The above is a picture of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, famously known as Lewis Carroll, the author of 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'. He was born on 27 January 1832 in England, and he lived there all his life, only leaving once to go on a trip to Russia with a friend. He also wrote the sequel to 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' called 'Through the Looking Glass', and also the less acclaimed novel 'Sylvie and Bruno'. Carroll was several things throughout his life - such as a mathamtician, lecturer, novelest, photographer. He liked to invent things, like a writing tablet that you could use at night. He also liked to illustrate his unpublished manuscripts - he even did it with Alice, but he then hired a real illustrator once the book was going to be published. Scattered throughout the post areexamples of his handwriting/drawing skills, in my opinion they look cute.
Carroll wrote in a genre called Literary Nonesense. It was a genre that I'd never heard of before. I found 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' an interesting text to read. I feel that I would have loved and tresured the book, if only I'd read it as a child. The book is very dreamlike, I don't know if I am spoiling it by saying that it was all a dream. I admired that the book and the way it was written played this straight - it felt like a dream, and had the logic of a dream. So ironically it was quite realistic. Even though it is all supposed to be a load of nonesense sometimes Alice would say or do something that I found quite profound. Here's an example:
'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.'You must be,' said the Cat, 'or you wouldn't have come here.'
I think Lewis Carroll wrote for his own amusement. He wrote a lot, but only published something if he thought it was extra special. 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' was well recieved and popular when it was published. It was rumoured that the Queen at the time loved it so much that she wanted him to dedicate his next book to her. Over the years it has been loved by lots of people and studied by many as well. There have been many adaptations of 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' over the years, some of which I have enjoyed such as the recent Syfy version.This post was made in responce to Novembers Autumn's post which can be found here.
Aha! I'm not the only one reading Lewis Carroll.
ReplyDeleteI read this book as a child and it immediately appealed to my sense of imagination. Someone had bought me this book and Edward Lear's poems.
It's amazing to see references from this book, in advertising, music videos and films.
I've starting reading my second book challenge Through the Looking Glass and am enjoying the utter nonsense.
My father used to read Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass to me as a child and I've always loved them. Marvellous imagination.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting, I wonder if you can find that "Sylvie and Bruno" anywhere?
ReplyDeleteI love that he sketched within his manuscript! :) I read both his Alice novels a few years back, I must pick them up again. One gets the feeling of there being so many hidden meanings etc. while reading and as Cat said, it's just incredibly imaginative! :) Thank you for your post, Julie!
ReplyDeleteI also felt like I was too old to fully enjoy the magic. It's very witty and clever though, and it's ironic that he never traveled much. I guess that's why he had to go so many places in his imagination.
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