Ever Ready: Alice in Wonderland

Sunday, July 18, 2021

Alice in Wonderland

Original Book Cover

Children's classics are fun to experience when we're young, but revisiting them when we are older brings some additional surprises. My book group picked the children's classic "Alice in Wonderland" to revisit. It is one of the most popular and quoted books in English history. The book was the creation of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898) written in 1865. He was a distinguished scholar, mathematician, and author who wrote under the pseudonym, Lewis Carroll. The book was written for young readers but has been enjoyed equally by adults. This tale has been credited with revolutionizing children's literature. As an adult reader, you may find Lewis Carroll's Wonderland characters a little stranger and perhaps more philosophical at a second glance.

The text doesn’t really have a thread but is more a series of strange encounters like in a dream. It tells the tale of a young girl named Alice with a lot of spunk, who falls through a rabbit hole into a subterranean fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures. It's considered to be one of the best examples of the literary nonsense genre. The tale plays with logic, giving the story lasting popularity with adults as well as with children.

A mathematician himself, Carroll had a keen sense of logic and order. He also had a sense of the absurd and saw many of the intellectual trends of his day in the latter light. In contrast to the mock intellectualism of adults, Carroll seems to prefer the innocent common sense of children, who therefore became, like Alice, the heroines of most of his stories. Alice’s greatest challenge in Wonderland often seems not to be how to return to the aboveground world, as might be expected, but to remain uninfected by the dangerous and surreal logic of the “adult” wonderlanders she encounters. A grinning Cheshire cat, an absurd tea party with the Mad Hatter, Dormouse, and March Hare, an astute Caterpillar, a curious and strange croquet match, a thieving knave, and a queen with an attitude add to the hilarity of the story with events often not making any logical sense at all.

DID YOU KNOW
"Alices Adventures in Wonderland" is a literary work that has never been out of print and has been translated into at least 97 languages. Its ongoing impressive legacy encompasses many adaptations of the story for the stage, screen, radio, art, ballet, theme parks, board games, and video games. On the flip side, "Alice in Wonderland" was banned in China's Hunan province by the Governor as far back as 1931. The primary reason for the ban was because the censor general believed attribution of animals acting like humans with the same complexity was an “insult”.

I found the backstory to Alice in Wonderland as intriguing as the story itself. Alice Pleasance Liddell (1852 – 1934) was the little girl who inspired Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass." Carroll developed a very close relationship with three Liddell sisters, Alice, Lorina and Edith. He became infatuated with the couple's daughters, especially, Alice. His relationship with Alice abruptly ended in 1863 when something happened between Dodgson and the Liddells that severed their relationship. Prior to that, he saw the children nearly every day.

Another interesting point to mention is the Alice in Wonderland Syndrome.
It is also known as Todd’s syndrome, a rare condition of temporary episodes of distorted perception of body size that was first described in the 1950s. During these episodes, those with Alice in Wonderland Syndrome feel that their body is either larger or smaller than normal, and/or objects and people around them appear larger or smaller than usual — much like the well-known character Alice experiences in Carroll’s stories. In fact, Carroll himself suffered from migraines, and it has been suggested that some of his own experiences may have been the inspiration for his writing.

Many might consider these points speculative in nature but I did read them in several places giving me pause.

I loved the story for its absurdities, its endearing characters, and memorable quotes. And who doesn't love a tea party? Especially a Mad Hatter Tea Party.