The Wizard of Oz

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Title page of the original English edition from 1900

The Wizard of Oz is a children's book by the American writer Lyman Frank Baum . The story was published in 1900 under the original title The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (later also under the title The Wizard of Oz ) with illustrations by William Wallace Denslow . Because of the great success, Baum and other authors wrote numerous sequels. The first translation into German appeared in Switzerland in 1940 .

Many Americans grew up with this story and are as familiar with it as German-speaking Central Europeans are with the fairy tales of Hansel and Gretel or Little Red Riding Hood . The film adaptations, the most famous of which was made with Judy Garland in the role of "Dorothy" in 1939 ( The Magical Land ) , contributed to their level of awareness and recognition value .

action

Dorothy meets the lion - illustration from the first edition
The Wicked Witch of the West

The main characters of the story

Main characters of the story are Dorothy Gale, a young girl from Kansas , her little dog Toto, the Scarecrow , who like mind would have the Tin Man, which lacks the heart, and the Cowardly Lion who lacks courage. The adversaries of Dorothy and her companions are numerous. They include the Wicked Witch of the West, wolves , crows , bees , the winged monkeys who have to obey the golden magic cap, spiders, fighting trees, hammerheads and the eponymous Wizard of Oz himself. The inhabitants of a china town also perform, all of them themselves made of porcelain.

In the land of the Munchkins

Dorothy lives with her uncle Henry, her aunt Emmy and the dog Toto on a farm in Kansas . When a hurricane hit the region, Dorothy does not manage to escape to the storm cellar in time. The cyclone takes the entire farmhouse with it, and with it Dorothy and her dog. After hours of travel, the storm drops the house on a meadow in the land of the Munchkins (some translations also: Mümmler) and buries the Wicked Witch of the East under the house. This ruled over the Munchkins until then.

Together with the Munchkins, the Good Witch of the North welcomes the landed Dorothy and hands her the silver shoes that the Bad Witch of the East wore when she was killed by the landing farmhouse. To find her way back home, the Good Witch advises her to take the yellow brick path to the Emerald City and ask the Wizard of Oz for help there. As a farewell, the Good Witch kisses Dorothy on the forehead and promises her that this kiss will ensure that no one can harm her.

On the way to town, Dorothy picks up the scarecrow from the stake it is hanging from; she also makes sure that the Tin Man can move again and encourages the Cowardly Lion to travel to town with her. All three are convinced that the Wizard of Oz will give them what they want most: the scarecrow brains, the cowardly lion courage and the tin man a heart. They therefore join Dorothy and her dog Toto.

In the emerald city

When they reach the Emerald City, where they have to wear special glasses in order not to be blinded by the city's splendor, they are only allowed to step in front of the Wizard of Oz one by one. This appears to everyone in a different form. Dorothy sees him as a gigantic head, the scarecrow sees a beautiful woman, the tin man he sees as a dangerous predator, and the lion is faced with a ball of fire. The magician promises to help each of them. But first they have to fulfill one condition: one of them has to kill the Wicked Witch of the West who rules the land of Winkie. Dorothy sets off with her companions.

The Wicked Witch of the West sends wolves, crows, bees, her Winkie soldiers and ultimately the winged monkeys, summoned with the help of the golden magic cap, to meet Dorothy and her company. Finally, they succumb to the winged monkeys; Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion are captured, the Scarecrow and the Tin Man are destroyed by the Winged Monkeys.

In the palace of the Wicked Witch of the West

Illustration of the first edition

As a prisoner, Dorothy has to work as the Wicked Witch's maid, and the Cowardly Lion is supposed to pull her carriage. The lion, however, refuses to work, even though he is not given any food as a punishment. However, Dorothy secretly looks after him at night. She still wears the silver shoes that have magical powers. The wicked witch can use a trick to get hold of one of the shoes. Out of anger, Dorothy pours a bucket of water over the witch's head, whereupon the witch melts. The Winkies are so pleased to have got rid of their tyrant by Dorothy that they help her put the Scarecrow and the Tin Man back together. The Winkies are so taken with the Tin Man that they ask him to become their new ruler. He gladly accepts the offer, but first wants to help Dorothy return to Kansas.

Back in the emerald city

With the help of the golden magic cap, Dorothy summons the winged monkeys, which she and her companions carry back to the emerald city. The Wizard of Oz tries to avoid encountering them, but lets Dorothy and her companions into the empty throne room when Dorothy threatens the Winged Monkeys. In the throne room, the Wizard of Oz turns out to be a wise, old man who had landed a balloon ride from Omaha to the realm of Oz. Because of his unusual means of transport, the locals thought he was a powerful magician. As the Wizard of Oz, he began to rule his empire between the domains of witches. With the help of sophisticated effects, he appeared as a powerful magician.

Although the Wizard of Oz tries to convince the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lions that they lack neither mind, heart nor courage, but only belief in themselves, he has to give everyone a dummy drug first so that they are really convincing are that they have the qualities that they have already shown during the previous storyline. In order to keep his promise to Dorothy and Toto to bring them back to Kansas, however, he has to reactivate his old hot air balloon and ride with them. One last time he shows himself to the inhabitants as a powerful magician and, because of her intelligence, names the scarecrow as his successor. Dorothy, however, missed the balloon departure because she had to catch her dog.

