In a Season of Calm Weather

[vovat]

As of late, I've been writing at least one Oz-related post every week. Fortunately, I've recently increased the number LJ-friends who have actually read the books, so I'm hopefully not just writing to myself. And since I'm relegating these topics to their own posts, all you non-Oz-lovers can skip them without missing anything significant. Anyway, since it's now winter (although it didn't exactly feel like it today), I thought I'd write a little bit about seasons and weather in Oz. I know there have been some suggestions that Oz might be in the Tropics, since it pretty much always seems to be warm there. Most of what was written about it doesn't really SOUND tropical, though, but more like a temperate climate in perpetual springtime. It doesn't rain there anywhere near as much as you'd expect in a tropical country. And there do seem to be SOME seasonal changes. While Baum tells us in Emerald City that "[t]he weather is always beautiful in Oz," he'd already reported in Land that Mombi's pumpkins (one of which ends up being Jack Pumpkinhead's first noggin) were "planted and carefully tended that the four-horned cow might eat of them in the winter time." There's no snow in Oz, according to Ruth Plumly Thomspon in Grampa, but bears and opossums still hibernate in the winter. We do later see some snow in Oz, but only in isolated areas. Oz also has arid deserts (including one particularly dry and deadly one surrounding the entire country), at least one jungle, a few swamps, and a lot of deciduous forest. As with much about the land, I think magic is really the only feasible explanation for such a variety of climates in a relatively small area. Maybe it was part of Lurline's enchantment, although a fair amount of the magic in Oz and the surrounding countries doesn't seem to have anything to do with her. We know Glinda has a certain amount of weather-control magic, since she has a spell in place to keep storms away from the Cuttenclips' paper village, and maybe some other magic-workers do as well.

If Oz is on our Earth at all (and this is something that's frequently debated), then it's most likely in the Northern Hemisphere. I've seen some suggestions that the mini-continent on which it is located is in the South Pacific, but it always seems to be spring in May, and Captain Salt mentions in the book named after him that there are cold islands in the northern Nonestic Ocean and tropical ones in the southern waters. Going by the James E. Haff and Dick Martin map on David Hulan's distance estimates, though, it looks like the frigid Snow Island is no more than a hundred miles or so from the tropical Patrippany. Of course, Haff and Martin had to fit as much as they could on the map, and maybe these islands are really farther apart than they appear to be. Still, I think there's a fair amount of magic influencing the climate in the borderlands of Oz as well, even if not as much as in Ozma's kingdom itself.

Comments

[newwwoz.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

I was thinking recently, that if Oz is in the South Pacific, and if Santa Claus lives just outside of it on the same continent, that's pretty close to the International Date Line.

I do agree about some of the magic that affects Oz working on the borderlands. For example, in "Road," Bud and Fluff appear, still alive. (I was sure they are still children, but it doesn't seem to specify in the text.) But the end of "Queen Zixi of Ix" describes them growing up, and kind of hinted that this had taken place a long time before the Oz stories.

For that matter, and another contrary ending versus "Road," the end of "John Dough and the Cherub" tells us that Chick grew up, yet in "Road," the Cherub is still a child. (Or maybe the grown-up Chick occurs after "Road.")

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I was thinking recently, that if Oz is in the South Pacific, and if Santa Claus lives just outside of it on the same continent, that's pretty close to the International Date Line.

According to the map, the Laughing Valley is south of Oz, yet it has harsh winters. Probably more evidence for the Ozian weather being magically influenced.

I've always kind of assumed that the endings of Zixi and John Dough were glimpses into the future, but that would mean that Baum would have to have known things that hadn't happened yet. The parts of John Dough and Road set in the United States both seem to take place around the same time that Baum wrote them, but there's really no indication about when Zixi occurs.

[revme.livejournal.com]

For what it's worth, I actually at least scan the Oz posts! Even if it basically ends up hitting hte back of my brain with a wet splat.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

But the Oz fandom needs converts! Throw the posts out to everyone and see who they stick on. :-)

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I agree that that's a good idea, but I get the idea that some of my LJ-friends see the word "Oz" and just skip the whole thing. I will admit that I generally at least scan every post on my friends page, even if it's about something I don't recognize. I think a mark of being a truly great writer is that someone can read something you wrote about a topic on which they're totally clueless, and they still enjoy it. I don't pretend to be that good of a writer, but it's something to aspire to.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree on that. And I try to look at everything posted by my flist, even if I don't -- as happens a lot lately -- have time to comment on it. You do learn a lot of new stuff that way!

