2019 Baum Bugle Winter

or, How to Do Things with Magic Words by Dennis Wilson Wise —, catalogues a social history for profanity, some time on pyrzqxgl, perhaps far as clichés go, this is oaths, foul language, and slurs, and he the most memorable aspect of L. Frank Wan obvious one to start an explains that “‘sacral’ notions of word Baum’s thirteenth Oz book. While Baum article on magic words. My subtitle magic” govern all acts of swearing— probably invented pyrzqxgl out riff s on J. L. Austin’s classic How to Do the “belief that words have the power of thin air, magic words nevertheless ings with Words, in which he argues to change the world.”1 For Hughes, have a long—if not necessarily a that words can function as “performative swearing can range anywhere from sordid—history. All magic words utterances” that are performative go beyond merely utterances; they describing the world refer to the “belief to actually changing that words, especially or shaping it as when used ritu- well. For example, alistically or in take the phrase some form of “I do.” If spoken incantation, have during a wedding, the power to unlock that phrase can mysterious powers change one’s life in nature.”2 Since (and hopefully for they harken back the better), but to some of our the speci c context oldest ideas on how grants “I do” a language operates, binding legal and Baum would have social power that found many examples disappears if spoken from which to draw in a different Kiki Aru is the fth antagonist in as many Oz books to use transformation against one or inspiration. context. Performa- more of the heroic leads. He is the rst, however, to voluntarily transform his own body. Yet any closer tive utterances like examination of this appear everywhere in everyday swearing on a Bible to swearing at pyrzqxgl requires that we separate language. Unfortunately, the another driver who cuts you off . Yet two things: what the word does from how performative utterances speci cally even an entertaining performative the word does it. In Magic, Kiki Aru’s discussed by Austin are hardly magical; utterance such as profanity only aff ects magic word produces transformation— they provoke little sense of awe, mystery, our social world, not our natural or and transformation, as a literary concept, or mystic arcana. physical world. Only the most storied has been around for well over thirty A more interesting category of performative utterances of all time— centuries. e mechanism or “how” performative utterances are curse that is, magic words—have that power. of pyrzqxgl, on the other hand, words. In his Encyclopedia of Swearing, In honor of the 100th anniversary obviously centers on a single magic word. the sociolinguistic Geoff rey Hughes of e Magic of Oz, I’d like to spend Although Oz has many transformative The Baum Bugle • Winter 2019 • 7 magics, this particular mechanism—a abracadabra-type magical systems, created equal, and Baum complicates word that bypasses supplemental there do exist a few adult fantasies that his magical terminology with happy- incantations, magical items, or hand attempt to breathe fresh life into this go-lucky inconsistency. His most gestures—is entirely unique, even as far tried-and-true theme. ey extend the sustained attempt to demarcate as magic words go. between diff erent magical branches tradition into waters uncharted by Oz’s My nal section takes a peek at comes in Glinda of Oz, but, for all magic words after Baum. Generally, original Royal Historian. Baum’s scienti c pragmatism, the they appear only in fantasy written details remain vague. Although Ozma for children, which arguably makes explains to Dorothy that she is “not as sense. “Every magician,” observes PYRZQXGL: What it Does powerful as Glinda the Sorceress” and one contemporary stage practitioner, pyrzqxgl, obviously, is a word has diff erent abilities from Glinda, the “knows that even young children of transformation, and the art Wizard, and other fairies, Baum seeks are deeply moved by magic words.”3 of transformation—especially evil mostly to avoid a single all-powerful Yet, although most adult readers transformation—inundates Oz. Yet gure rather than to construct a rigorous seem to have become desensitized to not all Ozite transformations are prototype for science fantasy4—a subgenre that would develop, actually, a few decades later through pulp magazines like Unknown and Other Worlds. Baum does explain how Ozma’s magic derives from nature rather than learning, which is how Glinda and the Wizard acquire their powers, but even that explanation provides few concrete details—there are no distinctions, for example, between sorcery, thaumaturgy, wizardry, geomancy, illusion, telekinesis, telepathy, or even necromancy. Baum himself sometimes calls Glinda a witch and other times a sorceress. In either case, how Glinda’s powers diff er from a wizard’s or a magician’s remains an open question. Still, despite Baum’s handwaviness, we can hazard some magical distinctions using traditional terminology. Along- side transformation, thaumaturgy ranks right up there as a frequent Baumian go-to. