The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz is a strange little book. Written by L. Frank Baum in 1900 it is his self-professed attempt to create a modern fairy-tale. However, as Baum felt that morals were already being taught at school and that the classic European fairy tales were far too dark and gory, his effort is one that purposefully attempts to do away with both. So while The Wonderful Wizard Of Oz has become one of the most enduring children's tales of modern times, it also reads as a fantastical tale as told by an actual child who every now and then morphs suddenly and unexpectedly into an adult before reverting back to original form.
The tale follows Dorothy, along with her dog Toto, on her adventures through the land of Oz as she attempts to find her way back home to Kansas from which she has been blown by a cyclone. On the way she befriends a scarecrow, a tin woodsman and a cowardly lion who join Dorothy on her quest in the hopes of fulfilling their own dreams. On the way, many other characters and creatures come and go and sometimes return. The story itself veers from being insightful in an odd, backhanded sort of way, to totally random - from some astonishingly dry and sardonic wit to new characters who appear momentarily for no other reason then to furnish a necessary plot point.
While Baum claimed that there were no hidden meanings or subtexts to the story, you get the sense that in his method there might well be something of American culture: remove the morals and the angst and you are left with a tale that is both wonderfully and frustratingly absurd.
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