Wizard kills it with his sword.


They meet the braided man who directs them to the land of the Gargoyles which may lead them back to the surface of the Earth. 


The Gargoyles are mute, wooden creatures with magical detachable wings. Zeb steals a few of their wings and they attach them to their carriage.  They escape to a cavern in a mountain. 


As they try to make their way to the top of the cavern they meet a den of baby dragons.


After they escape from the dragons, they find themselves trapped. 

They can see the surface of the Earth through a hole in the rock but have no way of reaching it.


They can't go back and they can't go forward.


They resign themselves to death by starvation.

***

Of course the story doesn't end there.

But that is the climax so that is where I will stop.



When I saw the "Celebrate Oz Day" at Oma Linda's blog,

lindaomasoldebaggsnstuftshirts.blogspot.com/

I was immediately intrigued.

I read and reread the Oz books when I was a kid. 

When I was in university I bought the series. 

It is still one of my most treasured possessions. 

I think the books were important to me because I grew up at a time when little girls, generally, were less valued than little boys and were given fewer opportunities to speak or act freely. 

The intrepid Dorothy was a role model.

"But  I am one of the greatest humbug wizards that ever lived and you will realize it when we have all starved together and our bones are scattered over the floor of this lonely cave."

"I don't believe we'll realize anything, when it comes to that," remarked Dorothy who had been deep in thought. "But I'm not going to scatter my bones just yet because I need them and you'll prob'ly need yours, too."

She taught us things about being a girl that our parents and teachers either
didn't know or were reluctant to impart.   



Thanks to Oma Linda for giving me the idea of looking back and thanks to L. Frank Baum for telling the stories and John R. Neil for drawing the pictures.


What a ride!


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4 comments:

Debra She Who Seeks said...

This reminds me of something that Robertson Davies wrote. He said we should always read a classic or beloved book three times -- once when we are young, once in middle age and once in old age, because each time we will glean something different out of it because of our own advancing life journey.

Jane said...

What an adventure so far! I love Dorothy's 'can-do' plucky attitude - I have to agree that there weren't nearly enough female characters like her.

Plowing Through Life (Martha) said...

What an adventure. And what an imagination the writer had! I like Debra's comment; that is a great idea. I've read some books a few years ago that I read during high school and I see them from a different perspective.

I can't believe I never read any of these stories. What kind of avid reader am I claiming to be??

Introverted Art said...

So amazing. Like Debra, I re-read books all the time. I have books I have read as many times as 10, some more. For some reason, it feels the book re-wrote itself, because of how we see life or I missed a word that gives a different meaning to a situation.