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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass (Alice)

by Lewis Carroll, Hugh Haughton (Editor), John Tenniel (Illustrator)

4.03 · rating details · 98,851 ratings · 3,255 reviews

ENDURING LITERATURE ILLUMINATED BY PRACTICAL SCHOLARSHIP

In these beloved works by Lewis Carroll, a young girl named Alice finds fantastical adventures down a rabbit hole and through a mirror, encountering a variety of wonderfully eccentric creatures. Strikingly unique for their time, Carroll's enchanting stories not only incite our imaginations, but also deliver a brillia

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Paperback, 356 pages

Published March 27th 2003 by Penguin Classics (first published 1865)

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Jun 02, 2007

Keely rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, humor, reviewed, uk-and-ireland

I think that the failure not only of Children's Literature as a whole, but of our very concept of children and the child's mind is that we think it a crime to challenge and confront that mind. Children are first protected from their culture--kept remote and safe--and then they are thrust incongruously into the very world we spent twenty years telling them is so unsafe and unsavory.

And we expected them not to blanch.

It has been my policy that writing for children is not a...moreI think that the failure not only of Children's Literature as a whole, but of our very concept of children and the child's mind is that we think it a crime to challenge and confront that mind. Children are first protected from their culture--kept remote and safe--and then they are thrust incongruously into the very world we spent twenty years telling them is so unsafe and unsavory.

And we expected them not to blanch.

It has been my policy that writing for children is not a trifling thing, not a simplification of the adult or a sillier take on the world. Good children's literature is some of the most difficult to write because the author must challenge, engage, please, and awe a mind without resorting to archetypes or life experience.

Once a body grows old enough, we are all pleased by the reunion of old friends, amused by a faux pas, or saddened by the thought of a breakup. We have knowledge and memory. The pain returns to the surface when beckoned, often we cannot even control it.

But we are not born with these understandings, so to make children understand pain, fear, and loss is no trivial thing. Education is the transformation of an erratic and hedonistic little beast into a creature with a rational method to judge the world.

A child must be taught not to fear monsters but to fear instead electrical outlets, pink slips, poor people, and lack of social acceptance. The former is frightening in and of itself, the latter for complex, internal reasons. Cultures fear exposing children to sexuality and violence because they are such natural urges. We fear to trigger them because we cannot control the little beasts: we cannot watch them every minute.

So, the process of creating children's literature is writing something complex and challenging, an idea the child can turn over in their mind without inadvertently wondering about things like anal sex and drug addiction. There is a fine line between exposing them to the world and simply leaving them exposed. We must remember that nothing we can come up with will be more strange or disturbing to a child than the pure, unadulterated world that we will always have failed to prepare them for.

However, perhaps we can fail a little less and give them Alice. Not all outlets are to be feared, despite what your parents taught you. In fact, some should be prodded with regularity, and if you dare, not a little joy.(less)

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Nicole From what I've seen of the world, it's not mediocrity that leads to success but superiority in determination, networking and skill at business (the la...more
Dec 19, 2011 01:04pm

Keely Those traits certainly do help in business, but they will only take you so far. I suppose it depends what you mean by 'success'. I've known some Type-...more
Dec 20, 2011 02:22am

May 15, 2009

Bonnie rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: children-s-books, classics, recommended, reviewed-books

Read both as a child, and again as an adult. Loved and appreciated it then; love and appreciate it now.

A book everyone should read at least once, and one that I hope children are still reading today.

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Feb 08, 2010

indri rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: panda

Recommended to indri by: naga, miz leli, qui

Shelves: classic, sastra-dunia

#2010-11#

Setelah mendapatkan versi orisinalnya, ternyata cerita yang dibaca lagi sesudah dewasa benar2 luar biasa.. Buku yang terdiri dari dua cerita ini benar2 berisi permainan logika dan kata2 yang dirangkai dalam pengetahuan anak 7 tahun bernama Alice.

Alice adventure's in wonderland
Apa yang kamu rasa dunia benar2 nggak praktis? Ketika pertanyaan yang kamu ajukan dijawab2 dengan pertanyaan lagi?
Apa yang terjadi di balik minuman 'drink me' atau biskuit 'ea...more

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Jan 01, 2012

Michael G. rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: the young and the young at heart

Recommended to Michael G. by: my son David

Beautiful...charming...fun...non-sense. The words were crafted in such a manner that had a rhythm and tempo that made the reading that much more pleasurable. I love all kinds of mushrooms and I think Lewis Carroll did too.

