Consider yourself part of the furniture
Jan. 19th, 2010 07:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vovat
As the Oz series progressed from Baum to Thompson and then to Neill, it seems that each author brought more animated objects into the land. In fact, in the Neill books, it was a bit ridiculous, with the houses of the Emerald City acting on their own, and sometimes even fighting amongst themselves. In this particular post, I'm focusing on live furniture, of which I'm not sure there is any in the Baum books. Thompson, however, introduces some in her first book, The Royal Book of Oz. In this story, Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion, and Sir Hokus of Pokes come upon a community called Fix City, where the people stand around all day and let the furniture move around. How this was accomplished is never stated, but the king's reasoning that "furniture lasts longer than people" implies that this arrangement predates the enchantment that made Ozites functionally immortal. The human inhabitants of the city are known as Fixes or Fixitives, and they all wear very plain clothes, and are unable to leave their chalk circles on the street. In order to summon the furniture, each Fix has a bell-post with at least twenty different bells. The king is named Fix Sit, and he talks in a confused, mixed-up manner. The only other named Fix is the king's assistant Sticken Plaster. The furniture and other objects have lives of their own, and are often mischievous and unreliable. At the end of the city's main street is a void, and the only way to move on from there is to buy a self-propelled road from the nearby shop.
Thompson also has a few other examples of animated furniture. Wumbo the Wonder Worker can bring his chair, clock, and other household items to life, but only for four hours at a time. The King of Kimbaloo has a pet footstool named Trippsy, and the royal court at the Ozure Isles has a carpet that can beat itself. Still, such items are more the exception than the rule in Thompson's Oz. Neill, however, not only had a good deal of live furniture within Oz, but Jenny Jump can hear the furniture in New Jersey conversing when she first obtains her fairy ears. The Wizard of Oz has a walking table and a talking and moving hall clock, the latter of which is a character unto itself. The clock assists the Wizard and Number Nine with various tasks, and while being wound with a crank gives it a rather cranky attitude, it's still quite loyal and helpful.
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Date: 2010-01-20 12:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-20 01:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-21 12:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-20 09:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-21 12:23 am (UTC)I also feel I should mention Edward Einhorn's The Living House of Oz, which, as suggested by the title, features a house in which everything is alive. The most prominent piece of furniture is the hat-rack, who calls himself the Earl of Haberdashery and tells a lot of tall tales.
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Date: 2010-01-21 07:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-22 01:38 am (UTC)As for the Living House, there apparently was some discussion on what the privy there would be like (not in the book itself, mind you).
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Date: 2010-01-22 07:13 am (UTC)The privy would have to be, I assume, a potty mouth.
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Date: 2010-01-20 05:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-01-21 12:25 am (UTC)