The way home

Dorothy now turns to the Winged Monkeys with the desire to carry them and Toto home. But the monkeys are unable to cross the desert that surrounds Oz. The citizens of the Emerald City advise Dorothy to turn to Glinda, the Good Witch of the South. After a dangerous journey, during which the scarecrow, the tin man and the cowardly lion prove their courage, their mind and their heart once more and the lion wins a kingdom, they reach the palace of Glinda, where they are warmly received. Only Glinda reveals to Dorothy that the silver shoes she wore all the time have magical power to bring her home. In tears, Dorothy separates from the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion, who return to their respective kingdoms. But Dorothy and Toto return to Kansas, where they are happily welcomed by their aunt and uncle. Her uncle has already built a new house and Dorothy knows that she can no longer return because she lost her silver shoes on her return trip across the desert.

The history of origin

Lyman Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz

Lyman Frank Baum, born in 1856, pursued a wide variety of interests during his professional career. He was first successful as a poultry farmer, then became an actor and briefly owned his own theater , for which he wrote the plays and in whose male lead he appeared himself. In October 1888 he opened a general store in Aberdeen, South Dakota , which he called Baum's Bazaar , but which he had to close again in January 1890. He owned his own newspaper for 15 months until he had to discontinue it in 1891 due to economic failure and began to work as a representative for a Chicago glass and porcelain wholesaler.

During this time, his mother-in-law, Matilda Joslyn Gage , a prominent women's rights activist who had already been active as an editor, saw him telling his sons children's stories one evening. She suggested that he write the stories down and publish them, and gave him hope that he would be as successful with them as Lewis Carroll with his book Alice in Wonderland . Baum actually applied for title protection for two collections of children's stories on June 17, 1896. Mother Goose in Prose , a collection of children's poems illustrated by Maxfield Parrish , was published in 1897. The book was only moderately successful, and its publisher Chauncy L. Williams had to sell his publisher due to some bad economic decisions in early 1898 to another publisher, which did not reissue the book.

For Baum, however, the modest success of Mother Goose in Prose was the reason to quit his job as a sales representative and to found a magazine for window dressers together with his former publisher. This made the Chicago Press Club open to him, and there he met William Wallace Denslow , who already had some success as an artist and book illustrator. Together with him he created the picture book Father Goose, his book , for which they were able to win the George M. Hill Company as publisher. The first edition of 5,700 copies of Father Goose sold very quickly, the book became the most successful picture book of 1900 and the reviewers, including Mark Twain , received a lot of praise for this book, which they combined with the books by Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear compared.

The success was the reason for the publisher George M. Hill Company to publish two more books with poems by Baum. The Army Alphabet and The Navy Alphabet were not illustrated by Denslow, but by Harry Kennedy .

Long before Father Goose was a commercial success, Baum and Denslow had started work on another children's book, the later Wizard of Oz . This book, for which Baum could not find a suitable title for a long time, was to be published by Hill. The first bound copies appeared on May 28, 1900, even if the official copyright date is August 1900. 5,000 books were sold after just 14 days. The Wizard of Oz was the top-selling children's book during the 1900 Christmas season .

Impact history

The first reactions from the critics

Mark Twain was among the earliest reviewers of the Wizard of Oz

Even before going to print, Baum was firmly convinced that he had created a very special book. He deliberately wrote The Wizard of Oz as a modern fairy tale because he valued the stories of the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen , but found them to be out of date because of their literary style.

The reviews of his book have varied - again it has been compared to Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and not always the comparison was in favor of Baum. However, a number of other reviewers pointed out that this book was very different from the usual children's books. The Minneapolis Journal named the book the best children's story of the century on November 18, 1900.

Many reviewers were impressed by Denslow's unusually high quality color illustrations and considered them to be on par with the narrative. The few reviews Baum's later books got when they came out, when Baum had long since ceased to work with Denslow and colored illustrations had become the standard for children's books, suggest that it was indeed the illustrations that made the Wizard of Oz stand out from the crowd who highlighted apparitions and drew the attention of critics to this book.

The Wizard of Oz compared to other children's books of its time

Baum used a clear, straightforward style in The Wizard of Oz and was able to convey the atmosphere to the reader with just a few sentences.

“When Dorothy looked around from the door, she could only see what she always saw: the wide gray prairie everywhere. Neither tree nor house rose from the flat landscape that reached to the horizon. The sun had baked the plowed land into a gray mass with small cracks running through it. Not even the grass was green, for the sun had scorched the tips of the long green grasses. Now they looked as gray as everything else. Uncle Henry had painted the house times ago, but the sun had faded the colors. And now it looked just as boring and gray as the surroundings.
Aunt Em had been a pretty girl when she moved here. But the sun and wind had changed them too. The glow was gone from her eyes. They looked sober and gray. They had also erased the red of the cheeks and lips; they too were gray. She looked thin and gaunt and never smiled. "

With this reference to reality Baum's story differed in particular from the children's books published in the USA at the time, which were often shaped by the small-minded, bigoted morality of Sunday schools, which were sentimental in their narrative style, wanted to teach and educate children. For Cathleen Schine , the passage from the first chapter cited above was later the occasion to call the Wizard of Oz a "bleak, flat slap in the rosy face of children's literature" - which was meant positively. Baum's writing style also differed markedly from the more verbose, literary style of his contemporaries, which in the coming decades occasionally earned the Wizard of Oz accusations of being poorly written.

