Escapism and Fantasy in Oz

I often read fiction novels that take me into different worlds and have been called by friends an escapist. I love the fantasy genre of books such as The Lord of the Rings, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Chronicles of Prydain and anything written by Roald Dahl. As a child I was always intrigued with fairy tales and anything fantasy and I don't think that ever escaped me. 

Probably the most influential book however was reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L.Frank Baum, as well as its many sequels and spin-offs. Before reading the book I had previously seen the delightful 1939 film, which inspired me to read the book, which took me on an imaginative journey unlike anything I could experience from just watching a movie. This then encouraged me to read more and later I would read all of Baum's thirteen sequels such as The Marvelous Land of Oz, Ozma of Oz, The Patchwork Girl of Oz, Tik-Tok of Oz and The Scarecrow of Oz as well as many of Baum's non-Oz books like The Sea Fairies, Sky Island and John Dough and the Cherub. The world of Oz is probably more known in film and stage than the original books, for example the 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz, Return to Oz, the musicals The Wiz and Wicked, the mini-series Tinman and the film Oz: The Great and Powerful.

I really admired the comraderie seen during the different journeys as well as the diversity of characters such as The Scarecrow, The Tin Woodman, The Cowardly Lion, The Good Witch Glinda, Jack Pumpkinhead and Tik-Tok the Clockwork Man (considered the first "robot" of literature, before the term was coined). There was always a great sense of fantastic escapism where magical adventures occur within such an idealistic utopian society, where all the animals can talk (as well as many "objects") and such a diverse group of people can live in harmonious friendship.

 It were these books that strongly inspired me to be a writer of fantasy fiction. I have already placed ideas of stories of my own, such as The Flying Giraffe, Jack and the Gryphon and Oliver and the Emperor of Wolves. I'm also very strongly inspired to one day be involved with film (especially animation) but that costs more money, so I will probably start with writing. If I do manage to make films, I am definitely interested in the fantasy genre and definitely interested in adapting my own stories, but also from the works previously mentioned by L. Frank Baum, most of which have been forgotten in the last 100 years. From what I have heard many of these books in the Oz series were very popular at the beginning of the 20th century, having a similar intrigue to the Harry Potter books of today. This puts these books in the category of books that one reads for fun, however its idealist fantasyland, as described earlier, does hold implications and thoughts of how one views their own world and the people within.

*Note, that this was taken from a writing paper I did in a Media and Society class in 2012. Since then the titles Jack and the Gryphon and Oliver and the Emperor of Wolves, are no longer current writing goals at this time, however I do still have strong intentions for The Flying Giraffe project. I just decided to put this up for its obvious relevance to this blog.