Through The Looking-Glass, And What Alice Found There (1993) - Plot & Excerpts
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.
Being the continuing adventures of Alice, and also being somewhat short I'm going to direct this one back to my general review of the Alice's Adventures in Wonderland . There's enough that's similar that it all applies.There are differences here though. The sequel focuses both more on Alice's journey to the other side of the chessboard (rules of Chess - irrelevant!), an endeavour to become Queen (doesn't really end intelligibly but y'know, it's there). There's an even greater focus on poetry and language than in the first book and this one, although maybe a less straightup entertaining or strange read than the first, is however a treasure trove of curios for anyone interested in language. The poem first read by Alice and later explained by Humpty Dumpty, Jabberwocky is perhaps the nicest example of Carroll's concept that one can find meaning in language, and one can also twist and subvert that meaning to one's own cultural surroundings'Twas brillig, and the slithy tovesDid gyre and gimble in the wabe:All mimsy were the borogoves,And the mome raths outgrabe.A wonderful poem, with as much meaning as it has no meaning.
What do You think about Through The Looking-Glass, And What Alice Found There (1993)?
Lewis Carroll was not indifferent to the reader but I have enormous difficulty in picturing Alice as Alice Hargreaves, the once young girl that Dodson famously wrote a story for. Why does she get attention or credit? She was there. Maybe she got a huge kick out of the story like the rest of the fans. Sorry, lost my train of thought. Anyway, I doubt it was Watership Down by Richard Adams. That was true interactive creating with his kids story as incurable humanity. I lived in that world too. Or the girl that C.S. Lewis wrote The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe for. I think of them as the hole in the ceiling of Paul McCartney's house. He wrote a song about it called 'Fixing a hole'. The hole doesn't deserve that much credit. These beatitudes are miracles, something to be grateful for. I freaking love it when stuff like that happens. Surprising yourself creativity and connection to the intangible dreamscape around you. It's barely tied in reality.The two Alice books are dreams that you have no control over. Sometimes the subconcious stuff that Freud would loooove to hear about. You don't know the end, you're unsure of the beginning, and the middle is a crazy ass head trip. I love it. I wish that I could remember some of my dreams. The closest I get is reading stuff like this. Carroll probably surprised himself too.Ringo Starr as the Mock Turtle just because.
—Mariel
you must get a copy of this with the original tenniel illustrations. an all-time favorite of mine, have bought several editions of this over the years. currently am re-reading it as i found a copy on a discount rack in a train station in haifa (so hard to find reasonably priced books here!). over the years, i extract something different from these stories each time i read them, whether its a finer appreciation of certain aspects of its humor, a different interpretation of the events, or understanding the basis of some its stories in the real world.
—Jamie is
Loved Lewis Carroll's writing style obviously. The whole story being a dream (spoiler alert! (but its kinda obvious anyways)), it makes sense that the novel is a pile of jumbled and basically completely unrelated and unconnected events and its quite enjoyable. Half the time while reading this, I had no idea what exactly was taking place and the story is fuuuuuuuuuullll of riddles, but that's the fun of it. I shall like to re-read it another time to spend time really trying to solve those riddles and, for example, think hard on the meaning of the abundance of fish-related riddles in the novel. Alice herself is a fascinating character; Very young and full of curiosity, she asks all the right questions and often gets adorably indignant when dealing with the insufferably difficult personalities of the various characters in the Looking Glass. The last sentence of the novel (aptly being also the last verse in a poem) -- "life, what is it but a dream?"-- wraps up the whole idea behind the jumbled story nicely and the truth behind it has a certain shock value.
—Kristen