Despite the frequent comparisons to Alice in Wonderland , none of the contemporary critics noticed how "American" Dorothy was compared to Lewis Carroll's character, Alice. Only later critics dealt extensively with this difference. The novelist Alison Lurie noted in a review for The New York Review of Books on April 18, 1974 that Alice was a typical child of the British upper-middle class:

“Alice [is] much more concerned with behavioral and social status issues. She worries about how to properly address a mouse, and she's glad she doesn't have to live in a tiny house. Dorothy already lives in a tiny house. Demographers would class her as a member of the rural lower class, but she takes her equality with everyone she meets for granted. "

Carol Ryrie Brink , another American children's author, was one of the first to describe Baum's 1947 book as one of the few really successful American children's books.

Not suitable for children?

The fearful lion, illustration of the first edition

Carol Ryrie Brink made Baum's story an American children's book classic at a time when Baum's book was already highly controversial. Many librarians and critics complained that the book was poorly written. On the one hand, Baum's simple, straightforward style contributed to this, which clearly stood out from the more literary stories of Hans Christian Andersen, Kenneth Grahame or Robert Louis Stevenson . On the other hand, Baum loved the use of puns, which many literary critics viewed as low-level and flat.

Another negative effect was the fact that Baum's books contained a political message. As early as 1938, a journalist criticized in an article entitled The Red Wizard of Oz that only The Wizard of Oz could be found in the libraries of the New York Public Library , but none of the other Oz books. The journalist suspected that the reason was that Baum's description of Oz was equated with a Marxist utopia. This interpretation of Baum's works intensified during the McCarthy era . In 1957, the head of the Detroit Public Library explained that Baum's books would no longer be kept publicly accessible, but could only be borrowed on request. He justified this with the fact that the stories were neither edifying nor uplifting, that they were of poor quality, that they promoted negativism and that better children's books had long been available. In the US state of Florida , Baum's books were on a list of books from 1959 that public libraries were not allowed to lend, buy or accept as a gift. Baum's books were also not borrowable in Washington DC until 1966.

This attitude has changed over the past few decades. The fact that the MGM musical from 1939 was broadcast annually on US television from 1956 onwards and thus the film and the book established themselves as classics in the consciousness of the US public contributed to this not insignificantly. In 1961 a first lengthy essay on the author Baum appeared in a respected literary magazine, in 1990 a television film was dedicated to the author Baum, and the US Library of Congress organized an exhibition in honor of Baum and to mark the centenary of the Wizard of Oz's publication in 2000 the wizard from Oz .

Even so, in 1986 a federal judge in Greeneville, Tennessee ruled that it was against the constitution for fundamentalist Christians to read the Wizard of Oz at school. The story of the Wizard of Oz is anti-Christian because it describes good witches, does not know the Bible and because it takes the view that intelligence, love and courage can be developed by the individual instead of being viewed as God-given. Most of the Christian schools do not share this view. In 1996, for example, a Vatican Commission of the Catholic Church chose the MGM film adaptation of the book to be included in the Vatican's list of only forty-five films on the grounds that this film represented the perspective of the Church.

Effect on other writers

Illustration of the first edition

Quite a number of writers are admirers of this children's book. They include, for example, James Thurber , F. Scott Fitzgerald , Gore Vidal , John Updike and Salman Rushdie .

Many science fiction authors have expressed their appreciation for this work in the more than 110 years since the book was published. Robert A. Heinlein , for example, makes several references to Baum's books in his books. For example, Heinlein has his Martian heroine say in Citizens of Mars (1963) that her ideas about the earth come mainly from the Oz stories. In Keith Laumer's The Other Side of Time , 1814, the earth splits into two parallel universes, and in both of them a Lyman F. Baum writes a book called The Wizard of Oz . In Ray Bradbury's story The Exiles from The Illustrated Man , L. Frank Baum is one of the forbidden writers who, along with literary greats like Edgar Allan Poe , Charles Dickens , Henry James and Nathaniel Hawthorne , is exiled to Mars while theirs on Earth Books are burned.

Used parodistically, the Wizard of Oz is bewitched among others by Terry Pratchett in Total .

Tad Williams dedicates his own VR simulation to the Wizard of Oz in the second part of his four-volume novel Otherland . The straw man, the tin man and the lion appear here as evil and frightening beings; Williams has turned their original characteristics into the negative. The figure of Emily can be understood as a reminiscence of Dorothy: a clone creature that has been replicated many times over and that populates the vastness of the magical land and is abused as "human material".

Stephen King uses motifs from the Wizard of Oz in various places in his work. Then pulls the Great and Terrible Oz as a threatening, constantly present leitmotif through his novel of cuddly toys cemetery . In his cycle of novels, The Dark Tower , the Wizard of Oz is referred to several times , especially in the fourth volume, Glass , in which the companions of the quest have to face a figure in an emerald palace who poses as the Wizard of Oz.

In his novel Was (1992, not yet available in German), Canadian-born writer Geoff Ryman combines a very free retelling of the story of Dorothy from Kansas and that of actress Judy Garland, who played Dorothy in the 1939 film, to create a moving one Drama.