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, thaumaturgy is simply the “working of wonders” or, more simply, “miracle-working.” It is engineering by other means—through it, practitioners can accomplish wondrous yet useful feats. e best thaumaturgists are Glinda and the Wizard. For the Wizard, magic is basic trial-and-error helped along by educated guessing. It’s like “unlocking a door,” he says, where “all you need is to nd the right key.”5 Likewise, when Glinda has to confront the problem of raising In many of Baum's Oz books, benevolent magical ability is interchangeable with technological Skeezer Island in Baum’s nal Oz book, innovation and acumen. In this image from Glinda of Oz, the eponymous sorceress resembles she begins experimenting on a small nothing so much as a modern-day scientist. model. Yet the truest thaumaturgist 8 • Winter 2019 • The Baum Bugle may be Coo-ee-oh from Glinda. She combines magic with machinery to an unparalleled extent; magic syllables replace electricity or fossil fuels as an animating power. She even gloats that she has “‘magic powers greater than any fairy possesses,’” indicating a hubristic faith in technology over nature that Coo-ee-oh’s fellow thaumaturgists, Glinda and the Wizard, have the wisdom to avoid.6 Plenty of lesser magical forms also appear throughout the Oz books. In e Tin Woodman of Oz, Mrs. Yoop the Yookoohoo (who herself has great transformative ability) possesses telepathic mind-reading powers. Another art form is alchemy. Although e Patchwork Girl of Oz dubs Dr. Pipt a magician, both the Powder of Life and the Liquid of Petrifaction are clear-cut alchemical concoctions. Indeed, the Liquid of Petrifaction even utilizes the infamous alchemical principle of transmutation, or changing of one substance into another.7 In e Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Dorothy’s silver shoes enable instant teleportation. Other magic is simply locomotive. For instance, Glinda’s magic recipe No. 1163 makes inanimate objects move at her command.8 Conjuration, too, plays a decent-sized role. In Glinda, Ozma conjures tents out of nothingness for herself and Dorothy; in contrast, when the party needs tents in Emerald City, the Wizard requires the old mainstay of transformation, trans guring those tents out of handkerchiefs. is return to transformation leads back to the question of why transformation might have played such a key role in Baum’s imagination— outside plot convenience, of course. If we look at children’s literature during e growth pains—both implicit and explicit—that suff use Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865) may help to explain Kiki Aru's adolescent frustrations and transformations: "Was I the same when I got up this morning?" Illustration by Sir John Tenniel from the original edition. The Baum Bugle • Winter 2019 • 9 the latter half of the 19th-century, we and critters so that he could be alone Yet in strictly literary terms the can probably rule out any American with some new—and temporary— quick one-stop-shop for all in uences. As Levy and Mendlesohn girlfriend.10 As such, any writer transformation stories would be the note in their wonderful Children’s Fantasy dedicated to using Greek myths would epic Latin poem Metamorphoses, Literature: An Introduction, American naturally include many transformations. written by the Roman poet Ovid. e children’s literature prior to Baum— One good example is Nathaniel opening lines of his poem succinctly despite some excursions into the fantastic Hawthorne, who wrote two children’s state his thesis: by Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, books, A Wonder-Book for Girls and Nathaniel Hawthorne, My mind leads me and Herman Melville to speak now of —had a “very real forms changed into 11 antipathy to the new bodies. fantastic.”9 Fantasy was better employed Ovid borrowed his by British children’s material mainly from literature, and one the Greeks, which might recall Alice’s explains why his epic transformations in poem has a Greek size in Lewis Carroll’s title.12 Metamorphoses Alice’s Adventures in is a virtual cornucopia Wonderland. Baum of transformations— clearly derived some humans into in- inspiration here. When animate objects, visiting Bunnybury in humans into constel- Emerald City, Dorothy lations, humans into must be shrunk down animals, men into to rabbit-size (by a women (and vice white rabbit, no less) in versa), and even some order to gain admittance rather pedestrian to the town. changes in color. e theme of trans- Today, particularly formation, nevertheless, since the Renaissance, goes much deeper and Ovid’s works have further than 19th-century fallen out of favor. children’s literature.

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