Originally published in Toast Magazine, February 1999
By Joey Green
Renaissance
Books, 132 pp., $16.95
One
of the marks of a great work of art is the variety of interpretations it
spawns. Take Shakespeare’s plays: 400 years later and we’re still arguing about
them. And Kafka: Nobody really knows
what The Trial’s about, do they? A
classic can be claimed by anybody, and the greatest works often have any number
of mutually exclusive readings. With few works of this century is this as
apparent as it is with the film version of The
Wizard of Oz.
Seen by different factions as a
parable of the Populist Party (which Oz
author L. Frank Baum admired), a gay fantasy, a feminist fairy tale, an
anti-feminist cautionary tale, a Communist allegory, a drug-soaked nightmare,
and a sexual awakening, The Wizard of Oz
is pretty much whatever we want it to be. And now Oz critic Joey Green has
added yet another interpretation with his book The Zen of Oz.
Until now the Oz tale has been seen
by most as a secular fairy tale, with its only reference to religion being Aunt
Em’s cop-out to Miss Gulch about being a “Christian woman.” But Green sees it
differently. To him the Ruby Slippers represent Dorothy’s inner spark, and the
Yellow Brick Road is her path to spiritual enlightenment. “Follow the Yellow
Brick Road” is her mantra, and Good Witch Glinda, who most critics usually see
as simpering and foolish, is here the Zen Master who refuses to give Dorothy
easy answers and instead makes her figure the way out for herself.
Green reads the Wicked Witch of the
West—who is generally seen as a dollar-hued representation of capitalist
greed—as a control freak with an extinguished inner spark and a serious case of
Bad Karma. And the Wizard himself comes out little better. Ruling through fear,
intimidation, and out-and-out humbuggery, the Great and Powerful Oz is worse
than a bad wizard and is hardly the person to look to for brains, heart, and
courage (see Gregory MacGuire’s novel Wicked
for an even stronger indictment of the man behind the curtain).
But “satori” (awakening) can arrive
through any vehicle, Green argues. And the journey itself is more important
than the destination anyway. The Scarecrow, Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion had
their respective brain, heart, and courage all along, of course, but they, like
Dorothy, had to find it out for themselves. This accords with the Zen truism
that you already have the attributes you most desire.
Green stretches things, though, when
he says that Dorothy starts out having Bad Karma and that the cyclone is its
manifestation. And much of his reading seems a little too Freudian for a Zen
Master, at times degenerating into the worst kind of pop psychology and
self-help tripe (although he’s right on when he says that the Lion needs to
come out of the closet).
Green’s worst fault, however, is
that he only has a handful of meaningful points and he pretty much runs them
into the ground after a few chapters. Still, he knows his Oz, and his
enthusiasm and keen eye can be illuminating to even the most astute Oz fans. So
if you can deal with the general hokiness of this kind of book (shelve it
somewhere between the cute Tao of Pooh
and the annoying How Proust Can Change
Your Life), The Zen of Oz
definitely offers a new path down the Yellow Brick Road.
—David
Wiley
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