In 1992 , the Austrian children's book author Martin Auer dressed the Oz material in a more contemporary language, provided with an alternative ending . Auer's new version, illustrated in color by graphic artist Christoph Eschweiler, was published by Weinheimer Verlag Beltz & Gelberg .

The Zauberland series by Alexander Melentjewitsch Wolkow and other authors takes Baum's material as the starting point for a literarily independent sequel.

In Gregory Maguire's novel Wicked. - The Witches of Oz The true story of the evil Witch of the West is the politically turbulent period described before Dorothy comes to Oz. He accompanies the green-skinned Elphaba from her birth through her school days, her work in the underground against the Wizard of Oz to her reign in the west and her death. The wicked witch of the west is seen as a misunderstood, actually good person with longings, wishes and hopes. Since 2004 Wicked - The Witches of Oz can also be seen as a musical on Broadway and since autumn 2006 in London. The musical started in Stuttgart in November 2007 and in Oberhausen in March 2010.

The Wizard of Oz as an allegory

Familiarity with the characters and the plot led to the fact that US history, psychology or business books occasionally use characters and plot elements from this narrative to explain historical processes, ideas and people's motivation. The author Baum has always denied that his story is an allegory for anything . The person of the Wizard of Oz is modeled after Harry Kellar , the most popular magician in the USA at the time , which is reflected externally in the illustrations by Denslow.

Use in psychology and religion books

Psychologist Sheldon B. Kopp , in an article that appeared in Psychology Today in 1970 , used the plot of the narrative to explain the process patients go through during psychological therapy. This idea was taken up in more detail by the psychologist Madonna Kolbenschlag in her non-fiction book Lost in the Land of Oz . For example, she uses the term "Dorothy pattern" for the process of change that women often experience. For her, Dorothy symbolizes a being "... that learns by going away and going where it has to go, for which there are no role models and few mentors , which is different from most of the systems created by the dominant male culture, feels alienated. " (Kolbenschlag, pp. 18–19)

In his book The Zen of Oz: Ten Spiritual Lessons from Over the Rainbow , Joey Green explored parallels between the Wizard of Oz and Zen Buddhism . In fact, Baum was very familiar with the basic principles of Buddhism , as his mother-in-law, who had a great influence on him, was very interested in Eastern religions. Other authors used the story The Wizard of Oz to clarify what happened in Europe before the outbreak of World War II , although the book was published almost 40 years before it began.

The Wizard of Oz as an allegory on the situation in the USA before 1900

One of the most persistent theories assumes that Baum wrote his story as an allegory of the political and economic conditions in the USA at the end of the 19th century. This idea was and is vigorously contested by both literary scholars and Baum's descendants.

This idea dates back to 1963 when history teacher Henry Littlefield began making his history lessons on US history in the late 19th century livelier and more engaging with the use of characters and storylines from the Wizard of Oz . Together with his students he looked for parallels between the plot of the story and historical events before 1900. In 1964 he published the parallels he and his students had found in an article in the American Quarterly magazine . Littlefield never made the claim that Baum consciously incorporated these topics into his narrative, but pointed out that the book was published in 1900 and that Baum, as a politically interested person and journalist, was well acquainted with the economic and political situation in the United States of his time.

In the years that followed, this idea found a number of imitators who picked up Littlefield's parallels and expanded them further. The idea that Baum actually wrote his story as a political allegory of his time and thus attacked Republican President William McKinley with his monetary policy, for example, increasingly solidified . Literary scholars who have dealt with Baum's political views in more detail deny this. Based on Baum's journalistic work, it can be proven that Baum was more inclined to a republican attitude. As a supporter of McKinley, Baum's basic political beliefs are in clear contradiction to the published interpretations of the book.

Illustration of the original edition

The allegories that are often cited include the following examples:

  • The slightly warm-hearted, straightforward Dorothy symbolizes the US population.
  • The Evil East Witch represents the financial influence of the east coast, where the big banks and companies were based. The suppression of the Munchkins therefore symbolizes the oppression of the average American by these economic circles.
  • The scarecrow represents the American farmer who is said to be poorly educated but has a lot of pragmatic mind.
  • The tin man represents the workers employed in US industry. These are assumed to be heartless; in reality they were characterized by a strong willingness to cooperate.
  • The cowardly lion stands for the reformers among US-American politicians, especially for William Jennings Bryan .
  • Like the Wicked Witch of the East, the Wizard of Oz symbolizes the politically and economically influential circles within the USA. Though they have a reputation for great power and respect, they are ultimately only charlatans and more pathetic than impressive. This representation in particular is seen as an example of Baum's conviction that the heart of the United States is to be found in the working class and its value system. The Wizard of Oz should therefore be understood as a representation of President William McKinley .

Events in the other Oz books that Baum wrote after the success of The Wizard of Oz are also interpreted in this way and occasionally used as evidence that Baum does refer to the current economic situation with these books. Often cited evidence for this is the sixth book in the Oz series (The Emerald City of Oz) , in which Dorothy's uncle and aunt, who never recovered economically from the storm damage caused by the tornado, lose their farm to a bank due to debt . Dorothy leads her relatives to Oz, where there are no poor. Nobody works for a wage, everyone only works for the benefit of the community. All means of production belong to Princess Ozma of Oz, who makes sure that everyone is taken care of according to their needs.

additional

Due to its great success, Baum expanded the Wizard of Oz into a series about the land of Oz. Other authors also took up the story in order to spin it further into further narratives. For example, the Russian author Alexander Melentjewitsch Volkov used Baum's template to develop his multi-volume and quite independent saga about the wizard of the emerald city by inventing new characters and storylines.

