Ojo in Oz

1933, 1986 Del Rey edition
Ruth Plumly Thompson
Illustrated by John R. Neill
Ojo in Oz
Original price $5.95, bought used for $3.48
Worn paperback
B-

There are two main things to talk about with this book:  innuendo (of course) and history.  Of the latter, Thompson calls it not just hoztry but Oz hoztry.  Are there other kinds of hoztry?  Wouldn't the history of Ev be called hevtry?  And what of Mo-ology?  Thompson still has a bad habit, a dozen years into her royal-historianship, of tacking "Oz" onto or into words as if to make them more authentic.  The worst example is "ozade."  If lemonade is made with lemons, limeaid with limes, and Gatoraid with--

OK, back to hoztry.  In the previous book, Glinda was celebrating a century of ruling the Quadlings.  Does this include the time of the Quadling king?  Was that mysterious man actually a consort, that died or divorced?

In this book we find out that Ojo's grandfather ruled the southern part of the Munchkin Country (which has moved back to the west), and had Seebania as the capital.  When Ozma became queen and was able to select rulers of the quadrants, the royal family was left with only Seebania, while presumably the Ozure Islanders took over rule of the Munchkins, or at least the north half.  Ojo's grandfather was overthrown by Mooj the Magician, who then imprisoned Ojo's parents.  Ojo's father, Ree Alla Bad, was released on condition that he not free his wife or ask anyone else to free her.  So he became Realbad the bandit.

He didn't know his queen was pregnant, but later his uncle Stephen hid the baby away in safety, and we know that pair better as Unc Nunkie and Ojo.  Ojo, by the way, is "ten."  I have no idea how much time is supposed to have passed.

This is not the Ojo of Patchwork Girl, since he's much less graver, although I suppose his spirits might've improved after so long in the Emerald City.  Neill doesn't draw him with dark hair as he did twenty years earlier, although Realbad has curly black hair in text and illustrations.  Realbad also has a very dashing mustache.

Thompson does a good job showing the connection between Realbad and Ojo, even before it's revealed that they're father and son.  The queen, however, just shows up at the end and, much more than in Giant Horse, is a very vague character.  Thompson seems to have been a lot less interested in mothers than fathers, but then her cast tends to be more male than Baum's was.

The other main character is the bear Snufferbux.  (Snuff her bucks?  I hardly know her!)  He and Realbad fight over Ojo and other matters at many points in the book, but of course become friends.

He meets Ojo in a Gypsy camp, and I have to say that Thompson doesn't miss a stereotype for this thieving, fortune-telling, cruel but charming, swarthy pack.  Even Realbad's bandits are portrayed more sympathetically.  At the end of the story, Ozma deports the Gypsies to Southern Europe, and I try not to think about the fate of Gypsies in Northern Europe in the following decade.

Moving on to the lighter topic, this is unquestionably the most innuendous Thompson book so far, maybe ever.  In Lost King, she had a character named Humpy, and here we get Humper, but that's minor compared to this line when Realbad meets a unicorn in the fog:  "To his dismay and consternation the pointed end of his rod immediately embedded itself in a soft, yielding body."

And even that is nothing next to the dizzying chapter "Dorothy in Dicksy Land."  Yes, I know that "queer dick" means roughly "odd duck," but that doesn't mean that all the uses of "queer" and "dick" in this chapter can be glossed over.  How about this, which manages to get in a drug reference as well:  "'Here we are all Dicks together.  I am the Dick with the queer hat band.  That's my peculiarity.  To what are you addicted?'"  Or what of "Dorothy decided that [there were no female Dicks] because men were queerer than women"?  (I think Sinclair Lewis might disagree about that.)  Then in the next chapter, the Cowardly Lion asks, "Do you mean to tell me that every Dick in Dicksy Land is perfectly satisfied?"  Toujours gai Scraps remarks, "This is a queer country.  I'll come back some time and spend my life."

The Pointless Dorothy Side-Plot this time is possibly more pointless than ever.  Ozma, Nunkie, and the Wizard are already going to get Glinda's help in rescuing Ojo from the Gypsies.  But Scraps, who gets hushed two or three times of course, wants to rescue Ojo, and Dorothy and the Lion go along.  Mooj transforms them into clocks, and you could take this subplot out of the book and lose nothing.

I do really like Unicorners.  It's as if after dicking around for 180 pages, Thompson finally decided to write a good story.  The concept and execution of this little kingdom are well done, and not coincidentally the other aspects of the story improve for the last 60 pages or so.  Neill's best artwork in the book is of the unicorns.

Of course, some of his worst artwork is in the penultimate chapter, specifically the worst hairstyles since Glinda of Oz (1920).  After a few pictures of Ozma with her traditional long hair, she's got some horrible proto-late-1980s geometric do on p. 241.  And Queen Isomere sports a similar style.  I find it hard to believe that this was popular in 1933.  (Even Vanessa's hair on The Cosby Show was less ridiculous.)

I'm missing the next couple Thompson books, including the one with the most overtly drug-related title:  Speedy in Oz.