AN AESTHETIC OF NONSENSE PT. 3

 If, in my previous writings on the rationales for metaphenomenal fantasy, I've given the impression that nonsense-fantasy was a new creation, I should correct that by mentioning that a fair number of archaic tales invoke the rationale of "just because." In fact, in Chapter 7 of Susanne Langer's PHILOSOPHY IN A NEW KEY (which I referenced in yesterday's post), Langer begins her generally unflattering description of simple folktales with some examples from Melanesian lore. Her first example, for instance, involves a buffalo and a crocodile having a dispute, whereon they ask various other animals, or even inanimate objects like a mortar and a floor-mat, to judge the quarrel. The idea of attributing life even to clearly nonliving things seems to me more extreme than that of talking animals who behave like people, though both are examples of nonsense-fantasy. Another example of non-living things being given life appears in the (presumably much later) Japanese conception of tsukumogami.                                                       

The Aesop's fables offer a lesser range of nonsense-fantasy. Sometimes the animals therein are shown only doing regular animal activities, as in "The Dog and the Bone," with the exception that the animal may be given some degree of human intelligence. Other stories show such creatures like the Fox and the Stork dining together and using human utensils.                                                              

In the annals of literature, the example of Lewis Carroll's Alice-verse stands as one of the most sustained examples of pure nonsense-fantasy. However, L. Frank Baum's later Oz books might be termed "impure nonsense-fantasies." Sometimes Baum's world follows rough rules about what its system of magic can accomplish, with its witches and flying monkeys and prophetic hats. Other times, though, the world stretches to include a number of entities I'd consider "just because" fantasies, like the Hammerheads and the porcelain-people of China Country. I'd have to read more of the Oz books to judge whether the logic of magic or that of "just because" holds greater sway overall.                                                                               

As impressive as some of the nonsense-fantasies of both oral and written stories might be, those that appeared in early American cartoons might outdo them both by sheer preponderance. Felix the Cat, rated as the first major continuing character of those early short cartoons, might be exemplary here. I don't know if he's the first character in all fantasy who could break off a part of himself-- almost always his tail-- and just will it to become some other object, like a fishhook or a question-mark. But thanks to the popularity of Felix, animated cartoons became increasingly associated with the ability to transform themselves, or aspects of their universe, into anything they pleased.           

That acceptance of the "anything goes" propensity of cartoons of course didn't keep some animators from following the more circumscribed pathways of Aesop. Donald Duck debuts in the 1934 cartoon "The Wise Little Hen," which like its source material simply depicts its anthropomorphic creatures dressing like humans and doing human things.                                                                                   

 I tend to believe that the majority of Disney's stories about anthropomorphic creatures follow the Aesopian pattern, in which clothes-wearing ducks and mice and dogs go around doing all sorts of human things, not least the mouse named Mickey owning a non-anthropomorphic dog. Carl Barks is justly celebrated for creating scores of stories about Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge having adventures indistinguishable from what humans might do in similar circumstances, with the protagonists' ducky nature being the only "nonsense" element. Once in a while, though, Barks did apprise himself of random nonsense elements, such as "Lost in the Andes," wherein Donald and his nephews encounter square chickens that lay corresponding square eggs. Some of Barks' stories might be considered another breed of "impure nonsense," in that they combine the base nonsense-fantasy of human-like animals with either scientific or magical rationales. Here's what I wrote about Barks' use of a particular type of magic in his story "Oddball Odyssey:"                                                                                                                                                                                                                       'For her part, Magica provides exposition for the reader about her great new powers, about having "scrounged secrets" from old temples and caves that have given her control over the elements. Most interestingly, Magica advances a fairly sophisticated theory for the origin of the Greek pantheon: "those gods were more likely live sorcerers than figments of ancient dreams." This theory allowed Barks to have his cake and eat it too: he doesn't have to show his witchy villain garnering power from either old gods or, for that matter, Satanic sources. Instead, it's implied that ordinary mortals can generate magic powers from study of the universe's secrets, which is certainly an odd thing to find in a Disney comic book of the period.'                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           Thus endeth my short history lesson, though I expect to reference some of these observations in related essays,

THE READING RHEUM: THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ (1900)

 

At the time Baum's WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ was published, the adult fantasy genre had arguably just been launched, however uncertainly, by William Morris in the decade before his death in 1896. Adult fantasy got off to a slow start in the early twentieth century, but juvenile fantasy had already enjoyed many successes in the Victorian era. Baum's immediately successful book was the first major American fantasy-work, although Great Britain was not slow to follow up with the more complicated genesis of Peter Pan, whose earliest iteration appeared in 1902.

