A Most Ingenious Parrot-Ox

This time, I’m taking a look back at some of Edward Einhorn’s Oz work. I wrote a review of his The Living House of Oz back in 2005, when it was new; but I read his other book and two short stories a while before that was my standard practice. So here are some thoughts.

Paradox in Oz – Published by Hungry Tiger Press in 1999, I read this when it was still pretty new. With its layout and the numerous illustrations by Eric Shanower, it really looks like a traditional Oz book. It addresses some themes that are more modern, like time travel and alternate universes, as well as traditional logic puzzles and illusions, with the general humor and whimsy of Oz. It isn’t the first Oz book to have time travel or a multiverse of sorts (although it was a coincidence that I reread this around the time I saw Across the Spider-Verse and Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Magic), but it’s probably the most prominent one to do so. There’s somewhat of a theater of the absurd feel, which I guess makes sense as Einhorn is a playwright. His author blurb in the book says he directed Eugene Ionesco’s The Bald Soprano, which I was in before, not in any professional capacity but in high school English when we had a unit on absurdist plays. The story begins when Ozites start aging again, and Ozma, with Glinda’s help, travels back in time to around when people stopped aging to see what actually happened then. She accomplishes this with the assistance of Tempus, a Parrot-Ox who can do the impossible. When they go back too far, ending up at the time of Lurline’s enchantment, Ozma accidentally stops the wicked king from drinking the Water of Oblivion (as described in Emerald City), and makes Oz a dark and terrible place, sort of a twisted parody of what it was before. The Wizard of Oz is a nasty tyrant with formidable magic powers, Dorothy an assassin in his employ, Nick Chopper still human but genuinely heartless, Glinda still good but no longer young and beautiful, and Mombi the Good Witch of the North.

It seems kind of weird that she doesn’t focus more on what happened to Dorothy, her best friend, but I suppose there’s just too much to deal with. When she finally fixes things, she has a chat with herself as Tip, and visits Absurd City, a place full of paradoxes and optical illusions. I’m not entirely sure how the two guys becoming a vase would work in three dimensions, but maybe it’s best not to think about it too much.

We learn the fate of Ozma’s grandfather, who was sent to an alternate Oz and replaced with his equivalent from that world, who lives backwards from the perspective of his new home’s inhabitants.

Ozma thinks that the Man Who Lives Backwards looks like the nasty King Oz she met during the enchantment, but it’s not specifically stated whether it was this king who was shifted between universes or a relative of his. We also don’t know whether his obsession with absurd logic is also something his counterpart has, or perhaps just a result of his own becoming a temporal anomaly. Another character in the story is Dr. Majestico, who had previously appeared in a play Einhorn wrote that has nothing to do with Oz. He’s a scientist who initially tries to prove that magic doesn’t exist, but after the enchantment becomes a magician himself, and develops a German accent. The book notes a lot of contradictions in the series, some of which (Ozma knowing about horses before meeting one, whether Oz uses money, Omby Amby‘s name change) I’d say have potentially simpler solutions. And it creates some of its own contradictions, as there are references in the series that make it unlikely that no magic existed in Oz prior to the enchantment and suggest that at least some Ozites stopped aging before Ozma’s time. I don’t think it really matters, though, because the point seems to be that Oz manages to go on despite all the continuity errors. After all, while the personification of paradox may be rather confusing and frustrating, he’s also very friendly and helpful. I do have to wonder who the woman is whom the alternate Glinda says she was locked up with, “a good witch to rule the East,” but it never becomes significant. It does seem likely that Mordra, a good version of the Wicked Witch of the West in Living House, either comes from this dark Oz or one much like it. I’ve seen this book’s concept of the Ozziverse as a way to resolve differences between books by, for instance, making different authors’ works take place in parallel versions of Oz. While certainly possible, as someone who likes to fit as much as I can into one mostly coherent whole, I find it a little sad.

Ozma Sees Herself – Einhorn’s first Oz work (or at least first released Oz work) appears in Volume 3 of Oz-story Magazine, and is about Ozma first adjusting to ruling Oz. Being uncomfortable in her new role and body, she refuses to look at herself, and runs away from her responsibilities. With the Cowardly Lion, she journeys into the jungle and meets the Hungry Tiger, but also sees her reflection and realizes how much she likes her appearance. The Lion references the Bumblebeast, a creature he’s never encountered, but Buddy later does in Living House. It addresses some of the same themes as Onyx Madden’s Mysterious Chronicles, also about Ozma adjusting to being a girl and a princess, and sneaking out of the palace to go adventuring. On the face of it, they contradict each other, as Chronicles has her meeting the Lion and the Tiger at the same time, while here she already knows the Lion and not the Tiger, although the two big cats do know each other. It’s probably best to just say one of the authors got it slightly wrong, because while she couldn’t have met them for the first time on two different occasions, there’s no reason she couldn’t have run into them on both trips. Or we can always chalk it up to Parrot-Ox. We’ll see when I finish my reread of Chronicles. By the way, one of the chapters in Paradox is called “Ozma Saves Herself.”

Unauthorized Magic – This one, from Oz-story Volume 5, is sort of a bridge between Paradox and Living House, incorporating elements of both. Dr. Majestico is now in present-day Oz, brought there by Tempus and asked to destroy an indestructible house. Omby Amby shows up to try to stop him from practicing magic illegally, meeting a boy named Buddy on the way. Unfortunately for the Soldier, the doctor is so engrossed in his task that he refuses to listen. Buddy’s mother, whose identity isn’t revealed here, comes up with an idea that will allow Majestico to accomplish his seemingly impossible task. There’s a puppet show version of this story, with a cute Tempus and amusing Living House.