As I read, I could almost hear Grace Slick singing about the White Rabbit. Oh, I had such a crush on that woman when I was a teenager....mgc

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Mar 21, 2009

Heather rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: read-alouds, school-books-kid-books

This is a weird one. The more I read the more I'm okay with the weirdness. Does that say something about me? I thought at first I wouldn't read it to my kids because it's too strange, but I'm thinking now I might. They just might like it. We'll see how it ends. Am I lame that I've never read this before?

Okay, done with them both. Alice in Wonderland was okay. Still weird. Weird and I didn't understand it. Through the Looking Glass took weird to a whole new level. A bad l...more

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Sep 16, 2007

Kelly rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: children, and anyone looking for a little nonsense in their life

Shelves: favorites

I've loved the Disney movie ever since I can remember, and so it was only natural that I was drawn to this book. I read it for the first time in either second or third grade and I've loved it ever since. I remember that I was always checking it out from the library until I finally got enough sense to ask for it for my birthday. It's always been one of my favorites because it's so much fun to read, but now that I'm older I find that there's a lot of hidden messages that adults can relate to as we...more

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Oct 18, 2008

M. D. Hudson rated it

· review of another edition

For decades I’d figured that since I can sing along to Jefferson Airplane’s song “White Rabbit” that I didn’t have to read the book. But I decided to do so and am glad I did, although I could not ever find where the dormouse said “Feed your head.” Mostly, the dormouse just slept. This book is really, really weird, even after 145 years, bowdlerization by Disney, appropriation by the hippies, and general over-familiarization. Good book, and it contains one of my favorite poems:

...more

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Dec 30, 2009

Jennifer Braxton rated it

· review of another edition

This book wasn't at all what I thought it was. All these years, I thought it would be this trippy, completely balmy story, that people read while they were stoned. Turns out, it's just an average book, with a little bit of nonsense thrown in. I really enjoyed the Jabberwocky poem. The rest of the book was just an average children's story. In fact, it was rather a push to get through, which is unusual to me. No matter - it's still a rather referenced piece of literature.

The fact...more

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Jan 31, 2012

Caris rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, childrens, bizarro

“I’d like to renew my driver’s license,” Alice said as she walked up to the counter. She was a youthful woman in her mid-forties (though you wouldn’t know that to look at her) with a radiant glow and attractive laugh lines. She was modestly dressed, business casual, but with a cool vintage ribbon in her hair.

“Next!” the woman at the counter shouted.

Alice frowned. “Excuse me, ma’am. I’m next.”

“Next!” the woman shouted again, quite ignoring Alice’s words.
...more

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Nov 15, 2008

Michaela rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: childrens, reading-lolita-in-tehran

I liked this one! It was a great fast read to fill in some time I didn't want to be reading my homework books. Some of my more favorite poems are actually in Through the Looking Glass, I found out, so I'm off to read that segment. I didn't bother with the political meanings - decided to keep it simple and childish this time, and it is still enjoyable. Some great linguistical play, but mostly, a compelling story and a fun jaunt to another land.

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Aug 28, 2010

Joseph rated it

· review of another edition

One of the most clever of children's book. Full of wit and great humor, sure to capture one's imagination. Many people don't understand the true glory of this wonderful little book. One must take note that this book is fantasy and clearly meant to be a dream (dreams are almost always nonsensical). Only a clever imaginative person such as Lewis Carroll (though he certainly wasn't perfect), can compose great literary children's books such as this.

