The Wizard of Oz as American Myth, by Alissa Burger, is definitely not for the casual Oz fan, or even for the casual fan of any type of mythology. Burger goes deep into seven of the incantations of the Oz story, covering L. Frank Baum’s novel, the movie classic, The Whiz, Gregory Maguire’s Wicked, the Broadway version of Wicked, and the SyFy Channel miniseries Tin Man.
While Burger does a nice job of capturing different aspects of the six works, including women of Oz, Race, Magic & Witchcraft, and the reinventing of American myth through the stories, I quickly came to the conclusion that I wouldn’t be able to get through this in just a few sittings. There are many footnotes, and while they do add to the context of each chapter, they take a lot of time to look up. So in essence, this book is not at all a light read.
One thing I learned from this book, and from a previous book that had an essay about Wicked, is that I am not at all interested in reading or seeing this retelling of what is already a classic tale. While I’m sure that millions of fans would disagree with me, I’ve read nothing about it that interests me. I do like the original movie, and loved the original book. I’m also a big fan of the movie Return to Oz, which definitely gives off more of a feeling of the Oz universe of the books than the musical with Judy Garland did.
With these thoughts in mind, I advise that you proceed with caution before following this particular yellow brick road.
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