Customer Reviews

The Silver Princess in Oz

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In Thompson's next-to-last book in the Famous Forty (she later wrote two more Oz books for the International Wizard of Oz Club), she presents us with one last romance between a young prince and princess, one last visit to the realm of the Red Jinn (who would reappear in the IWOC-published "Yankee in Oz"), and one last adventure for Kabumpo the Elegant Elephant. In many ways this is more of a summing-up of Thompson's style and the unique elements she brought to the Oz series than any of her three later Oz books. In fact, like "Captain Salt in Oz", this book features only Thompson's own characters and none of Baum's, although unlike "Captain Salt" parts of the story do take place in the Land of Oz. "Silver Princess" contains many beautiful and highly memorable moments and a unique and fascinating personality in its title character: Planetty, the Princess of Anuther (sic) Planet. Despite a major plot hole at the very end of the story--how do the characters cross the Deadly Desert on their return to Oz?--this book is highly enjoyable.

After almost twenty years of continual Oz authorship, Ruth Plumly Thompson was clearly exhausted of ideas and energy by the time she completed 1938's The Silver Princess In Oz. Like John R. Neill's Lucky Bucky In Oz, this entry into the Oz chronicle reads more like a rough draft than a finished manuscript; portions of several chapters make no sense at all and are impossible to follow as published.

Coming well before the American science fiction boom of the fifties, with the Silver Princess In Oz, Thompson added ostensible extraterrestrials to the Oz landscape. In fairness, the extraterrestrials Thompson created for the book, Planetty and Thun the Thunder Colt, are creatures of fairytale convention and a far cry from the bug-eyed saucer men and glittering robots of the later age. The possibility of mixing the Oz fairyland with inhabitants of other planets is an interesting one, and one illustrator John R. Neill accomplished beautifully in his first authored Oz title, 1940's The Wonder City of Oz (though Neill's extraterrestrials were only warmongering mocha soldiers from a distant chocolate star).

In previous books Thompson had created vital, admirable, and multi - dimensional Oz heroines, such as Handy Mandy and Peg Amy, who made excellent role models for young readers. Thompson fails here not because Planetty, the Girl from Anuther Planet and her fire - breathing steed are creatures of fairytale romance, but simply because Planetty fails as a character and role model of any kind. Insipid, empty - headed, and oozing honeyed sweetness, Planetty, who is supposed to be a warrior, wins out over self - fascinated sky fairy Polychrome and the brain - poor Button-Bright as Oz's most tiresomely insensible character. Like Polychrome, Planetty is blissfully narcissistic; she spends the balance of the novel prancing, primping, and cheerfully speaking baby talk with a lisp. Illustrator Neill clearly understood the limitations of Thompson's text, for the book includes no less than 11 unelaborate illustrations of the silver - skinned Planetty striking empty poses for an audience in absentee. Planetty is first cousin to the vacuous lingerie model who glides through the fashion salon chanting "Our new one piece lace foundation garment; zips up the back, and no bones," in the 1939 film The Women: both exist solely on a catwalk in a parallel universe all of their own.

The story of the Silver Princess Of Oz is an empty retread of one of several already overused Oz blueprints. To escape dull court life and an unwanted marriage, young Gillikin King Randy of Regalia and Kabumpo the Elegant Elephant journey to Ev to visit mutual friend the Red Jinn. On the way, the two meet the space girl and her horse, who have unintentionally fallen to Oz down the back of a lightening bolt. Reaching the Jinn's castle, the foursome discover subversives have ousted the Jinn and taken over the realm. Briefly captured, Randy, Kabumpo, Planetty, and Thun escape to search of the missing magician.

Thun, who communicates by exhaling words of smoke, is no more interesting than Planetty, and King Randy is identical to all other young Thompson boy heroes. Creating new characters was Thompson's forte, but in the Silver Princess In Oz she failed completely, and none of classic members of the Oz royal family appear to add liveliness or spunk to the plodding, repetitive narrative.

The Silver Princess In Oz is also burdened with racial stereotypes, for the Red Jinn's subjects are "blacks," a color not usually associated with an Oz or Ev people or territory. As Neill's illustrations and Thompson's text make clear, the word "black" is not an arbitrary distinction: the Jinn's turban-wearing people are Africans or African Americans, "as black as the ace of spades," who, when fleeing in fear, cry "Yah, yah, mah, Master!"

Less than a plum of an Oz book, the Silver Princess In Oz is one of the few titles which deserves the relative obscurity to which many of the later Oz books have fallen.

This is hard to rate. I agree with other reviewers' criticisms: lots of it makes little sense, particularly if you haven't read THE PURPLE PRINCE OF OZ. The author seems to be trying to decide among several possible plots, all of which depend too much on coincidence, and to have gone with the least interesting (We're off to visit the Red Jinn!). The narrative is exceedingly racist even for its time. But. The love itself is somehow specially heady and touching, and Randy the most sympathetic lover in Thompson. The female lead seems at first glance like another of Thompson's empty-headed dancing love objects like Urtha and Marygolden but that's an illusion; Urtha and Marygolden can't set an army to rout or drag an elephant on its back out of a field. This one's a Walkure.

Kabumpo has always been one of my favorite characters (one great thing about Thompson is how different her big animals are from each other in tone; could anyone have any difficulty distinguishing speech by Kabumpo from the Cowardly Lion, or Snufferbux, or Nox, or Chalk, or Highboy from each other?) and here he is at his arrogant but good-hearted best. And Oz animals don't come any cooler (or hotter) than Thun. All the pictures are interesting, particularly the flying heads (my skin crawls when I picture their teeth clamped down on that wire), and Planetty standing on Thun's back brandishing her staff with the paradoxical linked tip at the fleeing "black".

So it's like PARSIFAL: badly flawed, but beautiful like cheesecake in parts.

This is the second to the last of the Oz books written by Ruth Plumly Thompson and it is the one most in keeping with the tenor of those written by Oz's creator, L. Frank Baum. It is a nice little adventure story.

As with most of Thompson's better works, it deals primarily with characters who are her own creation. The stars of this one are Kabumpo the elephant, and Randy, the King of Regalia, who have teamed up before along with the Red Jinn of Ev. A new character is Planetty, Princess of Anuther Planet.

Randy is now king of his little domain but he finds life frightfully dull until his old friend Kabumpo comes by for a visit. They decide to go visit the Red Jinn and have some adventures along the way. While doing so, the encounter the standard assortment of odd little kingdoms and beings and happen upon a beautiful princess made of metal. She has made her way accidentally to the fairy realm and is having a grand old time. She is quite beautiful and Randy is smitten with her. As she joins the group, they come to Ev and learn that the Jinn has been deposed. The friends must set him upon his throne again and find a way for him to cure the princess's metallic health problems.

It's a nice little fairy tale that will read best for those who have already gone through Thompson's earlier works.