I assume most people are familiar with the story of Alice in Wonderland but for those who are not I have included a summary at the end of the opinion.
I was brought up on Alice stories, not however just read from the book. Like the real Alice I grew up in Oxford and like her was lucky enough ... Read review
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for most children, pure pleasure in prose. While adults try to decipher Lewis Carroll's putative use of complex mathematical codes in the text, or debate his all...
for most children, pure pleasure in prose. While adults try to decipher Lewis Carroll's putative use of complex mathematical codes in the text, or debate his all...
follows him into a rabbit hole. Then she falls down a long, long way... When Alice sees the White Rabbit run by, she is burning with curiosity. Jumping up...
alike since their publication. This is a new unabridged recording using many voices to take the parts of The White Rabbit, the Mad Hatter, the Queen of Hearts...
including the White Rabbit and the March Hare. Join Alice as she travels through Wonderland and meets a host of bizarre characters including the White Rabbit and...
A review by Freespirit on Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll March 1st, 2001
Author's product rating:
Would you read it again?
Absolutely
Story
Good
Characters
Outstanding
Readability
Average
Advantages:
A true classic
Disadvantages:
Probably not really for children
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
I assume most people are familiar with the story of Alice in Wonderland but for those who are not I have included a summary at the end of the opinion.
I was brought up on Alice stories, not however just read from the book. Like the real Alice I grew up in Oxford and like her was lucky enough to have a storytelling uncle. I was told Alice stories in Christ Church Meadow and Godstow sitting near the same places where she sat and maybe just maybe I heard them as she had done originally. I do know that I also went down the rabbit hole and that I too grew and shrunk as she did and met the horrid duchess and queen.
Eventually, however, and I can’t remember how old I was, I read the book for myself – and I was so disappointed. I remember thinking how silly it was or tedious and some of it I couldn’t understand at all. So what happened?
Basically, exactly the same thing that happened to Alice at the end of the story. As soon as Alice points out the reality of the situation – that they are “only a pack of cards”, she is immediately returned to ‘reality’ herself.
I had grown up a bit, I was old enough to read the words but too old to recapture the magic of the stories that I had originally heard. On the other hand distance in time and general lack of education and understanding left me too young to understand it on another level. I was offended by the cruelty and confused by the puns and irony. So as far as I was concerned it was a useless book and I disliked it so much that I didn’t introduce it to my own children at all.
Thus it seems to me that Alice in wonderland is a Jekyll and Hyde book and there are at least two distinct sides to it.
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson was an immensely talented man, naturally creative and artistic he somehow or another ended up as a mathematics teacher. He was born in 1832 the third child of eleven and he first began to compose poems and stories to entertain the family. Snippets of ‘Alice’ were known to others long before the real ‘Alice’ came into his life and thus it was a long time in the making. Alice was by no means the only child who had been told special stories but she was the one who demanded that he write them down.
The inspirational stories that gave birth to the book Alice in wonderland were first told to Alice and her two sisters on a boating trip to Godstow on 4th July 1862. That evening as they said goodnight Alice said to him, “Oh, Mr Dodgson, I wish you would write out Alice’s’ adventures for me.” And apparently he sat up most of that night writing down what he could remember but the first draft was not completed for another two years.
Now, surely this in itself tells us something about the nature of this book. If it was indeed intended as a storybook for children alone surely it could have been finished much quicker. Alice was 10 years old when the stories were originally told, she was given the first draft ‘Alice’s Adventures in the Underground’ when she was 12 and finally ‘Alice in wonderland’ was published when she was 13. Alice was 19 when Through the looking Glass was published.
Furthermore, if it was really intended for children why did Carroll completely rewrite it as ‘The Nursery Alice’ in 1889 without the puns and irony? In the preface to that book he suggests that this version is for one to five year olds but he also mentions ‘children’ of various other ages who have read it with his tongue obviously firmly in cheek.
Read from a certain point of view and with reasonable insight the book is almost certainly a satire containing subtly anarchic mockery of Victorian hypocrisy, authority and prejudice. Many people suggest that there are references to drugs in the book and that Carroll may have written under the influence. Drug use is most obvious in the hookah smoking caterpillar scene and ‘magic’ mushroom but also more subtly present in the story of the duchess and baby. But it seems to me far more likely that there is implied criticism of the then common opium habits and results of it than any direct use by the author himself.
Lewis Carroll, however, has cleverly allowed the criticisms to be voiced by ‘Alice’, who as a seven year old girl knows nothing. Victorians considered children as basically useless and worthless and showed their prejudices to ‘lower’ classes, indigenous peoples and ‘blacks’ by comparing them to children – ‘immature working class’ etc. But in wonderland there is a reversal of this state and the grown ups are shown to be everything that they accuse others of.
Carroll had a perceptive understanding of children and valued their innocent reasoning and ability to be transported so easily into wonderland and I suspect he wanted to create a bridge which would enable other older ‘children’ to share his perspective. In other words, Alice in wonderland is a sort of manual of how to become a child for adults so they too can see the world differently.