The illustration by Denslow

Illustration by John Tenniel of Alice in Wonderland from 1865 - most 19th century children's books were illustrated with such black and white drawings
Like many of his contemporaries, Denslow was influenced by Japanese woodblock prints. Here the woodcut by Katsushika Hokusai is shown The Great Wave off Kanagawa (ca.1830)
Title page to Chapter 1 by Denslow

The book The Wizard of Oz differed from other children's books of its time mainly because of its unusually magnificent illustrations that corresponded to the art style of the turn of the century. Children's books that were published during this time were mostly provided with black and white drawings, which were often only sketchy.

The production process for the book was very complex due to the illustrations. Four printing plates were required for the color plates in the center of the book. The first was a zinc etching , which was printed as a so-called "black plate ", and there were also three woodcuts , each printed in red, yellow and light blue. Zinc etchings were also used for the illustrations in the text, which were printed in color using a printing process that was only patented in 1879.

As an artist, Denslow was strongly influenced by Japanese woodblock prints. Since 1850, Japanese woodblock prints with a particularly high technical and artistic level had come to Europe in large numbers, where they had mainly influenced impressionists such as Claude Monet and Edgar Degas and influenced North American artists through European artists. Denslow's works show the influence of Japanese art with the strong black line, the compact color areas, the concentration on the essentials and the clearly structured structures. The art nouveau style is also clearly visible .

Art critics consider the illustrations Denslow created for the Wizard of Oz to be one of his best works, and the art critic JM Bowles declared Denslow an "impressionist for the little ones" in 1903 , who banished everything inessential from his drawings. Many of the reviewers were also enthusiastic about the pictures, sometimes praising them more than the text or attributing the success of the book mainly to them.

Denslow's little childlike drawing of Dorothy was occasionally criticized. Baum's later remarks and letters from his wife Maud also suggest that Baum shared this assessment. Years later he wrote that an author seldom agreed to the illustration of his characters because they seldom corresponded to his idea.

The collaboration between Denslow and Baum ended in 1901 due to disputes in the context of the musical revue The Wizard of Oz planned by Baum . Rivalries between the two artists had existed since the great success of Father Goose . When their joint publisher went bankrupt, it was easy for them to end the period of their joint creation.

Translations

The Wizard of Oz has been translated into more than forty languages; the narrative was repeatedly adapted to local conditions. In some Hindu countries, for example, a snake appears instead of the tin man.

The first authorized translation was not made until 1932 and was a translation into French . It wasn't until the success of the MGM musical in 1939 that the number of languages ​​into which the Wizard of Oz was translated increased significantly.

In 1939, The Wizard of Oz was successfully published in the Soviet Union as Волшебник Изумрудного города ( The Wizard of the Emerald City ) . The author Alexander Volkov chose the route of a retelling, whereby he also subjected the book to major editorial changes and, for example, added a chapter in which Dorothy (who in Volkov's interpretation bears the name Elli) is kidnapped by an ogre. Since all other animals in the magical land can speak, their dog Totoschka can also speak. Furthermore, the lumberjack is made of iron, as this is known to be the only material that rusts.

After the success of the 1959 new edition, Volkov wrote five sequels. After his death, other authors continued the Zauberland series . The Russian graphic artist Leonid Wladimirski created watercolor- like drawings for the six Volkov books . In contrast to the American illustrations created by WW Denslow, the scarecrow drawn by the Russian illustrator Leonid Wladimirski, for example, is a small and rounded figure. With his graphic interpretation, Wladimirski shaped the visual perception of the Volkov books in the Soviet Union, the GDR and other countries.

The first German translation took place in 1940. In the GDR , the translation of the Russian retelling by Alexander Wolkow The Magician of the Emerald City and its sequels became known. A GDR edition of the original did not appear until 1988. In the Federal Republic of Germany the book was first published in 1964. When it came to translations, it was often difficult to use the English proper names. The "Wizard of Oz" became the "Wizard of Oos" or "of the Ozenreich". Denslow's drawings were not made in Germany until the 1990s.

The translations succeed to varying degrees in reproducing the charm of Baum's story. This is the translation of the beginning of the book by Alfred Könner from 1996:

“Dorothy lived in the middle of the great Kansas prairie - with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, his wife. Her house was small because the timber had to be hauled in from afar. Four walls, a floor and a roof, that was the whole house. In the room there was a rusted stove, a kitchen cupboard, a table, three or four chairs and the beds. Uncle Henry and Aunt Em had a large bed in one corner. Dorothy's little bed was set up in another.
There was no attic at all and no cellar, except for a cave dug into the ground called a storm hole. Everyone hid there when one of the huge hurricanes approached. They swept up every house on their way. There was a trap door in the middle of the floor. A ladder led into the narrow, dark hole. "

The translation by Freya Stephan-Kühn from 2001 deviates from it in small passages:

