Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

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Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass (Barnes & Noble Classics Series)

4.04 of 5 stars 4.04 · rating details · 195,004 ratings · 4,548 reviews

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Clas...more Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, by Lewis Carroll, is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics:

New introductions commissioned from today's top writers and scholars
Biographies of the authors
Chronologies of contemporary historical, biographical, and cultural events
Footnotes and endnotes
Selective discussions of imitations, parodies, poems, books, plays, paintings, operas, statuary, and films inspired by the work
Comments by other famous authors
Study questions to challenge the reader's viewpoints and expectations
Bibliographies for further reading
Indices & Glossaries, when appropriate

All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.

First published in 1865, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was an immediate success, as was its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass. Carroll’s sense of the absurd and his amazing gift for games of logic and language have secured for the Alice books an enduring spot in the hearts of both adults and children.

Alice begins her adventures when she follows the frantically delayed White Rabbit down a hole into the magical world of Wonderland, where she meets a variety of wonderful creatures, including Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the Cheshire Cat, the hookah-smoking Caterpillar, the Mad Hatter, and the Queen of Hearts—who, with the help of her enchanted deck of playing cards, tricks Alice into playing a bizarre game of croquet. Alice continues her adventures in Through the Looking-Glass, which is loosely based on a game of chess and includes Carroll’s famous poem "Jabberwocky.”

Throughout her fantastic journeys, Alice retains her reason, humor, and sense of justice. She has become one of the great characters of imaginative literature, as immortal as Don Quixote, Huckleberry Finn, Captain Ahab, Sherlock Holmes, and Dorothy Gale of Kansas.(less)

ebook, 510 pages

Published June 1st 2009 by Barnes & Noble Classics (first published 1865)

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Jun 02, 2007 Keely rated it 5 of 5 stars · 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 a world that they have been told is unsafe and unsavory; and we expected them not to blanch.

It has been my policy that the best literature for children is not a trifling thing, not a simplific...more 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 a world that they have been told is unsafe and unsavory; and we expected them not to blanch.

It has been my policy that the best literature 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 literature to write because one must challenge, engage, please, and awe a mind without resorting to archetypes or life experience.

Once a body grows old enough, we are all saddened by the thought of a breakup. We have a set of knowledge and memories. The pain returns to the surface. Children are not born with these understandings, so to make them understand pain, fear, and loss is no trivial thing. The education of children is the transformation of an erratic and hedonistic little beast into a creature with a rational method by which 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. I think the real reason that culture often fears sexuality and violence in children is 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, to write Children's Literature, an author must create something complex and challenging, something that the child can turn over in their mind without accidentally revealing some terrible aspect of the world that the child is not yet capable of dealing with. Carroll did this by basing his fantasies off of complex, impersonal structures: linguistics and mathematical theory. These things have all the ambiguity, uncertainty, and structure of the grown-up world without the messy, human parts.

This is also why the Alice stories fulfill another requirement I have for Children's Lit: that it be just as intriguing and rewarding for adults. There is no need to limit the depth in books for children, because each reader will come away with whatever they are capable of finding. Fill an attic with treasures and the child who enters it may find any number of things--put a single coin in a room and you ensure that the child will find it, but nothing more.

Of course, we must remember that nothing we can write will ever 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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May 15, 2009 Bonnie rated it 5 of 5 stars · 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.

25 likes · like · see review

Oct 09, 2012 Patrizia O rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: autori-autrici-gran-bretagna, club-del-libro-gdl, classici, ebook, sfida-once-upon-a-time, fantasy-e-fantascienza, recensioni

Alice nel paese dell meraviglie 3/5
Attraverso lo specchio e quello che Alice vi trovò 2/5

“Vorresti forse sostenere che la frase vedo quello che mangio ha lo stesso significato di mangio quello che vedo?»
“O vorresti sostenere” proseguì la Lepre Marzolina “che la frasemi piace quello che prendo ha lo stesso significato di prendo quello che mi piace?”
“E vorresti forse sostenere” concluse il Ghiro (il quale sembrava che parlasse dormendo) “che la frase respiro quando dormo ha lo stesso significato

...more

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Feb 15, 2013 Jason Koivu rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

People love this. Not me. Does that mean I'm not people?