The cards in this book are simply hila...more

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Mar 03, 2009

Elissa rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: english-12

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Summary
Alice in Wonderland is a wonderful fantasy book that shows the unique imagination of Lewis Carroll. It is a book of a girl, Alice, who follows a rabbit down a rabbit hole to find a hidden land with many interesting people to meet and activities to do. While in Wonderland, Alice enters a room with a tiny door leading to a beautiful garden but she is too big to go through. After enjoying a strange drink, Alice realizes she is changing size. She is shrinking to a size where she ca...moreSummary
Alice in Wonderland is a wonderful fantasy book that shows the unique imagination of Lewis Carroll. It is a book of a girl, Alice, who follows a rabbit down a rabbit hole to find a hidden land with many interesting people to meet and activities to do. While in Wonderland, Alice enters a room with a tiny door leading to a beautiful garden but she is too big to go through. After enjoying a strange drink, Alice realizes she is changing size. She is shrinking to a size where she can fit through the door. After a long and frustrating journey down, Alice realizes she forgot the key to the door on the table above. Alice sheds many tears that help her swim down the hallway where she meets many new people at the end. After meeting these people, Alice is sent to the rabbit’s house where she finds more treats that she enjoys but this time she grows larger rather than shrinks. Once Alice is able to become the right size she leaves the rabbit’s house and runs into a caterpillar. She is still trying to become the right size to get into the garden when the caterpillar tells her that one side of the mushroom he is sitting on will make her bigger while the other will make her smaller. After meeting the caterpillar, Alice travels to a Duchesses house where she tries to save the baby living there but has to let it go after it turns into a pig. This is also when Alice meets the Cheshire cat that can vanish into thin air. After meeting the Duchess, Alice travels through the forest and stumbles into a house of a mad hatter. There is a tea party going on and she decides to join it. However, after a while she gets very annoyed with who is there and decides to leave. After Alice leaves she goes through a door in a tree that leads back into the same room that she started in; the room with the little door. However, by eating the mushroom from the caterpillar she is able to shrink and go through it into the garden. When she enters she notices some gardeners (which are cards from a deck) painting the roses red because they are scared of the queen. The roses that were planted were suppose to be red but were white by mistake. They need to paint them before the queen notices the mistake and has them beheaded. The queen then enters the garden and notices Alice and asks her if she wants to play a game of croquet which she accepts and later finds that they have a very odd way of playing. During the game Alice learns that the duchess she met earlier is scheduled to be executed later that day. The Cheshire cat then enters the garden and causes quite a scene. The duchess is then brought out of prison and brought into the garden. While the duchess is in the garden she talked to Alice about morals and is then sent to the Mock Turtle to learn about his history. After hearing his story Alice is then brought back to the garden and realizes the duchess’s trial is about to start. During the trial Alice begins to grow tall again and because of this she is asked to testify. While testifying, Alice annoys the king and is asked to leave, but she refuses. After this the queen orders Alice to be executed and Alice told the entire court that they were just a deck of cards. As soon as the court heard this they started to attack her. At this moment Alice woke up to realize she had been sleeping in her sisters lap and the entire thing had been an amazing dream. Alice then tells her sister of the dream and goes back home for tea.

Personal response
Alice in Wonderland is a wonderful story that shows the wonderful creativity of Lewis Carroll. It is a book full of talking animals and schemes while it also shows the aspects and some of the struggles of the real world in a hidden way. Alice in Wonderland is a book that takes in its reader and keeps them there until the very last page. It is a book where the entertainment never stops and it is good for both the young and the old. I have been able to experience this story as a child and now as a young adult and have now been able to enjoy more of the adult content within the book. I also enjoyed how this book makes you think of the actions of Alice. While reading about all the situations Alice went through it makes the reader think if they would do it the same way. I enjoyed reading Alice in Wonderland and experiencing the different style of writing and creativity of Lewis Carroll.

Review
“The book combines fantasy and adventure with elements of tragedy, farce, comedy, madness, and absurdity, and is replete with plays on words, twisted logic, re-phrased rhymes and clever dialogues. In short, a book that entertains and educates, like every book ought to.” I completely agree with this opinion from Amit Sharma. Alice in Wonderland is a book that combines fantasy, comedy, madness and many other genres. It is a book that pulls in the reader through many different aspects and is good for all ages. “The wonderland is unreal - a world of fantasy and imagination. It is a transformation of the real world, with human beings replaced by animals who can talk, and things considered to be possible only in magic do happen here -- hence the appeal of the story to children. The wonderland is also a logically and linguistically challenged world -- the finer aspects that fill every page of the story and of interest to adult readers.” I believe that this book of for both the young and the old. It does a good job of grabbing the attention of all its readers. Children will have fun with the talking animals and silly characters while adults will enjoy the plays on words, rhymes and clever aspects of the story.