Even if I am wrong and it was written entirely for children I do not think a child of today can understand much of the story as it stands. The parts of the story which were told to and written for Alice and her sisters had particular relevance to them alone and that is what made them so special. Lewis Carroll had the storyteller’s art of transforming the people and things around into things that were recognisably different to those who knew what he was talking about. Many of the characters in the book can be identified as real people Alice knew. The White Rabbit, for example, is most probably her own father. (Christ Church for whatever reason keeps different time to the rest of the UK. Oxford is 5 minutes west of Greenwich and in theory 9.00 GMT is 9.05 Oxford time. This is the time Christ Church keeps in the cathedral, for dinner and striking its bell Great Tom. So the white rabbit that is always late is quite clearly from Christ Church.)
In one of the most famous stories from Alice the mad hatter’s tea party the dormouse is woken to tell a story. He tells the story of three little girls Elsie, Lacie and Tillie who live at the bottom of a treacle well. This story would seem like complete madness to some people but would have made sense to Alice. The girls are in fact the Liddell sisters and the treacle well is a reference to the healing well (known as the treacle well) at Binsey which they passed on the boating trip and to the Frideswide legend which had been recently immortalised on new stained glass windows in Christ Church Cathedral.
Another part of the story which would be obvious to Alice but not necessarily to others is mention of the dodo – which was on exhibition at the very recently opened University museum of natural history. There are many such obscure references in the story and to understand the significance it really is necessary to read an annotated edition.
With knowledge of the background to the stories one can enter again into the spirit of the stories as they were told to the girls on a certain golden afternoon and marvel at the imagination of Lewis Carroll who also wrote the following:
I’d give all wealth that years have piled, the slow result of life’s decay. To be once more a little child for one bright summer day.
Summary of the story
The story begins with Alice sitting with her sister by the river when suddenly she sees a white rabbit hurrying past muttering to himself about being late. Curiosity causes Alice to follow him down a rabbit hole, along passages and in and out of rooms. At one point Alice catches a glimpse of a beautiful garden and wants to enter it but finds she is too big.
Then follows a sequence of events where she first drinks a potion and becomes small then eats cake and becomes big which recurs throughout the story in various ways. When she is too big she bursts into tears of frustration and then when she shrinks again finds herself swimming in a pool of her own tears alongside various other creatures.
They eventually swim out of the pool and have to get dry. The mouse tells his ‘driest story’ but that doesn’t work so they decide to have a race which involves running wherever they want randomly. The dodo is in charge and they all have prizes. The mouse starts to tell his tale and no one is interested so he leaves and when Alice starts her story every one else leaves.
The rabbit enters the story again and mistaking Alice for his maid sends her off to his house to fetch his gloves and fan. There she finds another bottle of ‘drink me’ stuff, drinks some and grows to fill the room. Then she shrinks again, gets chased by a puppy and wants to grow again. This is when she conveniently meets the hookah smoking caterpillar that suggests she eats some mushroom.
The next scene finds Alice in a house in some woods where she meets fish and frog footmen and in the kitchen the duchess and baby, a grinning cat and the cook. Everyone is sneezing because there is too much pepper about and the baby is howling. The duchess throws the baby to Alice and it changes into a pig and runs away. Then Alice meets the Cheshire cat
The next scene is one of the most famous in Alice – the mad hatter’s tea party. The March hare and mad hatter are having tea and a dormouse is sitting between them fast asleep. There ensues a fascinating discussion on semantics, riddles, philosophy and complete nonsense then the dormouse is woken and tells a story about three little girls who live in a well. Alice gets offended about something and wanders off and finds a tree with a door in it. Eventually after some more growing and shrinking she finds herself able to enter the beautiful garden she saw at the beginning of the story.
But the people in the beautiful garden are not very beautiful. Alice sees a rose tree with white roses on which two gardeners are painting red, because they had accidentally planted the wrong sort and if the queen finds out she will cut off their heads. The queen and the rest of the cards arrive and the queen invites Alice to play croquet. The riotous game is played with flamingo mallets and hedgehogs as balls and the queen constantly orders heads off.
After this the mock turtle and gryphon do a dance and finally there is a trial to discover who stole the tarts. Most of the main characters reappear as witnesses and finally Alice is called. By this time she is growing again and is not worried about what she says because they are ‘only a pack of cards’. The whole pack of cards comes flying down upon her – and Alice wakes from her dream.
Advantages: Wonderful, enchanting read for all ages. Disadvantages: Very weird, and a bit dated.
Alice in Wonderland was written by Lewis Carrol, the pseudonym of a maths professor called Charles Lutwidge Dodson. There is a famous story of Queen Victoria, having read Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, ordering her courtiers to bring her everything that Lewis Carroll had written, only to receive a pile of mathematical papers! Suffice it to say that there are a lot of mathematical puzzles hidden in his work, so that beneath the ... ...its references to chess).
