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The man behind the man behind the curtain
By JIM ROSS © St. Petersburg Times, published May 17, 2000
The story grew to be an American classic, an indigenous fairy tale about chasing dreams, battling fears and finding one's way back home. Generations have come to love the work and its progeny on stage, screen and the printed page. The yellow brick road, Toto, Somewhere Over the Rainbow. We're not in Kansas anymore. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. I'll get you, my pretty. Allusions to Oz still fill our conversations, letters to the editor, political speech. Little wonder: Most of us, no matter our age or where we live, recognize the Cowardly Lion. So, if this is the land of Oz, then today is a time to celebrate. Fans recognize May 17, 2000 as the 100th anniversary of the day their beloved story went public. L. Frank Baum, a writer then living in Chicago, published the book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900, committing to print the mythical story that had so engrossed his sons. He couldn't have known what would follow: comic books, countless stage adaptations, the classic 1939 movie musical starring Judy Garland, even 13 more Oz books from Baum himself. People who love Baum's work hope news of the 100th anniversary will renew interest in, or at least inspire a better understanding of, the book that got it all started. "I love anniversaries and celebrations and centennials of all kinds, because they do serve as a nice spark to reinterest people in things that happened historically," said Tom Averill, an English professor at Washburn University in Topeka, Kan. "I think it's a great time to look back and forward." If nothing else, Averill said, people might be interested to know that the movie is somewhat different from the book, which many people have not read. (If there is someone who has read the book and not seen the movie, the professor said, "I'd like to meet him.") The movie version portrays Dorothy Gale, played by Garland, as a Kansas farm girl who is dissatisfied with life and contemplates running away before finally backing out. Along the way, she encounters farm hands and others who reappear as different characters after a tornado knocks Dorothy unconscious, setting off a long dream set in Oz.
In the book, Dorothy "has no desire to leave. She is accidentally swept away by a tornado," Averill said. And the place to which she is swept is real, not a dreamland as in the movie. More than anything, Oz fans say reading the book provides a better look than the movie could of what Kansas life was like during the late 19th century. Baum was born in 1856 in Chittenango, N.Y., near Syracuse, and worked as a writer and journalist in several places, including South Dakota. He had visited Kansas, but it's unclear why he chose to give the state such a central role in the book. He described the state in dreary terms, using the word "gray" over and over.
Some scholars have argued that the story is a populist allegory, with Dorothy, the Scarecrow and the Tin Man representing the people and the Cowardly Lion representing their leader, William Jennings Bryan. They seek help from an ineffective ruler -- the Wizard, meant to be the Republican president -- but eventually rely upon themselves to conquer the witches and return home. Averill said there is no way of telling whether Baum intended the story as an allegory: the Populist theory didn't emerge until the 1960s, long after Baum had died. Still, Averill said he can't dismiss the idea. "Baum was a real cultural sponge himself," Averill said. "If anything of importance happened (in the world) he would put it in an Oz book in some way." Indeed, one of the early Oz books spoofs the suffrage movement. Most people who read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and watch the movie take the work at face value. At that level, the story continues to entertain and enlighten. "The children sort of get it instinctively," said Sherry Durham, youth librarian in the Citrus County community of Beverly Hills, where Oz books, videos and audio cassettes remain popular. "They find out that everyone has the power within themselves to solve their own problems, and they can be the thing they want to be most without a mysterious wizard to bestow the characteristics upon them," Durham said. "Sometimes, you just think you are lacking the characteristics that you want most." Some Oz fans have grown up and created cyberspace shrines to their favorite story. "There's no place like my homepage," one fan proclaims on his Internet site. Still other fans draw a link between the 1939 movie and Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon. You can try this at home: start the album just as the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer lion roars for the third time. This will be the start of a long series of coincidences or a masterfully designed musical accompaniment. For example, the sound of cash registers, which comes at the beginning of the song Money, is heard just as the movie transitions from black and white to color. Did Pink Floyd make the music to match the movie? No one knows for sure, and the musicians aren't saying. But the widespread interest in the phenomenon is further proof of the Oz story's power, even 100 years after the first book was published and more than 60 years after the movie was released. Elizabeth Haslam, 87, whose family owns and operates Haslam's bookstore in St. Petersburg, said the Oz books "were not considered literature by the children's librarian" in town when she was a young girl. But the books definitely count as literature at Haslam's, where Mrs. Haslam helps direct stocking of the children's shelves. Parents can read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz to children as young as 6, 7 or 8, she said. Children in fourth grade or older can handle the work themselves. Even adults can enjoy the book, she said. The lessons that Dorothy and her traveling companions learned are universal. "They were all looking for something," Mrs. Haslam said. "And they all achieved it." Oz fans may like to check out these Web sites:
 © St. Petersburg Times. All rights reserved. 
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The Wonderful Wizard of Oz began as a spoken story, a wild tale that a father told his children when bedtime neared and imaginations were willing to wander.