(less)

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Jul 12, 2011

Suzanne rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: language-english, genre-classics

June 2011: Ok. So I've watched the Disney cartoon plenty of times since I was little, I've seen the Depp movie, I have Cheshire Cat socks, I've read the wonderful novel "Alice I Have Been", I've visited Alice's grave as a 12 year old, I've stayed a couple of nights in the Gogarth Abbey Hotel in Llandudno as a teen, and I'm visiting Oxford (again, though the first time was very very brief) this summer and will have a look at Christchurch and the little Alice shop... But I have not read ...more

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Aug 04, 2011

Anzu ZombieHazard rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: my-pretties, classics, fantasy, my-reviews

I’m really not a big fan of children or children’s minds, dreams and fantasies but Alice in Wonderland was always a concept I admired. A human’s mind is such a complex thing; it helped us reach what we are today, surrounded by technology, art, architecture and whatnot. It’s sad that eventually most of us grow out of this childhood way of thinking. We want to become mature, ignore the silly things we used to like when we were young. We tend to go towards “mature” things that eventually end up tra...moreI’m really not a big fan of children or children’s minds, dreams and fantasies but Alice in Wonderland was always a concept I admired. A human’s mind is such a complex thing; it helped us reach what we are today, surrounded by technology, art, architecture and whatnot. It’s sad that eventually most of us grow out of this childhood way of thinking. We want to become mature, ignore the silly things we used to like when we were young. We tend to go towards “mature” things that eventually end up transforming us into boring, monotonous creatures that live in a depressing daily routine. I personally respect adults that hold immature minds. They are usually the coolest people you can meet.

I will repeat myself now but I really do love Alice. I watched all the movies and attempted to play a few games related to the story. Unfortunately the games weren’t so great and I had to give them up. I never thought of reading the book though, which is very strange. I guess it happened like the times when you’re looking for an object and you fail to see it even though it’s right in front of you. I actually saw it on Amazon being for free and I said “Holy Crap! I forgot to read this!!!”. Anyways check the link below this (available on my blog only) where it says “Buy it at Amazon” – well now you get it from Amazon right on your Kindle!!! YES!!!

Now I know the classic image that Alice has. Childish, pure, innocent. Well call me sick but I have another image in mind. Check out the classical one:

I don’t really agree with Mia Wasikowska as Alice but Tim Burton accepted her (I wonder why) so let’s just pretend she’s allright.

And now my version of Alice:

Not really my version but the Alice Madness Returns one. I simply love it! I see her as a pretty little girl who has waaay too many issues to keep on living as a sane person. Perfect!

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is a freaky story and I really love freaky stories. You may not think much about it but give it a try. Maybe you’ll love it as much as I did. Oh and btw if you have any recommendations for this type of books do not hesitate to pass them on to me. Thanks!

Read this review on ZombieHazard.(less)

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Feb 02, 2012

Jason rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Stoners, pot-heads, poetry lovers, weird stuff, trippy things

Recommended to Jason by: It's a classic

These two books were brought to you by the letters W, T, and F. Of all the ineffable twaddle I've ever read (and I try to keep that to a minimum), I believe this is the piece de resistance. It is proof positive that LSD was used just as irresponsibly in the 1860s as it was in the 1960s. The fact that it wasn't invented until 1938 is irrelevant, as anyone who is currently under the influence of that pharmaceutical extraction could easily explain. The time continuum thing confusing you? Just ...more

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Dec 30, 2009

Amanda rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: classics, juvenile, 2009, scifi-fantasy, the-worst

I’ll start with the bad. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. There’s no need to tell you the plot to this. First, it’s famous enough. Second, there isn’t really a plot. In fact, that’s one of the things that bothered me so much. I don’t understand this book at all. Maybe I’d have liked it had I read it as a kid, but I doubt that even (I hated the movie as a kid). I don’t like books where people and animals talk to each other, where absurd things happen for no identifiable reason, ...more

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Apr 07, 2010

Brandon rated it

· review of another edition

“Everything is so out-of-the-way down here!” exclaimed Alice.

Throughout the course of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, these words grow more and more inalienable as the only sure expression that Alice can count on in a world that continually frustrates, challenges, and violates her understanding of the natural world. She never quite experiences in the underground the kind of customary ease that was so familiar to her back home, but instead feels like a fish-out-of-water that awkwa...more“Everything is so out-of-the-way down here!” exclaimed Alice.