But still ... if we could just get more Oz converts! Maybe a PR campaign ...

[shadarko.livejournal.com]

I always assumed that the continent was in the South Pacific / Oceanic area.

Dorothy gets there via coop on way to Australia.
Trot and Capt'n Bill's trips to the Mermaid kingdom seemed to point to more magical lands to the west.
Wasn't Sky Island out over and past the Pacific? (of course being a sky island it really could have been anywhere)
Betsy came via boat too to to Ev, but we don't know where her ship was heading (and why would they take a donkey?)

weather wise and I think I might be influenced by Discworld ideas of physics, but since the continent was a naturally accuring fairy land (minus Oz) magical weather patterns would also be natural. Look at Mo, it snows popcorn.

mmmmmm popcorn.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

And rains lemonade, doesn't it? That could be bothersome if you overthink it.

Dorothy's coop journey is what convinced me Oz was in the South Pacific.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Well, if you're sailing to Australia from somewhere in the western United States, you'd have to go through both the North AND South Pacific, and I don't recall there being any indication as to how far along the ship was. I do get the idea that Baum, at least at first, thought of Oz as being in the Pacific, but he later went on to give his fairyland its own ocean. And Pirates has Peter arrive in the Nonestic by way of the Atlantic, rather than the Pacific.

I'd imagine that lemonade rain would get rather sticky at times, wouldn't it?

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of what the lemonade rain would *look* like. Ick.

I wonder if steamboat trips from Oz (the Australian Oz) to America stopped in Hawaii, at the time? Looks reasonable, on the map.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of what the lemonade rain would *look* like. Ick.

Well, maybe it's pink lemonade.

I wonder if steamboat trips from Oz (the Australian Oz) to America stopped in Hawaii, at the time? Looks reasonable, on the map.

Didn't the Shaggy Man meet an Eskimo in Hawaii? No, I guess that was just a cover story.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

I'm beginning to see a connection here ... Hawaii and Oz are both paradise.

Also, I'm working on a theory that the "Lost" island has the misfortune of straddling the border of dimensions between the Oz continent and our world. That'll surely work its way into a fanfic at some point.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Hawaii and Oz are both paradise.

Except I think Oz has fewer pineapples and leis. {g}

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Come on, Oz must have pineapples somewhere -- it's paradise! Or, maybe not. A paradise wouldn't have so many dangerous places and being lurking about, after all -- and a true paradise, let's face it, would be boring.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm sure Hawaii has its fair share of danger. It definitely did in 1941, anyway.

While I don't know of any mentions of pineapples in the Oz books, I wouldn't doubt that they grow somewhere in the Winkie Country.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

There are these huge spiders in Hawaii -- huge! Just like the snake in Eden, only scarier.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

As big as the one the Cowardly Lion killed, or the ones who tried to abduct Ozma and Dorothy?

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Not quite that big, although the first time I saw one was on the side of a U-Haul truck, so it was then! Dinner plate size. Seriously, isn't that big enough?

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

I vote for magic. I'm working on a theory that Oz was originally part of a small continent on our Earth, but that it was magicked into another dimensional plane when too many humans from the outside world started stumbling upon it. However, I had also set it in the South Pacific, and you're right -- that doesn't fit what we've been told about the geography of Oz. Unless the magic that effects the weather there has also turned North and South around ...

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I'm working on a theory that Oz was originally part of a small continent on our Earth, but that it was magicked into another dimensional plane when too many humans from the outside world started stumbling upon it.

Yeah, I like that idea, because it seems to fit both the references to Oz being on Earth and the suggestions that it might not be.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Confusion is the mother of improvisation.

[therealtavie.livejournal.com]

I've been thinking about Oz a lot lately. I guess because I'm in the middle of "A Lion Among Men". I was given "The Tin Woodsman of Oz" for Christmas last year and still haven't read it. I've only ever read the original book and I'd like to read the others in order. I just found out Gina read all the books as a child and would love to read them again, too.

I think I'd really like to start collecting the Books of Wonder editions, in order, and read them one at a time.

What are your favorites?

[vovat.livejournal.com]

My personal favorite is The Patchwork Girl of Oz, but I really do like all of them (even the ones that John R. Neill wrote, which are even more bizarre than the rest). I might advise reading them in order, even though I didn't. It isn't necessary, but there are sometimes references to past books in later ones, and the next two (Land and Ozma) are really good.