Like most contemporary readers I'm only familiar with the well-known works of juvenile fantasy in this period. Still, I think it's likely that most such works were episodic, like the earlier ALICE books by Carroll. There are many unifying themes and tropes in WIZARD, but I emphasize that for everyone who first experienced the classic 1939 film, one will not find the strictly linear structure of the Hollywood effort. 

The biggest discrepancy I noticed on this re-read is that the title is something of a misnomer. As in the movie, the Wizard of Oz is a humbug who only satisfies the wish-dreams of Dorothy's companions with benign trickery, but who utterly fails to get Dorothy home. Dorothy's Silver Shoes, the legacy of her accidental slaying of the Witch of the East, possess the same inherent power as the movie's ruby slippers: to get her back home immediately. The movie's good witch Glinda withholds this information from the protagonist, but in the novel, the unnamed Witch of the North, who succors Dorothy in Munchkin-land, does not seem to know this. In response to Dorothy's tearful desire to get back to Kansas, the North-Witch transforms her cap into a magical slate, and the slate advises, "LET DOROTHY GO TO THE CITY OF EMERALDS." Note that the oracular slate does not actually tell Dorothy to seek out the Wizard of Oz; that's the North-Witch's interpretation of the message.

Of course the true "wizard" behind the narrative wants Dorothy to go to the Emerald City so that she will encounter all of her "magical friends." Scarecrow, Tin Woodsman and Cowardly Lion, whatever their assorted limitations, are all male and thus make reasonably formidable protectors for Dorothy and Little Toto on her journey. Certainly they are more efficacious masculine presences than the Wizard himself. Neither Baum nor the 1939 movie ever justify the Wizard's claim that he will solve his petitioners' problems if they slay the Witch of the West. But since the Wizard's mainly concerned with protecting his reputation with his subjects, the logical suspicion is that he doesn't really expect the four travelers to accept the task.

Dorothy's three buddies make an impressive stand against the Witch's allies-- wolves, crows, and bees-- but this just forces the sorceress to use her ace in the hole: the flying monkeys, who decimate both the Woodsman and the Scarecrow while abducting Dorothy, Toto and the Lion. A protective spell from the North-Witch ensures that the Witch can't kill Dorothy, so she turns her into a serving-drudge (not sure how different this is from the little girl's Kansas chores) while trying to bend the Lion to her will. (I don't think anything is said about what protects Toto.) It's only when Dorothy is in the Witch's power that the latter realizes that the little girl has the Silver Shoes, so the dried-up old crone tries to steal them. It's at this point that the Witch's imposition of hard chores backfires. Baum's text only says that there's a bucket of water nearby in the kitchen when the Witch trips Dorothy and steals one of her shoes. But since the Witch's dried-up nature is explicitly said to forbid her touching water, it's implicit that Dorothy filled the bucket in order to mop the floor. Though Dorothy has disavowed both any desire, or any ability, to kill anyone, the theft of one Silver Shoe, the only thing she still possesses, enrages her into hurling the water, killing the sorceress.

Through an involved set of circumstances, Dorothy gets the right advice not from any magical entity, but from an unnamed soldier of Oz, who speculates that maybe Glinda, Witch of the South, can help her get to Kansas. Arguably the real purpose of this secondary quest is to make sure all of Dorothy's friends will prosper once she's gone. The now-brainy Scarecrow has already succeeded the absent Wizard in ruling Oz, and in the process of seeking Glinda, the now-courageous Lion finds a forest where he can rule, and the Woodsman expresses a rather belated desire to become the ruler of the Winkies in the West-Witch's former domain. Once this is done, Dorothy wishes herself back home, albeit losing the Silver Shoes in the process. She returns to gray old Kansas, where her uncle has even built a new farmhouse to replace the one lost to Oz-- though in later books, Baum would eventually have his young protagonist move permanently to Oz and leave dull Kansas behind.

Though Dorothy is always presented as a thoroughly average little girl, she fulfills the role of "the reluctant hero," who transforms the lives of her friends and of an entire domain, even though all she wants to do is return home. It's interesting that even though the protagonist does need male protectors, the female Witches are the real repository of knowledge in Oz, and in a symbolic sense Dorothy really is a witch-in-training, acquiring the weapons of her opponents, even though she uses them to set others free from tyranny. In this she reflects an ethos which, while not exclusively American in nature, definitely reflects the reformist American ethos at the time of Baum's authorship. At this time I've read none of the Oz sequels, but I would expect that many of the author's favorite themes and tropes continue to take interesting forms.