Ozma from Oz
Ozma von Oz (alternative title Princess Ozma von Oz ) is a children's book by the American writer Lyman Frank Baum . The story was published in 1907 under the original title Ozma of Oz with illustrations by John R. Neill . This is the third volume of the Oz cycle, which is one of the most popular children's books in the USA and has also been partly published in German.
action
Dorothy travels to Australia with Uncle Henry . Her ship gets caught in a terrible storm and the girl is washed overboard by a wave. Fortunately, she can save herself in a chicken cage that has been washed overboard with her. In this cage is the talking hen Billina, with whom Dorothy befriends.
After a short time the cage is stranded on a wonderful coast, where Dorothy finds a golden key and a warning written in the sand: “Warning of the scooters!” While searching for food, she finds wondrous trees with packed lunches and cans Lunch grow. Dorothy is happy to be able to strengthen herself before she continues on her way. Suddenly she discovers a strange person who has wheels on his body instead of hands and feet. Billina reminds Dorothy of the warning written in the sand, so the girl decides to escape. She doesn't do this a moment too early, because the scooter has spotted her and calls several companions over. Dorothy and Bellina flee onto a hill that the scooters cannot follow them. The rollers furiously threaten Dorothy with death after allegedly forbidden eating from their trees.
With the scooters besieging the hill, waiting for Dorothy and Billina to come back down, the girl takes the opportunity to explore the hill. She finds a rock with a door. Dorothy tries curiously whether the golden key she has found fits. She is lucky and finds the mechanical man Tiktok in the room behind the door. From him she learns that she is in the magical land of Ev, which - only separated by a desert - lies next to Oz . With the help of Tiktok, Dorothy is able to leave the hill. The scooters turn out to be rather cowardly; in spite of their big mouth, they immediately flee when someone struggles against them. From the leader of the scooters, whom Tiktok takes prisoner, they learn that the country is currently ruled by Princess Langwidere. This is a distant relative of King Evolodo, who once sold his wife and ten children to the Nom king in a fit of rage. Later, when he regretted his act, he tried to bring his family back, but the Nom king refused to give them back. In his desperation, King Evolodo first locked Tiktok in the rock chamber and then committed suicide.
Dorothy, Billina and Tiktok decide to go to Evna, the capital of Ev, because it is much more comfortable there than on the beach. Their way leads them to the old royal palace, where they ask for an audience with Princess Langwidere. It has a secret: it is able to change its head at any time. However, it also changes its character. She greets Dorothy with a haughty head and insists on exchanging the girl's head for another. When Dorothy refuses to voluntarily give her head, the princess has her locked in a tower. Tiktok, whose movement mechanics has just expired, can no longer help her.
The next morning, Dorothy looks around and discovers in the desert that separates Oz from the land of Ev, a strange procession that moves on a magic carpet that rolls out and then rolls up again. Led by Ozma von Oz, all her friends, accompanied by twenty-six officers and one soldier, as well as the wooden horse and the eternally hungry tiger, come to Ev. You have learned of the fate of the Evoldos family and want to free them. They are surprised to find that Dorothy is also in Ev. You free them first and then set off together to the land of nouns. Of course, the chicken Billina is also part of the party. After an arduous march they reach his underground palace and are admitted. Ozma demands the surrender of Ev's royal family, but the Nom king refuses. After some negotiations, the Nom-King suggests the following deal. He turned the queen and her children into jewelry. If the people of Oz find these, then let them be free. But only those who found them. However, if you cannot find a single person you are looking for, you will also be transformed into a piece of jewelry. Every seeker has as many attempts as there are to free the transformed. Ozma agrees and tries first. She does not succeed and is also turned into a piece of jewelry. The same thing happens to all other seekers until only Dorothy, the scarecrow, lion, tiger, Tiktok, the wooden horse and Billina are left. Since it is already late, they should continue their search the next day and be assigned a place to stay. Nobody noticed, however, that Billina fell asleep under the throne of the Nom king. In this way she manages to overhear a conversation between him and his body servant. So she learns how to recognize the jewelry.
The search continues the next day. Only Dorothy manages to free one of the Ev princes. The scarecrow and tiktok, on the other hand, are also turned into pieces of jewelry. Lion, tiger, wooden horse and billina shouldn't actually take part in the search. However, Bellina forces them to be admitted too. She does this by laying an egg under the throne. In the kingdom of nouns, however, eggs are highly toxic and spread fear and terror. The Nom-King agrees and Billina can also go looking for the transformed pieces of jewelry. Knowing what to look for, she succeeds in freeing all that have been transformed. Annoyingly, the Nom king no longer wants to keep his promise to release them all. He has his army deployed and wants his friends to be captured. But with the help of Billina's eggs, the Nom army can be put to flight. Dorothy takes advantage of the confusion to secretly take away from the Nom king his magic belt, from which he gains all his power. The nom king has to admit defeat and grumpily lets the friends go.
Back in Evna, Evoldo's eldest son, Evardo, is crowned king. The friends can return to Oz. Dorothy joins them without hesitation. And Billina and Tiktok are also coming.
Back in Oz, Dorothy spends a few nice weeks there. But when she sees in a magic mirror how much Uncle Henry is tormenting himself in Australia over her loss, Dorothy decides to return to him as soon as possible. She learns from Glinda that she can go anywhere in the world with the Nom King's magic belt. Dorothy gives Ozma the belt and lets her wish him to Australia, to Uncle Henry.
Continuity failure
As with the second volume, there are also some continuity errors in the third volume. Although the tin lumberjack tells Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz that the evil Eastern witch had bewitched his ax because he was in love with a Munchkin girl. In the third volume, on the other hand, Dorothy tells the hen Billina that the woodcutter was a bit clumsy and that he kept chopping off parts of his body out of carelessness. The lion, who reappears for the first time after the first volume, suddenly feels as cowardly as before. And when Dorothy is told the story of Ozma's turning back into a girl, it is now a fairy godmother who turned her back, although in In the Realm of the Wizard of Oz it was really the witch Mombi and Glinda had expressly emphasized that she was only employ unscrupulous witches with these kinds of transformation spells.
Film adaptations
Together with In the Realm of the Wizard Oz , Ozma von Oz formed the template for the Disney real film " Oz - A Fantastic World " from 1985. Relatively true to the original, the book was implemented in 1986 in the Japanese cartoon series " In the Land of the Wizard of Oz ".
literature
First edition
- Ozma of Oz . Chicago: Reilly and Britton Company 1907
German translations
- L. Frank Baum: Princess Ozma of Oz. An adventurous journey . Translated by Christine Hettinger, Heyne-Verlag, Munich 1981, ISBN 3-453-54235-5
- L. Frank Baum: Ozma from Oz . Translated by Christine Hettinger, Heyne-Verlag, Munich 1985, ISBN 3-453-31128-0
| The Oz Books | ||
| Previous volume: | Lyman Frank Baum | Following volume: |
Others
Frank Drake of Cornell University named the first modern SETI experiment, the so-called Project Ozma or OZMA , after the Princess Ozma of Oz.