A classic to be read and re-read! (The Wizard of OZ - L. Frank Baum)

Member Name: okei

Product:	The Wizard of OZ - L. Frank Baum
Date:	17/04/09 (137 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to read, wonderfully told, engaging and profound.

Disadvantages: You might have to lend out your copy.

The Wizard of Oz is a classic children's tale written by Baum in the 1890's and and later adapted into film to make one of the classics of early colour cinema. But behind the simple plot and charming characters, there are deeper messages that the reader may find for herself.

The main character is a young girl called Dorothy who in a typhoon is transported along with her little dog Toto to a strange land seemingly outside reality, and she is on a quest to return home. Along her journey, she meets and makes friends with a straw man, a tin man and a lion who also each have a quest of their own.

If you haven't read the book, it might be better if you read no further, but come back later. In the rest of this review, I want to share a couple of thoughts that occurred to me and that you might delight in if you've recently read the book.

One of the main themes of the book is about facing fear. The four main characters are all courageous in their different ways. The lion thinks he doesn't have courage because he has fear. But courage we discover has nothing to do with fear - it's working out what the right thing is to do and doing it. In more detail, it's concentrating on what needs to be done (Dorothy), figuring out how to do it (Straw Man), & following through on the decision and doing it (Tin Man). which each character demonstrates whenever they are faced with a problem, and which the lion too ultimately realizes.

Although Baum denied any deeper meanings, the Wizard of Oz has also been interpreted as an allegory of the 19th century depression.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7933175.stm

The Munchkins all dressed in blue are the workers enslaved by the banking and industrial corporations in the East, represented by the Wicked Witch of the East who after the tornado takes a hit from Dorothy's house (a literal housing crash) and melts away. And the Munchkin song shows they are not very motivated by what they do:

We get up at twelve
And start to work at one
Take an hour for lunch
And then at two we're done

So they begin their quest by setting off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz!, in the same way that people seek solutions from their leaders, but the wizard turns out to be a fraud and at the end of the journey they find everything they were looking for within themselves...

Summary: A truly beautiful story!