Today’s blog features another Christmas novel: The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L. Frank Baum. Baum is probably best known for the Oz series, which I love. The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus displays the same far-reaching imagination as those books. I suppose, in its own way, it’s as all over the place as Hoffman’s Nutcracker and Masefield’s Box of Delights, which shows what I’m looking for in a Christmas story. (I also love Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, though, which has a laser-like focus, so there you go. When you think I’m going to zig, I zag.)
The book tells the story of a young baby abandoned in the forest of Burzee by Ak, the Master Woodsman of the World. Ak gives the baby to the lioness Shiegra, but ultimately ends up under the care of of the wood nymph, Necile. So, once again, we see an origin of Santa Claus and his involvement in Christmas that has nothing to do with Christian mythology.
Of course, Claus eventually has to leave the forest of Burzee and move into the land of humans, where he encounters war, cruelty, poverty, and child neglect. (If only it felt dated.) He begins creating toys for children, which brings him into conflict with the evil Awgwas. The story explains many things about the Santa mythology, including why he only comes once a year (he is only allowed to use the magic reindeer once a year to travel around the world), why he leaves toys in children’s stockings, why he travels down chimneys, and, perhaps most importantly, why he is immortal.
As I said, Baum is certainly best known for the Oz series, and those stories are probably best known through the 1939 MGM movie starring Judy Garland. That’s a shame, because as an early 20th century fantasist, Baum is a fantastic writer. His mythologies are bursting out all over the place with weird creatures and communities that somehow feel like part of a whole. The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus is as detailed and complex and imaginative as any of his Oz books, and presents some fascinating fictional answers to explain a wide variety of Christmas customs.
Rankin-Bass made a wonderful Christmas special adapting the book, which is available from the Warner Archive. Because the story is a fairly straight, detailed fantasy, it has a different feel from many of their more familiar, lighter works, like Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer or Santa Claus is Coming to Town (which I also love). Rankin-Bass did some great work on great fantasies like the Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and Flight of the Dragons, but this kind of makes me wish they had made more straight fantasies in stop-motion.
I highly recommend both the Baum novel and the Rankin-Bass adaptation. (There’s another animated adaptation of this story, but I haven’t seen it.)
That’s it for toady. Come back tomorrow for the Ninth Blog of Christmas!
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