Usually I like scatterbrained, nonsensical stuff and that's probably my problem: I don't get the references. At least some of the wild and crazy antics seem to happen to prove a point about the ridiculousness of some or other quirky British convention. So maybe all the wacky shit that goes down in Alice in Wonderland has a deeply satirical basis? I must give Carroll his due, the satire that I did get I enjoyed. However, for me much of this...more

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May 05, 2012 Stefan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland:

The joy of this book definitely holds through for me as an adult. I reread this with some trepidation as I remembered reading and enjoying it several times as a child, but was pleasantly surprised to find it just as magical as I did then.

I won't bore anyone with the details of the story as I'm sure that most who are reading this review are familiar with it. Suffice it to say that Alice's journey into Wonderland is still rather wonderful.

Alice still comes off as a...more

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Feb 08, 2010 indri rated it 5 of 5 stars · 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 'eat me'? Pertemuan di Mad Tea Party, d...more

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Jan 01, 2012 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: the young and the young at heart

Recommended to Michael 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

4 likes · like · see review

Mar 21, 2009 Heather rated it 2 of 5 stars · 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 level. The whole time I w...more

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Jul 12, 2012 Ian Graye rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In Every Children's Book a Paedophile?

Was the Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, otherwise known as Lewis Carroll, a paedophile?

Does the fact that he took photos of young girls mean that the Alice books are lesser works?

Shock Horror, the Dodgy Truth about Dodgson

Have I got news for you, fresh off the internet.

Lewis Carroll was no paedophile.

Alice is not the target for or victim of Carroll's penis.

She is a symbol of his penis.

Girl = Penis, Alice = Phallus.

It all makes sense when you recognise...more

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Sep 16, 2007 Kelly rated it 5 of 5 stars · 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 5 of 5 stars · 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:

Twinkle, twinkle li...more

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Dec 30, 2009 Jennifer Braxton rated it 3 of 5 stars · 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, though, that Wik...more

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Jan 31, 2012 Caris rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, childrens, bizarro, bedtime-stories

“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.

A large sweaty man rushed past her, bumpin...more

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Nov 15, 2008 Michaela rated it 3 of 5 stars · 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 5 of 5 stars · 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 hilarious, espec...more

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Dec 31, 2012 Sahir D'souza rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: books-that-i-d-love-to-read-again, sort-of-read, book-to-film

'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' is truly a mad book and the recent film is even madder! But the book is extremely fun to read, although some might feel all the 'curiouser' stuff might go a bit overboard. There is a pack of cards, a queen who plays croquet with a flamingo as a racquet and who says, 'Off with your head!' to everyone. The queen gets upset that her gardeners have grown White roses instead of red ones, so Alice suggests she paint them red.
There is another scene in the beginning...more

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Mar 03, 2009 Elissa rated it 4 of 5 stars · 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 can fit thro...more 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 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 04, 2012 Brandon rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favourite-books

This book is not simply a children's story.
This book is definitely not simply the recipe for an acid trip (this goes to you Jefferson Airplane!)
This book is an insane, beautiful, complex work of prose that has yet to be matched.

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Jul 12, 2011 Suzanne rated it 4 of 5 stars · 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 the books...more

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Feb 02, 2012 Jason rated it 2 of 5 stars · 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 drop...more

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Aug 04, 2011 Anzu The Great Destroyer rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: el-clasico, reviewed-2011, absolute-madness, fantasia-ya, bbc-100, 1001-books

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...more 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 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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Apr 07, 2010 Brandon rated it 5 of 5 stars · 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 awkwardly flops an...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 5 of 5 stars · 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 4 of 5 stars · 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 4 of 5 stars · 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 either,...more 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 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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Apr 03, 2012 Simona Bartolotta rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classici, favorites, fantasy-and-co

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 ai libri dell nostra cara...more

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Feb 18, 2010 Kylie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-2007, young-adult, acquired-pre-2006

I got my edition of Alice's Adventures In Wonderland when I was quite young, and its illustrations of Alice are based on the original inspiration for the story, Alice Liddell. This is the first time in many years I've read this story - usually I just watch the Disney movie (one of my all-time favourite movies) - and I was interested to see the similarities and differences between the two.

Lewis Carroll has a wonderful way with words. I liked some parts (tea party, croquet game) more than others (...more

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Nov 15, 2007 Christine rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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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Apr 09, 2012 Snufkin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Jabberwocky...what is the difference between a raven and a writing desk...genius!

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May 16, 2010 Jessica rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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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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 genre of literary nonsense.

Oxford s...more

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Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There

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