“Dorothy lived with Uncle Henry, a farmer, and Aunt Em, his wife, in the middle of the great Kansas prairies. Her house was small because the wooden beams had to be carted for miles to build. It consisted of four walls and a floor, a room with a rusty stove, a cupboard for dishes, a table, three or four chairs and the beds. Uncle Henry and Aunt Em had a large bed in one corner and Dorothy a small one in another. There was no attic or cellar - apart from a small hole in the floor. This was called the cyclone cellar. This is where the family could take refuge if one of those huge hurricanes hit the country, so powerful that they destroy every building that gets in their way. You could get into the small, dark hole with the help of a ladder if you had opened the trap door in the floor. "

Even translations that manage to retain the straightforward style of Baum's original version also in German are mostly unable to translate Baum's puns. In Alfred Könner's translation, the scarecrow speaks in a croaking voice. In the English original, the scarecrow standing in the maize field has "a rather husky voice" - "husky" not only means hoarse, but also includes the word "husk" , which is used to describe the husk of the maize. Children generally like word games that challenge their language skills and require mental agility. Today's literary critics, on the other hand, tend to reject pure word games based on coincidental sonic similarities. Baum loved word games and often used them in his books - this may have contributed to the criticism that his books were poorly written (see also section Unsuitable for children? )

Film adaptations

The story has been adapted several times for both the theater and the film. A first musical variant was performed for the first time in 1902 and proved to be very successful. Baum himself produced his first film in 1917 with the story as its content, and in a film version entitled Auf nach Illustrien from 1925, Oliver Hardy played the tin man.

The best-known film adaptation is The Wizard of Oz from 1939 with the young Judy Garland as Dorothy, who is also known in Germany under the title The Magic Land . This film, which was produced with major problems such as the exchange of directors, was one of the first American color films and is still one of the most famous films in the USA to this day. The degree of familiarity of the characters and plot is therefore more due to this film than to the book. The music numbers from this film, including Over the Rainbow , are catchy tunes to this day. In the film, the silver magic shoes were replaced by more eye-catching red sequin pumps. These pumps fetched $ 165,000 at auction in 1988 and $ 666,000 in May 2000. One of the most famous scenes in the film shows the Munchkins dancing around the farmhouse that killed the Wicked Witch of the East, with only the red shoes sticking out from under the house. This scene has contributed significantly to the association between red shoes and witches in the English-speaking world. Against this background it can also be seen that the author Terry Pratchett equipped one of his Discworld witches with red shoes. This association has also been implemented in German-speaking countries. The wicked witch Rabia in Bibi Blocksberg has a fetish for red shoes.

The Turkish film adaptation Ayşecik ve sihirli cüceler rüyalar ülkesinde (English: Little Aysche and the seven dwarfs in the land of dreams ), which appeared in 1971, combines Snow White and the Wizard of Oz. The Turkish Wizard of Oz has established itself as an alternative title for the film . The film is criticized for the low budget of the film recordings and its sometimes pointless film scenes and poor faithfulness to the original, but is repeatedly described as very entertaining, sometimes also as the "silliest, but the most entertaining film adaptation". In addition, it is repeatedly noted in the various film reviews that the scarecrow appears more explicitly homosexual in the Turkish version than in the Hollywood versions. Dorothy is called Ayşecik (Little Aysche) in this version because the leading actress, the 17-year-old former child star Zeynep Değirmencioğlu in this film , was called Little Aysche in all of her films .

The 1974 feature film Zardoz (main actor Sean Connery) tells of the ruler Zardoz, who turns out to be a "charlatan" based on the Wi - ZARD - of - OZ .

Oz: A Fantastic World is an American fantasy film from 1985, the story of which takes place in the fall of 1899. The film is based on the two novels In the Realm of the Wizard Oz and Ozma von Oz by Lyman Frank Baum and continues the plot of the MGM musical film The Wizard of Oz .

1986 was in Japan with "Ozu no Mahōtsukai" (オ ズ の 魔法 使 い) a cartoon version with a total of 52 episodes first broadcast. It was produced by Nippon Animation Studio, which also implemented other famous children's book classics (including Betty and her sisters , The Jungle Book , Heidi , The Treasure Island ). In Germany, the anime series entitled "In the Land of the Wizard of Oz" ran in the 1990s on the private broadcaster RTL2. In addition to the first Oz novel, it also dealt with continuing novels such as "In the realm of the wizard Oz", "Ozma of Oz" and "Dorothy in the Emerald City".

In 2004, The Wizard of Oz with the Muppets was made into a film. The role of Dorothy was played by Ashanti Douglas in Muppets: The Wizard of Oz .

In December 2007 RHI Entertainment and the TV channel SciFi Channel realized the three-part US miniseries Tin Man as a revised, modern but largely book-based science fiction / fantasy fairy tale directed by Nick Willing with actors Zooey Deschanel and Richard Dreyfuss , Alan Cumming , Raoul Trujillo , Neal McDonough, and Kathleen Robertson . In Germany, the series was broadcast in 2009 as a shortened two-parter (original version USA: three parts) on SciFi . Unlike in Great Britain, for example, the German DVD and BluRay versions are also sold as a version cut from 279 minutes to 178 minutes.

As an adult children's author, director Leigh Scott plays the character of Dorothy Gale in his 2011 film The Witches of Oz . The children's book author Dorothy writes about stories in Oz-Land and has to recognize in the New York of the present that she actually experienced the supposedly made-up stories that she puts on paper as a child, whereby her memory of them was merely suppressed.