Throughout the course of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, these words grow more and more inalienable as the only sure expression that Alice can count on in a world that continually frustrates, challenges, and violates her understanding of the natural world. She never quite experiences in the underground the kind of customary ease that was so familiar to her back home, but instead feels like a fish-out-of-water that awkwardly flops and plops upon foreign soil. Undoubtedly, this is a frightening fable about the adverse and inevitable loss of childhood innocence. It is wondering about the relationship between adulthood and childhood – and where in that complex, mesmerizing struggle innocence becomes tinctured by madness. Nothing stays the same for Alice after she falls down the rabbit-hole, much like nothing stays the same for you and me once we hit puberty. Like Alice, we experience a tremendous amount of trauma, grief, discomfort, and confusion as our bodies begin to change in new and unfamiliar ways. Alice shrinks and grows, has difficulty accepting her size, and is fed to a pack of querulous logicians who grind her into that anomalous and upsetting realm of nonsense. Analogously, teenagers also struggle to maintain that comfortable physical size, and in middle-school are frequently heckled by their niggling peers who pounce on them like vultures for every unstatus-quo thing they do. It is a time of great physical and spiritual unrest; a time of melancholy and loss. Soon the pleasantries of youth fade, leaving us, like Alice, to face the horrors and absurdities of growing up.

Very few people will doubt that maturation is a strange and scary process, especially when it’s experienced far away from the comforts of home in a land ruled by chaos and nonsense. Paradoxically, the meaning of maturation presupposes that, of course, one cannot arguably grow unless the comforts of home are left behind. And ‘home’ here can mean a multitude of things: rest, routine, normalcy, familiarity, my ideas, my traditions, and so on. One must lose the presence of home and experience the stranger’s rabbit-hole before appreciating his or her own ontological and epistemic values. After all, our paradigms are not the last word, for they too need to be frustrated by those whose wonderlands have much to teach us; the stranger has meaningful lessons to share and can help us grow into the kinds of people we desire to become. The persistent puzzles, paradoxes, and riddles which thus preoccupy Alice in her journey are in one sense a mirror of the child-haunted adult who is obsessed by the questions of meaning. In reading the fable we find ourselves divided between two contradictory positions adopted by Alice and the King: to find no meaning in it, as Alice does, or decode “some meaning from it all,” as the King proclaims. But as the editor of the Alice books Hugh Haughton observes: “Finding meaning, like losing meaning, involves pleasure as well as pain. But then losing meaning, like finding it, does too, as the best nonsense reminds us” (x).

The prevailing monstrosity of the tale is Wonderland itself; specifically, how its nonsensical nature can at times drive us to dizzying heights of meaninglessness. Lots of things go playfully backwards – “Sentences first – verdicts afterwards,” shouts the Queen of Hearts. Riddles with no solutions pervade the air, like the famous “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” Alice’s exclamation “Curious and curioser!” suggests that her new environment is not behaving in ways she expected. Causes do not meet uniform effects, and subsequently expectations are aggravated. The naivety of youth is fading, and the sophistication of adulthood is appearing. Since nothing is impossible in Wonderland, with perhaps the exception of fitting her experiences into a rational framework, Alice is repeatedly discouraged and finds it paradoxically impossible to obey the rules – which rules seem to act as emblems concerning the customs of adulthood. For example, consider the seven-year-old who listens to her parents talk about bills and politics at the dinner table. Unless she’s an exceptionally precocious little thing, she’s not going to understand a lick of what’s being said. It would be like drowning someone in a sea of auditory cheesecake but then starving them of its taste. She simply would not have the conceptual faculties, let alone the mansions of presuppositions, that could turn on the cerebral light-bulb of her parent’s conversation. Thus it would be meaningless jibber-jabber, and she would be forced to exclaim as Alice does: “It seems very pretty, but it’s rather hard to understand.” “Somehow it fills my head with ideas,” she reflects, “only I don’t exactly know what they are.” In this sense, Wonderland reflects an intentional absurdity and randomness that, according to one interpretation, is meant to mirror an inchoate perspective of a growing child. And it is this absurdity and randomness that challenges children, like all of us who were once young, to create meaningful structures and patterns in order to make sense of the fluctuating details of their otherwise chaotic lives.(less)

