[HPforGrownups] Re: OT: Oz is not Hogwarts

[Dave Hardenbrook]

No: HPFGUIDX 8334

At 03:45 AM 1/2/01 +0000, Susan McGee wrote:
>Very interesting article, Dave, and not really off topic. I like Oz,
>and love the movie, but don't really think the books are that good.

The strength and weakness of the Oz books is oddly enough the
same as the strength and weakness of the Sid and Marty Krofft
TV shows ( ring a bell, fellow GenX-ers? :) ), i.e. the strength
is the imagintiveness (sometimes bordering on psychadelic) of
the worlds they've created; the weakness is lack of strong plot
or characterization.  I always loved the Oz books, but other authors,
especially Jane Austen and Jo Rowling have shown me what
good writing is, and now I'm spoilt.

What's really tragic about Oz IMHO is that its defenders tend to
be very rightous about maintaining "the beloved status quo".
Any change in Oz, good or bad, is _verboten_.  In Oz, Cedric
could not have died, or Neville's parents reduced to
vegetables, but neither could Harry ever grow up and
fill his intended niche in the wizarding world.  The Oz paradigm
of eternal non-aging and no change may actually be a self-inflicted
fatal wound, because it requires all Oz books to go in circles
without anything with lasting effects ever transpiring.  Hogwarts
is a vibrant, dynamic universe.  Oz is in a rut.

FWIW, I've written my own Oz books, and they  have been
condemned by many in the Oz establishment (though they're
not yet published) because in them all sorts of new things occur --
Dorothy grows up and persues a career, Ozma falls in love
and wins character-building battles against truly threatening
adversaries, and other "horrible" things happen that strike horror
in the hearts of Oz "purists", but (I hope) will revitalize a beloved
fantasy world of my youth that I don't wish to see die of its own
shortcomings.



                                                 -- Dave