Also in 2011 the cartoon version Tom and Jerry & The Wizard of Oz was released by Warner Brothers with a length of 57 minutes, in color and format 16: 9. The most famous music numbers from the classic film version are used here. The drawn characters also largely correspond to the classic figures.

In spring 2013, The Fantastic World of Oz , a Walt Disney- produced prequel to the Wizard of Oz, was released . James Franco stars in the title role as Oscar Diggs . Mila Kunis as the Wicked Witch of the West, Michelle Williams as Glinda and Rachel Weisz as Evanora, the Wicked Witch of the East can also be seen in other roles . Directed by Sam Raimi .

In 2017 the Russian cartoon Urfin, the Wizard of Oz was made . It is essentially based on Alexander Volkov's second book The Cunning Urfin and His Wooden Soldiers . But: While in Wolkow the girl (with the dog Totoschka) is called Elli, in the German version of this cartoon - like in Baum - she is called Dorothy. However, it is a Dorothy of today who ends up in the land of Oz with her dog when she tries out silver shoes from a closet. Urfin took over the rule there with his wooden army. She should now help to liberate the land of Oz again.

Radio

  • Thomas Gaevert : Ways to Oz - radio feature; Production: Südwestrundfunk 2009 - 55 minutes; First broadcast: June 21, 2009, 3:05 p.m., SWR2 feature on Sunday

Theater productions

Since the book was published, The Wizard of Oz has been successfully performed as a theater play on stages around the world.

The Wizard of Oz in Music

revue

As early as 1902, Baum wrote a musical review, also entitled The Wizard of Oz . The original manuscript was from Baum, who kept close to his book. Julian Mitchell, who had already successfully brought a number of musical revues to the stage, thought this manuscript was unsuitable for the stage. He only wanted to take over the staging if the libretto was completely rewritten. The result was a number revue that bore little resemblance to the book. Dorothy is accompanied by a cow named Imogene instead of the dog Toto, and a number of new characters appear on the stage.

The revue premiered on June 16, 1902 and was a great success from the start. It is considered the most successful revue of its time. It is no longer played today, however, as neither the music nor the libretto are considered contemporary.

Musicals

The stage adaptations also include a very successful musical that was performed on Broadway in 1970 under the title The Wiz with an all-black cast. The director Sidney Lumet filmed this musical as The Wiz in 1978 with Diana Ross as Dorothy and Michael Jackson as the scarecrow, the film captivating with Motown Soul songs arranged by music producer Quincy Jones .

The successful Broadway musical Wicked - The Witches of Oz (premiered in 2003) is based on the novel of the same name by Gregory Maguire . Wicked is a revisionist look at the land and characters of Oz.

In 2011, Lord Andrew Lloyd Webber and Jeremy Sams adapted the story as a jukebox musical for London's West End . In it they used the songs from the classic film from 1939. Among other things, the musical received an Olivier nomination for best newly staged musical and won two What's-on-Stage Awards ( audience award ) in the categories “Best New Musical Staging” and “Best Supporting Actress (Musical ) “( Hannah Waddingham ).

ballet

The 2011 children's book was adapted for the dance stage by the choreographer Giorgio Madia . As OZ - The Wonderful Wizard , the material was premiered as a dance piece with Vladimir Malakhov (as the magician of OZ) and Polina Semionova (as Dorothy) with the Staatsballett Berlin . Musically, this version is based on compositions by Dmitri D. Shostakovich .

Music albums

For more than 30 years it has been assumed that the Pink Floyd album The Dark Side of the Moon was a setting of the classic 1939 film. A number of music fans claim that when the CD and the film are played in parallel, the music of Pink Floyd occasionally reproduces the visual impressions of the film very clearly. For example, on the Pink Floyd album, a bicycle bell can be heard at the exact moment when a bicycle passes by in the film. And Pink Floyd sang about falling into an abyss when Dorothy is balancing on a fence in the film. Pink Floyd have not yet commented on this assumption.

The Spanish heavy metal band Mägo de Oz named themselves after the Spanish title of this work.

The band Toto was named after the dog of the same name from history.

The song "Emerald City" (1967) by the group The Seekers refers to the emerald city.

The American rock band Melvins released the album Ozma in 1989 , a tribute to Princess Ozma.

Thomas Bürkholz wrote a musical of the same name that premiered in 2000 at the theater summer in Garmisch-Partenkirchen .

The German-American heavy metal band Demons & Wizards interpreted the work in their own way in the song Wicked Witch . It equates the death of the Witch of the West with the death of fantasy and magic, which is essential for growing up.

In 1973 Elton John released the album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road . The cover and the song of the same name refer to “The Magic of Oz”.

The cover of the album "Eldorado" by the band Electric Light Orchestra , released in 1974, shows the film scene in which the witch of the east tries to steal Dorothy's shoes.

Blizzard of Ozz was the title of Ozzy Osbourne's first solo album , after his (first) career as a singer with the band Black Sabbath .

literature

First edition

  • The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (also The Wizard of Oz ). George M. Hill Company, Chicago / New York 1900.