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Apr 19, 2008

Michael Havens rated it

· review of another edition

The beginning of this review must not be understated. What have I been missing all these years? Admittedly, this is a first read. And while chucking the shame of having not read it until 41 (yes, that is the current age of said reviewer!), I am flushed with pleasure of having made the trip(they were originally published separately). On reading it, I quickly noticed Carroll's playing out, if not outright scorn, for logical fallacies, and while on a few occasions Alice displays a few of her own,...more The beginning of this review must not be understated. What have I been missing all these years? Admittedly, this is a first read. And while chucking the shame of having not read it until 41 (yes, that is the current age of said reviewer!), I am flushed with pleasure of having made the trip(they were originally published separately). On reading it, I quickly noticed Carroll's playing out, if not outright scorn, for logical fallacies, and while on a few occasions Alice displays a few of her own, there is such a heavy handedness in the use of ill-logic by the "adults" of the story, that I wonder if Carroll isn't taking more than a few digs into the minds of adults, who from time to time engage in circuitous and contradictory arguments. Both books seem to be playing with and poking fun at the fact that as adults, the bigger wonders are often reduced to such reductionism in order to boost one's ego, which you see time and time again with all the adult characters in the book. In fact, a primer for reading this book may in fact be C. K. Chesterton's argument for fantasy in the Introduction to this edition:

"It seemed to me that he didn't follow me with sufficient delicacy, so I softened my tone. 'Can you not see", I said, "that fairy tales in their essence are quite solid and straightforward;but that this everlasting fiction about modern life is in its nature essentially incredible? Folk-lore means that the soul is sane,but that the universe is wild and full of marvels. Realism means that the world is dull and full of routine, but that the soul is sick and screaming. The problem of the fairy tale is-what will a healthy man do with a fantastic world?" (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass; Introduction, vi).

Alice's reactions to those who claim to be much more mature than her, can rest with her wonder as a child not to be corrupted by the cynicism of ideas reduced to mere philosophical positions and suppositions. This would be one of the main points in the conversion of C.S. Lewis to Christianity. And to some respects, it is an invitation for us to give our minds a rest, and let the universe pan itself out. Alice comes out much better than her "betters", because she is willing to let go, as many children do, rather than be sucked in and drowned in a world of so many abstractions that one misses the opportunity to just pick up scented rushes and smell them for all their worth, which Alice does on page 179.
So with wholehearted approval, I support Alice's trips to wonderland, and for Lewis Carroll who gave us the exclusive trip to go along with her.
And like me, take great pleasure in laughing at our pretenses and take once more the mantle of a child's innocence and wonder along the way!(less)

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Mar 10, 2008

Melissa rated it

· review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This classic fantasy book is two of Lewis Carroll’s stories put into one. It begins with a girl named Alice, who’s curiosity has led her an extraordinary world where she encounters talking animals, interesting characters, the ability to shirk and grow, and facing obstacles. I think we can relate to the main character in many ways. We meet odd and different people and creatures, and we face struggles in life such as others not believing in us when we know it is true. We can also think we are shri...more

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Feb 18, 2008

Steven rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 1001, kidatheart

One of the best things about my recent pursuit to read more of the classics is that I have exposed myself to numerous books, such as these two, in which I was familiar with the story, but simply had not read. Quite simply, it was charming and beautiful and more vivid that I ever imagined. “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” is no doubt the better of the two with the richer characters of the Queen of Hearts, the Mad Hatter, the Mock Turtle, etc., but “Through the Looking Glass,” is not bad eithe...moreOne of the best things about my recent pursuit to read more of the classics is that I have exposed myself to numerous books, such as these two, in which I was familiar with the story, but simply had not read. Quite simply, it was charming and beautiful and more vivid that I ever imagined. “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” is no doubt the better of the two with the richer characters of the Queen of Hearts, the Mad Hatter, the Mock Turtle, etc., but “Through the Looking Glass,” is not bad either, especially the parts with Humpty Dumpty and TweedleDee and TweedleDum.

Just like a lot of great literature, the story essentially is about a journey (these journeys begin by falling through a rabbit hole and jumping in a mirror, respectively). The journey is interesting because of the uniqueness of the characters she meets, not for any sort of allegorical message. (If there was a message in this novel, I certainly missed it.) I think that is okay though, it is hard enough to write a beautiful novel with a compelling story to hold the interest of children, no need to spoil it with allegorical references of life in pre-Victorian England.

