A Man With An Agenda

After 'Ozma of Oz' L. Frank Baum decided to telegraph it in. Big time. The books became a parade of nonsensical events with little of any importance happening to the characters other than walking through curious places, with no sense of wonder or danger, and when a real threat or problem emerges, such as in 'The Emerald City of Oz', book 6 and the first one since 'Ozma' to show a bit of life it gets solved lickity-split with boring magic.

You read that correctly. Baum makes magic boring.

Still, I push on, and 'The Patchwork Girl of Oz' features none other than a young Munchkin boy with a genuine problem and the need to go on a specific journey to get specific items to solve that problem. It's incredible how this book has the bare minimum of plot necessities! My standards must have become just that low, because it was relief to read an Oz book that wasn't awful. Until the end.

I'll let you connect the dots and guess what happens at the end of this installment, or let you experience it for yourself. I must add that it is really strange how Baum seems to hate music. One of the ancillary characters is a walking, talking Victrola and it is essentially threatened with hot death until it leaves our merry band of adventurers alone. There was a similar character in one of the previous books that literally lived and breathed music and the characters shat all over him, too. What gives with the hate Baum? What gives?

'The Patchwork Girl' gives me hope for Oz, but I'm still waiting on a follow up to the first three.

Oz

Next: 'Tik-Tok of Oz'

Previous: 'The Emerald City of Oz'