The Marvelous Land of Oz, Chapters Ten to Twelve

In which everyone is reassembled and our heroes make their way to the Tin Woodman's palace, a happy reunion takes place, they set out again and are confounded by magic, and encounter a most interesting insect; and in which our narrator proves to not, in fact, be dead.



Oh, hey! Look, that's right, I've got a podcast thing! I apologize about may absence since... god, August. Anyway, I'm back now, and we're gonna continue right along! We meet up with our old friend the Tin Woodman (covered, at 12:25, by putz pomade), who marvels at the variety of things-that-shouldn't-be-alive-but-are, which of course includes himself. We also, in these pages, meet (sigh) the Woggle-Bug.

So, you of course remember how I said that Baum wrote this book with an eye towards the stage, after the success of the musical adaptation of Wonderful Wizard, yes? And how a lot of the success was due to the actors playing the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman, Fred A. Stone and David C. Montgomery? Well, when Baum adapted this book for the stage, the original musical was still running, and Stone and Montgomery didn't want to leave its sure success for an untested sequel. Rather than recast the part for some reason, Baum cut the characters from the story, and promoted the Woggle-Bug to being essentially the main character, even titling the play The Woggle-Bug. There was also a new subplot in which the Woggle-Bug fell in love with a checked dress, and thus anyone wearing it. So... yeah. It closed in less than a month.

Anyway, get ready for some truly terrible jokes.

Illustrations!

More after the jump!

...this illustration makes me oddly uncomfortable.

It's unclear exactly what scene is being portrayed in the background there. There's no Lion, and the Tin Woodman is dancing and holding a bouquet of flowers while his axe is buried in a stump, and Dorothy is... putting shoes on the Scarecrow? I dunno.

Okay, but seriously, where is the Scarecrow's consciousness right here? Is his head still aware when it's empty? Is he temporarily lobotomized, alive but unaware and unresponsive, eyes open but uncomprehending? Or is he now pure thought, a bag of brains sitting on a shelf with no sensory input? WHERE IS YOUR SPARK OF LIFE, SCARECROW?

Whatever, chop 'em all down. The girl faces just make them abominations. Though, I suppose this company should indeed be careful bandying the word "abomination" about,

Wait, what the crap is the Woggle-Bug doing here? We haven't even met him yet, much less given him a ride on the Sawhorse! WAIT YOUR TURN.

One wonders how Tip could tell that the Woggle-Bug is "of a glistening dark brown color upon the back" if he's wearing pants and a full tailcoat.

All right, thanks for sticking with us! Let's get this train back on the tracks, shall we?


If you would like to read along, the text can be found at Project Gutenberg with no pictures, and a fully illustrated facsimile of the first edition can be found at Open Library. No reading ahead, though!