I am a little biased because I remember reading the passage in law school in a lesson on statutory interpretation, but my favorite part of both books was the exchange at the Tea Party. “The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was, 'Why is a raven like a writing-desk?' 'Come, we shall have some fun now!' thought Alice. 'I'm glad they've begun asking riddles. — I believe I can guess that,' she added aloud. 'Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?' said the March Hare. 'Exactly so,' said Alice. 'Then you should say what you mean,' the March Hare went on. 'I do,' Alice hastily replied; 'at least — at least I mean what I say — that's the same thing, you know.' 'Not the same thing a bit!' said the Hatter. 'You might just as well say that "I see what I eat" is the same thing as "I eat what I see"!' 'You might just as well say,' added the March Hare, 'that "I like what I get" is the same thing as "I get what I like"!' 'You might just as well say,' added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, 'that "I breathe when I sleep" is the same thing as "I sleep when I breathe"!''It is the same thing with you,' said the Hatter, and here the conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute, while Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and writing-desks, which wasn't much.”

One element that I found interesting in both books (which I often find when reading these so-called children’s classics) is that I have serious doubts about whether this book would be appropriate for a child. I was amazed in both books just how mean or belittling the characters are to Alice, especially the animals. Certainly different sensitivities in effect today than yesteryear. Indeed, with the rumors of the author's possible predilection for pedophilia, it is somewhat doubtful whether this novel would see the light of day in today's world.

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Jan 13, 2009

Meenakshiamman rated it

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I love these books. I always come back and read them at least once a year.

I would like to address some of the "this is odd" type of reviews.
These books make a lot more sense than they are usually given credit for. A lot of it is satire, plays on rhyming and logic as is taught in schools. An intuitive child will be able to catch onto these themes as they, in their formative years, are learning things like logic and rhymes etc. This book helps to remind them that they...more

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Aug 07, 2011

Simona Bartolotta rated it

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Shelves: classici, favorites

La vita che cos'è, se non un sogno?

Non avrei mai pensato che questi libri potessero aver quest'effetto su di me... voglio dire, mano a mano che si cresce certi racconti perdono il loro fascino ed entrano semplicemente a far parte del grande "archivio" dove solitamente riponiamo tutte le storie sentite e risentite ma la cui conoscenza è utile unicamente per un mero fatto di cultura generale. Non bisogna fare così: fa bene ritornare bambini, di tanto in tanto.
In quanto a...more

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Nov 15, 2007

Christine rated it

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Wow - this guy was ahead of his time. Even by today's standards, the story is so bizarre and seemingly random that you could only assume C.S. Lewis is a freak or high when he wrote this or both. What's up with the scene when the baby turns into a pig?! Definitely not a children's book. One observation: Alice is really not a sweet, likeable protagonist as depicted in the movie- rather, she's quite rude and bratty and the natives of Wonderland don't mince words letting her know it. I can't help bu...more

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May 16, 2010

Jessica rated it

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Shelves: own

This book really does show how you can have some very strange dreams and how they seem to you while in them at times. This also to me shows how a child can have a wonderful imagination. I really did enjoy the whole book overall very much!

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Apr 10, 2009

Elyssa rated it

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This one is really wierd, and the only reason I am reading it is that our recital this year is going to be Alice in Wonderland. I am not going to read Through the looking Glass. This just really isn't my genera.

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Aug 09, 2011

Aaron Carpenter added it · review of another edition

Both of these books were absolutely superb. Almost every kid reads these books (or, at least, watches some sort of Hollywood version of them - the upcoming version by Tim Burton is what sparked my interest in re-reading these).

However, reading them as a kid and reading them as an adult are two very different things. As a kid, you're mystified by Wonderland and enjoy the many odd adventures Alice has.

As an adult, you see that the books (particularly the first one) are scripts in logical thinkin...more

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Jan 10, 2009

Jesse Herring rated it

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I must admit, the only reason I read "Through the looking Glass" was because I found out that Tim Burton's (along with everyone else's) 'Alice in Wonderland' (which comes out in 2010) takes elements from both stories, but his incorporates some details I've yet to see in any of the movies, like the White Queen.

