Finding Oz

I had just finished reading a biography of Victor Fleming, of special interest on this seventy year anniversary of Fleming's two big successes: Gone with the Wind and The Wizard of Oz, made, I've always known, both in that same year of old Hollywood greatness, 1939. Two such different films that are part of the American psyche directed largely by one man in the same year - amazing.

Then I came across Evan Schwartz' Finding Oz. Scwartz has visited all the places where Baum and his close family lived, haunted archives, interviewed surviving family members and given us the story of Baum's creation of the story of Oz. Tellingly, Schwartz describes Baum's achievement as a 'discovery' and gives us insight into the spiritual significance of the story's themes and characters, quoting liberally from Joseph Campbell's observations on the mythic archetypes in human life.

Baum was born in the Syracuse area of upstate New York. He married and with his wife raised four sons. His varied careers in family businesses, retail, traveling sales were struggles to support a family; but his true talent was always as a storyteller. It wasn't until 1899, at the age of 43, that he penned the great American tale we have come to know as The Wizard of Oz.

Schwartz did not set out to write Baum's biography, although the bio details are all there. Rather this is a biography of the great story itself, how it came to be, the myriad influences from Baum's life: John D Rockefeller; the 1893 Chicago World's Fair; Theosophy; Baum's mother-in-law, the underrecognized suffragette, Matilda Gage; the yellow brick road in Peekskill that inspired the iconic path. It traces the making of the movie, production decisions, and remarks on artistic decisions (some good, some not so good) that caused the film to differ from Baum's original story.
The book is a fascinating read, albeit not strictly chronological. At times I wished it included a timeline, which would have helped me place key events and people in context. I also could have wished for a more comprehensive index. Having said that, it's delightful to know so much more about this story that was part of my childhood, in the older years from having read the book, but in the earliest years as the film, back in those pre-VCR days, when watching its annual network broadcast was a spring ritual. We didn't have a color TV when I first saw it - but I could always imagine what Oz really looked like. Like so many young readers and viewers, I just knew.