Week 18 - Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

[Jenny]

And here's week 18 with Alice in Wonderland.

From the article:

"On 4 July 1862, a shy young Oxford mathematics don with a taste for puzzles and whimsy named Charles Dodgson rowed the three daughters of Henry Liddell, dean of Christ Church, five miles up the Thames to Godstow. On the way, to entertain his passengers, who included a 10-year-old named Alice, with whom he was strangely infatuated, Dodgson began to improvise the "Adventures Under Ground" of a bored young girl, also named Alice. Wordplay, logical conundrums, parody and riddles: Dodgson surpassed himself, and the girls were enchanted by the nonsense dreamworld he conjured up. The weather for this trip was reportedly "overcast", but those on board would remember it as "a golden afternoon".

This well-known story marks the beginning of perhaps the greatest, possibly most influential, and certainly the most world-famous Victorian English fiction, a book that hovers between a nonsense tale and an elaborate in-joke. Just three years later, extended, revised, and retitled Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, now credited to a pseudonymous Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland (its popular title) was about to become the publishing sensation of Christmas 1865. It is said that among the first avid readers of Alice were Queen Victoria and the young Oscar Wilde. A second volume about Alice (Through the Looking-Glass) followed in 1871. Together these two short books (Wonderland is barely 28,000 words long) became two of the most quoted and best-loved volumes in the English canon."

read the whole article here

[Leslie]

I have read this, although it is probably time for a reread. But I lost my bet that this week would be a Trollope :(

[Amber]

I've never read this book but have seen the Disney animated film and liked it.

[Pink]

I read this last year and thought it was very strange, delightful in places, but overall just weird! I thought the Disney version was pretty close to it.

[Alannah]

Yay! Another one I know and love. I studied this last year. Even if my tutors liked to focus on the creepy bits.

[Gill]

Not sure of my dates. Does this mean no Mrs Gaskell?

[Briana]

I am reading this right now! Alice in Wonderland has always been my favorite Disney movie and so I'm deciding to give the book a go. :)

[Leslie]

Gill wrote: "Not sure of my dates. Does this mean no Mrs Gaskell?"

I don't know... 1865 might be the year she died so I think you may be right. :(

[Jenny]

Even with my meagre knowledge of pre-1900 English literature, I would find that quite disappointing :(

[Bionic Jean]

Is it done by the author's dates, or the novel's? Maybe there's still a chance...

[Shirley]

I'd put Gaskell in and several others before Alice in Wonderland. I think it's a weird book!

[Leslie]

Shirley wrote: "I'd put Gaskell in and several others before Alice in Wonderland. I think it's a weird book!"

Well, it is one of the "nonsense" books which came in with the nonsense poetry (Carroll, Lear, etc). In that sense, it was ground-breaking.

[Shirley]

Leslie wrote: "Shirley wrote: "I'd put Gaskell in and several others before Alice in Wonderland. I think it's a weird book!"

Well, it is one of the "nonsense" books which came in with the nonsense poetry (Carrol..."

That's true, but I have read parts and just can't bring myself to read the whole book. We did a stage version at school, which was great fun.

[LauraT]

Amber wrote: "I've never read this book but have seen the Disney animated film and liked it."

Never judge a book by a Disney adaptation: they're even less reliable tha film adaptation in general. They may be, and generally are, really nice films, but never too close to the original book.
This said I have to admit that I didn't love this book, even if I do understand it is a great one. Too many nonsense, limeriks, too truly english to understand it thruoughout from a "foreigner" point of view...

[John]

Being as truly English as it's possible to be, I can truly say that Alice has been a source of delight for the last 50+ years, from being bewitched by the fun and nonsense as a boy, then with the wit, puns, etc as a student, and then when older by the fun made of stuffy educational and po-faced poems around at the time.

Perhaps the book to use if one wants to understand it more easily is 'The Annotated Alice', written by a brilliant American, Martin Gardner.

As the blurb of the 2001 Peguin paperback says: 'For nearly half a century, Gardner has reigned supreme as the eccentric and engrossing commentary on manifold conundrums offered by Carroll's text.'

[[deleted user]]

Very familiar with the Disney cartoon, I read an abridged version of this book when I was quite young. The original, however, is still to be read. I have a beautiful illustrated copy just waiting to be taken down from my Keepers Shelf.