They were enjoyable books, and like Douglas Adams, Lewis Carroll takes non-sensical things and makes them seem reasonable (but sometimes you have to re-read something...more

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Dec 03, 2008

cheyenne rated it

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Shelves: 7th-grade-ir-books-debra

the plot of this book is that alice falls in a rabbit hole and into a fantasy world.and she meets a white rabbit who is to busy to talk to her.she help the rabbit with his tea and so now he helps her try to find her way out of wonderland.that is where she meets the mean queen of hearts.and she doesn't want her to go home so trys to stop her from leaving.but she went home to her family and they said she didn't leave she was sleeping.
i have a text to self with alice when they ...more

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Feb 07, 2012

Ben Dutton rated it

When I bought my E-Reader, I received as free download from Sony, this book and many others, and I thought, considering how much I know and don’t know about this classic, it was about time I read it. Here is an instance of where the .epub edition works against the print edition (at least in the edition I possess). Lewis Carroll, when this famous book first appeared, illustrated much of it, and set the text on the page very deliberately; the ebook edition does not contain either these illustratio...moreWhen I bought my E-Reader, I received as free download from Sony, this book and many others, and I thought, considering how much I know and don’t know about this classic, it was about time I read it. Here is an instance of where the .epub edition works against the print edition (at least in the edition I possess). Lewis Carroll, when this famous book first appeared, illustrated much of it, and set the text on the page very deliberately; the ebook edition does not contain either these illustrations for this formatting. I daresay on a larger e-reader, these problems are extinct, but on a basic level reader, and the type most will first buy, one does not get a true sense of the majesty of this true classic.

The history of how this children’s story came into being is well known: on a rowing trip, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson told his three companions, among them his favoured Alice Liddell, of a fictional Alice and her adventures in Wonderland. The real Alice urged Dodgson to write his fantastical tales down, which he did, and for which he provided some wonderful illustrations, and a children’s classic was born, when he published it under his nom de plume, Lewis Carroll.

The story itself is equally well known. I have seen it filmed straight and as parody, and it has been referenced in countless productions and other works, including many times in Doctor Who. It has become so well known that I thought I must have read it, despite knowing that I never had (and I think Carroll would approve of that). Take, for instance, that I thought Tweedledum and Tweedledee were part of this book: well, they’re not, they’re in the sequel. There were also episodes that I’ve not seen in some versions, that are in others, that make one wonder how much of it is new invention, and how much is Carroll. And that Llandudno, which is very near where I live, has its own connections to Lewis Carroll and the Alice tale, and indeed has a monument to it, it seems I have always known this book without ever truly knowing it.

What I was also aware of, but had never looked into, was how much Lewis Carroll invested his tale with other elements: there are mathematical problems and illustrations through metaphor of mathematical theories. There are linguistic jokes, and philosophical explorations. Curiouser and curiouser, as Alice says. One of the power’s of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, is simply how much Carroll puts into the story – and how much the child must miss, or if not miss, assimilate unconsciously.

The influence of this story cannot be underestimated. It became one of the models of fantasy literature, and the nonsense verse that some of the characters sprout helped fashion much children’s literature of the twentieth century. It is a charming book, but one that has nevertheless known in its fair share of controversy: most recently a school in China banned it because it elevated animals to human level. Somehow I think Carroll would have had fun arguing with that law.(less)

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Feb 03, 2012

Daniel Russell rated it

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Shelves: reads-since-the-big-move

(On Wonderland, not Looking Glass)

Okay, I admit to reading this after playing Alice: Madness Returns. I was in the mood for some classic literature too!

Having never read this, I didn't know what to expect. Rather than having a cohesive story with a beginning, middle and end, like the nature of the writing, things are a little bit...bizarre. We have a collection of scenes which Alive stumbles her way through with (let's face it) atrocious intro and conclusion tacked on. These ...more

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topics	posts	views	last activity
FHS English 12 - ...: Chapter 1	7	8	Feb 03, 2012 09:00am
The GBHS Symposium: * A classic?	3	9	Dec 02, 2011 01:55pm
Alice and Wonderland	2	55	Nov 28, 2011 04:55pm
CRW3053-Fall 2011...: Illustrations in Novels	7	10	Nov 20, 2011 12:43pm
The GBHS Symposium: Alice	2	7	Nov 06, 2011 06:00pm
Movie Reads : Why is a raven like a writing desk?	1	12	Jul 31, 2011 01:33pm

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About Lewis Carroll

The Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known by the pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican clergyman and photographer.

His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass as well as the poems "The Hunting of the Snark" and "Jabberwocky", all considered to be within the gen...more

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“But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.

Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."

How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.

You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here.” — 1,489 people liked it

“She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very seldom followed it).” — 1,294 people liked it

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