After years of referring to “Alice in Wonderland” I come to find that the correct title is Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
I love the book and I have always loved this book. My mother gave me a copy when I was 9 or 10. After that I think I read it twice a year until I graduated from high school. Just ask me to recite You Are Old Father William! So why write about it now? I am taking a course on the works of Lewis Carroll. It is great fun to sit in a room of Alice admirers and talk about her.
A critic has said that this is not a book for children. Does that imply that it should be denied to children, held off from their experience until they can appreciate its many references and subleties? Not on my watch. Like all the best children’s literature — Tom Sawyer and Little Women come to mind — it speaks eloquently of life as a child sees it. No child can resist. The adult finds other messages. I remember reading Peter Rabbit to my own very young children and musing (to myself, not them) about the defense of property rights in Mr. McGregor’s cabbage patch.
Which brings me, happily, to the Cheshire Cat. The cat appears, the cat speaks, the cat disappears, rapidly.
“I said ‘pig’,” replied Alice; “and I wish you wouldn’t keep appearing and vanishing so suddenly: you make one quite giddy!”
“All right,” said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly, beinning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin, which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.
Any child loves that Cat, which talks and can do the disappearing act. Any adult sees the hazards of getting what you wish for. Instead of sudden disappearance, you get only a ggrriiinnn.
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I’ve got this book on my shelf, I’ve got to read it soon.
I was put off Lewis Carrol, because there were suspicions of him being a raging paedophile.
But recently I read ‘The Lost Girls’ by Alan Moore, a highly pornpographic retelling of the adult lives of the leading characters from Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz and Peter Pan (google it, it’s mind boggling)- and since then I’ve been interested in reading all three of the original works.
The pedophile question is still unsettled. He felt a strong attraction to young girls, but we don’t know to what extent he acted on it. The best evidence in his favor are the Alice books themselves. He puts himself in her mind and tells us in her own voice how her world appears to her.
I love this book too and, like you, always have done. How awful (and short-sighted and patronising) of that critic if he/she meant to suggest that books are only suitable for those who can access all levels. (That would cut rather a large swathe through my potential reads.)
A recent newspaper article listed books you should read before you are twenty-one, giving the argument that some books make a bigger impression during those formative years. (But the article was never meant to suggest that the more mature reader should be excluded!)
I agree with you that children will find their own meanings. And am glad for it.
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In Lewis Carroll, Author of Alice in Wonderland by Carol Greene (a biography written for children), some insights are given about Lewis Carroll. Apparently he was shy, stuttered and had a hearing problem. He was more comfortable around children who liked his stories and entertaining ways. The children who knew him when asked what he was like, all mentioned his kindness.