German translations

More Oz novels by L. Frank Baum

  • The Marvelous Land of Oz (also The Land of Oz ). Reilly and Britton Company, Chicago 1904.
    German: In the realm of the magician Oz . Translated by Christine Hettinger. Heyne, Munich 1981.
  • Ozma of Oz . Reilly and Britton Company, Chicago 1907.
    German: Princess Ozma von Oz . Trans. V. Christine Hettinger. Heyne, Munich 1981.
  • Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz . Reilly and Britton Company, Chicago 1908.
    German: Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz . Trans. V. Esmy Berlt. LeiV, Leipzig 1999.
  • The Road to Oz . Reilly and Britton Company, Chicago 1909.
    German: Dorothy auf Zauberwege . Übers. Esmy Berlt. LeiV, Leipzig 2000.
  • The Emerald City of Oz . Reilly and Britton Company, Chicago 1910.
    German: Dorothy in der Smaragdenstadt Übers. Esmy Berlt. LeiV, Leipzig 2001.
  • The Patchwork Girl of Oz . Reilly and Britton Company, Chicago 1913.
    German: Dorothy und das Patchwork-Mädchen Übers. Esmy Berlt. LeiV, Leipzig 2003.
  • Tik-Tok of Oz . Reilly and Britton Company, Chicago 1914.
    German: Tik-Tak von Oz Übers. Maria Weber. BoD, Norderstedt 2018.
  • The Scarecrow of Oz . Reilly and Britton Company, Chicago 1915.
    German: The Scarecrow of Oz transl. Maria Weber. BoD, Norderstedt 2018.
  • Rinkitink in Oz . Reilly and Britton Company, Chicago 1916.
    German: Rinkitink in Oz Übers. Maria Weber. BoD, Norderstedt 2018.
  • The Lost Princess of Oz . Reilly and Britton Company, Chicago 1917.
    German: The missing Princess of Oz transl. Maria Weber. BoD, Norderstedt 2019.
  • The Tin Woodman of Oz . Reilly and Lee Company, Chicago 1918.
    German: The Tin Man of Oz Translator Maria Weber. BoD, Norderstedt 2019.
  • The Magic of Oz . Reilly and Lee Company, Chicago 1919.
    German: The Magic of Oz Translator Maria Weber. BoD, Norderstedt 2019.
  • Glinda of Oz . Reilly and Lee Company, Chicago 1920.
    German: Glinda von Oz Übers. Maria Weber. BoD, Norderstedt 2019.

More Oz books in German

Oz comic in German

  • David Chauvel (text), Enrique Fernández (drawings): The Wizard of Oz. Ehapa Comic Collection. Egmont-vgs-Verl.-Ges., Cologne 2006, ISBN 3-7704-2915-X .
  • Eric Shanower (text), Skottie Young (drawings): The Wizard of Oz. Panini Comics, Stuttgart 2012, ISBN 978-3-86201-281-7 .
  • Eric Shanower (text), Skottie Young (drawings): Ozma von Oz. Panini Comics, Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 978-3-86201-475-0 .
  • Eric Shanower (text), Skottie Young (drawings): Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz. Panini Comics, Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 978-3-86201-661-7 .
  • Eric Shanower (text), Skottie Young (drawings): The magical land of Oz. Panini Comics, Stuttgart 2014, ISBN 978-3-86201-949-6 .
  • Eric Shanower (text), Skottie Young (drawings): The Road to Oz. Panini Comics, Stuttgart 2014, ISBN 978-3-95798-097-7 .
  • Eric Shanower (text), Skottie Young (drawings): The Emerald City of Oz.Panini Comics, Stuttgart 2015, ISBN 978-3-95798-186-8 .

Oz comic in English

  • Eric Shanower (text), Skottie Young (drawings): The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.Marvel Comics Group, 2009, ISBN 978-0-7851-2921-9 .

Secondary literature

  • Michael Patrick Hearn (Ed.): All About the Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. Europa Verlag, Hamburg 2003, ISBN 3-203-75550-5 .
  • Lucille Grindhammer: Afterword. In: L. Frank Baum: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Reclam Fremdsprachentexte. Reclam, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 3-15-009001-6 .
  • Ranjit S. Dighe (Ed.): The Historian's Wizard of Oz - Reading L. Frank Baum's Classic as a Political and Monetary Allegory. Praegur Publishers, Westport Con 2002, ISBN 0-275-97418-9 .
  • Eleanor D. Payson: The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists. Julian Day Publications, Royal Oak Mich 2002, ISBN 0-9720728-3-7 .

Web links

Commons : The Wonderful Wizard of Oz  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Auer: The wonderful magician of Oz. Based on the novel by Frank L. Baum . Beltz & Gelberg, Weinheim 1992.
  2. ↑ Linda O'Keeffe: Shoes - A tribute to sandals, loafers, high heels . Könnemann Verlagsgesellschaft, Cologne 1997, ISBN 3-89508-467-0 .
  3. ↑ The Wizard of Oz (1939) - Trivia. In: The Internet Movie Database.
  4. ^ Independent Movies ( Memento January 1, 2009 in the Internet Archive ).
  5. ↑ Critique of Midnight Cinema ( Memento from May 17, 2008 in the Internet Archive ).
  6. ↑ All Oz films .
  7. ↑ IMDb.com: Tom and Jerry & The Wizard of Oz Video 2011
  8. ↑ [1]
  9. ↑ Cartoon: Urfin, the Wizard of Oz
This article was added to the list of excellent articles on June 20, 2005 in this version .