Somewhere, out there, now, or in the future, someone is going to write a dissertation of thesis, centering around all that is referenced in this book. Of the two works previewed, "WAS" is the more literary work, disturbing, sad, yet insightful.
It hypothesizes the unhappiness of Dorothy's life on the Kansas frontier. It was no Judy Garland fantasy. Uncle Henry and Auntie Em are hateful; she, whose maiden name was Branscomb, was branded an outcast by the small town she so much wanted to be accepted in; hell, she wanted to be the doyenne. She settled for marriage to Harry, and life on a barren farm. Interestingly, in this book, Henry's last name, is Gulch, which is what hers becomes. Readers who know make the connection at once. When Toto mysteriously vanishes, it is clear he was killed. It turns out Aunt Em did it, connecting the whole Almira Gulch thing at the start of the movie.
Dorothy here is Aunt Em's niece. Her surname is Gael (similar to Gale, in the MGM film, where, apparently, she was Uncle Henry's niece.) As Dorothy matures, Uncle Henry begins to sexually abuse her. It is only when a substitute teacher, at school, by the name of Lyman Frank Baum, witnesses Dorothy having a nervous breakdown in front of the class, and intervenes, that the town knows what is going on. The Gulches are further outcast, and Dorothy runs away. But, instead of running to a Technicolor fantasy, she ends up in a mental health facility, where a worker and his psychology educated fiancée try to get at the root of Dorothy's story, unable to make the connections that the reader is able.
Yes, there is reference to the Judy Garland film, and its making. There could have been a bit more of this, as far as I am concerned, but gives just enough to give readers insight into Garland's future troubles, suggesting that making this film was not, for her, the fun experience all of us as children imagined. There is even a minor character, a confidant, named Millie, whom I am pretty sure is the real Dorothy's mother, and Em' s sister, who began as an actress in St. Louis--Dorothy here is born into a theatrical world, but was sent to Em when diphtheria killed off her mother. Or did it? Or is Millie just another connection?????????? You decide.
Then there is Jonathan a 38-year-old working actor, who never became a star. He is obsessed with all things Oz, pretaining to the movie, and makes a cross country journey, aided by his partner and psychologist, as he is dying of AIDS, culminating in an Oz-like disappearance in an American desert.
What sounds like three separate novellas are fused by Ryman remarkably into a seamless work. His research is clear, and his insights so revealing that it may change one's conception about the whole Oz mythology. This book was the literary event of 1992, and, when I first read it, I wished I could have optioned it, to be filmed by David Lynch, so I could have played Jonathan. After all, my thing for the movie is known to all since I was a baby, and to readers, on here, since they have been reading this blog.
Ryman wrote other books, but interestingly nothing to equal "WAS."
The title refers to how one wishes to go back to a time when things seemed easier. Rather like the Sondheim lyric from "Sweeney Todd" which gets to me--"If only angels could prevail/We'd be the way we were."
Had "WAS" been Rym-
an's only book, he would have been remembered for it. Even with other works, it remains forever his signature book.
All Oz devotees are urged to read it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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