January Prompt - A Classics Challenge

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  He also liked to illustrate his unpublished manuscripts - he even did it with Alice, but he then hired a real illustrator once the book was going to be published.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. 

   

Bookish New Years Resolutions

I have made some reading resolutions for 2012, which I have to say I am very excited about and I feel should put down in writing on my blog.    Mainly I am doing this to shame myself into attempting to do what I say I want to. 

This year I am doing the 50 Books Challenge again.  I did it for the first time in 2010 and loved it.  I thought it was a lot of work, but it was well worth it as I discovered about three new book series that year and tried a pile of books that I had bought but never read before.  I didn't do it in 2011 because I did feel that reading shouldn't be about numbers, but had thought about trying the 50 book challenge again in the future.  As you can see I am very excited, and if you are a slower reader like myself you might be able to understand why. 

I've already posted on here about doing the Terry Pratchett challenge and the 'A Classics Challenge'.  I also hope to read something for the 'Once Upon and Time' and R.I.P Challenges too.  

Happy New Year! 

A Classic's Challenge

Hi

Check out A Classics Challenge here.

I've decided to do the 'A Classics Challenge' next year.  I'm new to blogging, so I hope I've not taken on more that I can handle with it.  I also want to do the 'Once Upon A Time' and the R.I.P challenges so hopefully I'll manage to get them done.  It all sounds fun.

'A Classics Challengle' is where you read seven classic books throughout the year.  You are also given the option of answering a prompt once a month to further enrich the challenge. 

I've not fully decided what I'm going to pick for my seven but at the moment here are the ones I would like to read

1. The Jungle by Upton Sinclair - I want to read this because I tried to a few years ago, but found it too depressing.  I'd like to get through it so that my mam will stop saying I couldn't do it. 
2. Dracula  by Bram Stoker- I want to read this because I've just always wanted to but never got around to it.  Sometimes I pretend I have though (naughty me). 
3. Frankenstein - Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley - I've wanted to read this for a while now, because of how many read it as a warning on the perils of science. 
4. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky - I've read a lot of this before, but it was a library book and it started falling apart so I want to finish it.  And also I liked where it was going with how crime is awful, but also has an element of elitism. 
5. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy - Some would say that this is the heaviest hitter of the heavy hitters.  I've wanted to read it since I read Anna Karenina. 
6. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll - it sounds like fun, which I'll need after getting/failing to get through the depressing lot I've selected. 
7. A Surprise book! I haven't decided yet.  I want to see how it goes.  I know I'm cheating a bit some of the best books I've read were bought and read on impulse.