Alice in Wonderland is that rarity - a children's book that can be read on many levels. It has brilliantly crafted nonsense poetry, of which "the mouse's tale" - a beautiful shape poem in the shape of a mouse's tail, "Jabberwocky" - brilliant verbal fireworks - revelling in the enjoyment of playing with the English language for the sake of it, and the Walrus and the Carpenter (from 'Through the Looking Glass') are probably ...
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Story
Characters
Readability
helpful
12.12.2006
ALICE IN WONDERLAND Review ofAlice in Wonderland - Lewis Carrollby
jpearson772
Advantages: Mad and Amusing Disadvantages: None
OPINION
This is a very funny little book, a childrens book but everybody will enjoy it as I did. Its a very simple book to read but the way that Carroll explores logic through the book is both amusing and interesting. The book has been written by the "Mad Hatter" himself, wacky nonsense that will entertain any man, woman or child.
AUTHOR
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (1832-1898) better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll was an English author, mathematician, ... ..."Alices Adventures in Wonderland" and its sequel "Through the Looking-glass" as well as his poems "The Hunting of the Shark" and "Jabberwocky".
BOOK INFORMATION
The story is basically about Alices journey down into a rabbit hole after following a white rabbit that she heard talking to itself. She faces many difficulties at the start adjusting to this underground society, and offends a good few characters (very amusing). You can read the rest yourself. ...
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Advantages: Brilliant characters Disadvantages: None that I can think of
...most fantasy adventures, to adults Alice in Wonderland seems like the product of a dieased or at the very least, drug addled mind. To children it is all perfectly acceptable however.
It is a timeless adventure tale and the larger than life characters are great, such as the Cheshire Cat and the mad Hatter. There are all kinds of theories running round about how Carroll was trying to invent a new system of mathematics and other crazy ideas, but don't ...
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Advantages: make you think Disadvantages: make you think
...she compared the character of Alice to that of a friend who was involved with drugs. Caroline’s friend, like Alice, was lost in another world. For this exhibition, Caroline decided to re-use her artwork from four years ago, inventing and adding new elements to it.
Is "Alice in Wonderland" about the death of a child?
Does she try to find her identity, trapped in solitude?
The "garden" is more morbid than enchanted, isn't it?
All these questions ... ...places, deserted by people whom she has rejected. The picture shown
is a "souvenir" of this walk where the few moments of reality are
fragmented; her life is a collage with rough edges emphasised by the flat
colours and the lack of contrast. Caroline took a picture of a face, she photographed destroyed buildings then these pictures were printed on fabric and finally I scanned the textile prints. During this process, each technique used left a
...
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...Looking Glass. Most people and modern kids got Alice via the sanitised Disney animated film, which weaves the two books together, but really you should check out the original and try and get your head round it.
It is well written and has some totally weird twists and turns. ...
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Advantages: lets your imagination run riot Disadvantages: lets your imagination run riot!
...'AliceinWonderland' is truly a classic and should be read by all ages, especially the young, this means when they read it again when they're our age, they’ll enjoy it all the more. Every page is exciting, mysterious, creative and full of wonder, Carroll has a way with his imagination, he pulls you into his riddles, puns and characterisations so you end up believing you ARE Alice. At 10 I was Alice, at 33, I’m still Alice! (just a little greying!)
Alice is 7 years old and a very creative little girl, intelligent and yearning to learn, but level headed with it, and she works around problems that pop up at every page turn. Ok, I don’t claim to understand all of it, and sometimes I get a little frustrated, but I keep having to remember, this book is meant for kids who still have a vivid imagination and aren’t...
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Advantages: Compelling and easy to read Disadvantages: Often abridged or without original illustrations these days.
...AliceinWonderland
Here we meet Alice by a river with her older sister in the summer, bored she notices a rabit walking on it's hind legs wearing a waistcoat and looking at a pocket watch muttering he is late. he drops a glove and anxious to help Alice chases him with it and falls down a rabbit hole, where she is transported into a starnge new world.
She meets all sorts of strange characters, the most memorable probably being the Mad Hatter, The Catterpillar, The Cheshire Cat who's grin appears before he does, and The Queen of Hearts, who ironically seems to have none.
She takes part in tea parties, tries to sooth a screaming pig, shrinks then becomes a giant then shrinks back again, and has to play croguet with a flamingo and hedgehogs amongst other bizarre activities.
I can read this book over and over again, there are...
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Advantages: Invigorates the Imagination Disadvantages: May make you go MAD as a Hatter!
...LewisCarroll was the name Charles Dodgson went by when he wrote his Poetry, Storys etc. This was not his real name! Also, did you know he was a paedophile?
He trained as a mathmatician and this can be seen in many of his books. his storys are very logically constructed and they contain some rather stimulating content.
The Adventures of AliceinWonderland and through the looking glass (nowadays called a mirror) have passed the test of time very well - The reading is mostly easy and the books are highly entertaining.
These are both adventures of a young girl, Alice, who goes through exploring as we do the magical and mystical world of what we find out to be Her imagination.
The characters Dodgson created were delightful in there own way - my favourite of which is the opium smoking catapiller. also Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum...
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12.03.2001
