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language: English
country: USA
year: 1900
form: novel
genre(s): fantasy
dates read: 8.5.23-29.5.23
read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to help a friend out with a project. it was…fine. the pacing was kind of bad. Baum’s bad politics come through in weird ways, like the kind of monarchism where the small and primitive people of Oz are just waiting patiently for strong tall people to come liberate them and then beg these strong tall people to rule over them forever. never once does Dorothy consider setting the Winged Monkeys free, and at the end when Glinda finally does so, it’s only after she’s exhausted her three uses of the Golden Cap (i.e., when she no longer has absolute power to command them as her slaves). despite the fact that Oz ruled as an absolute monarch for like…twenty years and completely reshaped the land he ruled under fraudulent pretenses, everyone agrees for some reason that he’s “a good man”. overall it just felt, I don’t know, kind of mean-spirited. petty.
it’s at times somewhat entertaining, mainly in understatement, as when they’re leaving the Emerald City and the gate guard says that the Wicked Witch of the West “is wicked and fierce, and may not allow you to destroy her”. like, I’m not particularly wicked or fierce, and I wouldn’t allow them to destroy me either, so….
I appreciate that Dorothy truly didn’t mean to or want to kill the Wicked Witch of the West. Dorothy is kind of a baby lesbian.
that’s about all I’ve got. thank god Wicked exists, even if it’s (broadly) closer to the movie than to the book.
moods: adventurous, lighthearted, wacky