Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) and Through the Looking Glass (1871) by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson illustrate the child-ego’s attempt to mature and understand its own mortality in a world often found morally strange and ridiculous, a world that adults eventually learn to accept as normal.
Alice is faced with the cruelties and strangeness found in Wonderland in the Red Queen and the Mad Hatter and Alice must learn to choose sides quickly in order to survive.
Lewis Carroll, as many know the author, is but the name ”Lutwidge Charles” in its Latinate form and it shows how Lewis also wanted to be someone else within his own fantasy, as many adults often dream. And it is this idea of Life and Dreaming and Death and Mortality that haunt this child’s story with hidden Death Jokes that often go unnoticed when read as a child. As Alice is falling and falling down the rabbit hole, she remarks:
”’After such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down-stairs! How brave they’ll all think me at home!
Why, I wouldn’t say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house!”
(Which was very likely true.)’ (p 20).
True, because she would be dead and unable to speak much of anything.
Before the story ever begins with Alice in Wonderland, Carroll includes a poem that refers to the three Fates and to the inability to escape one’s own mortality:
”Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour…Yet what can one poor voice avail / Against three tongues together… And ever, as the story drained / The wells of fancy dry…’Like pilgrim’s withered wreath of flowers / Plucked in a far-off land.’ And we are all headed that way, that far-off land one day, in the end; no one escapes Death.
In the beginning, Alice is chasing Time itself, as all children do as Time is quite an illusive concept, just as the Rabbit is, to the child Alice. ”Burning with curiosity, she ran across the field” after the Rabbit in the waistcoat with pocket-watch (p 20); and thus, when she crosses into Wonderland, Alice grows up, physically that is, but remains a child within. And when she is in this strange world, she chases material objects and finds that the world is easier in some ways and more difficult in others. ”’Things flow about so here!” she said at last in a plaintive tone, after she had spent a minute or so in vainly pursuing a large bright thing…” (p 178). We find her once again referring to ”bright things” but only after she has learned her lesson: ”How she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and loving heart of her childhood…and make their eyes bright and eager with many a strange tale” (p 118).
What did she learn? Alice found that although she must mature and leave her childhood, physically, that she can choose to never lose the child-ego within and to remain innocent and not heed to the cruelties of the adult world that is represented in the Red Queen; but after, Lewis Carroll writes, what does life really mean, whether as child or adult, and so he finishes the two tales by asking: ”Life, what is it but a dream?” (p 239). Indeed.
And so, Through the Looking Glass Ends with this poem on page 239 (try and find the name within if you can):
A BOAT beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July —
Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear —
Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.
Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.
Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.
In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:
Ever drifting down the stream —
Lingering in the golden gleam —
Life, what is it but a dream?
———————————————————————————————
No name, you say?
Look again.
———————————————————————————————
Circle the first letter in each line and you will have your answer:
And the name appears:
A
L
I
C
E
P
L
E
A
S
A
N
C
E
L
I
D
D
E
L
L
ALICE
PLEASANCE
LIDDELL
And Alice shall live on forever.
But, I must ask, why is a raven like a writing desk?
Leave your answer below in the comments:
Bibliography:
Carroll, Lewis. (1865, 1871) Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass. New York: Signet Classic, 2000. Print.
CG FEWSTON
The American novelist CG FEWSTON has been a Visiting Scholar at the American Academy in Rome (Italy), a Visiting Fellow at Hong Kong’s CityU, & he’s a been member of the Hemingway Society, Americans for the Arts, PEN America, Club Med, & the Royal Society of Literature. He’s also a been Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) based in London.
He’s the author of several short stories and novels. His works include A Father’s Son (2005), The New America: A Collection (2007), The Mystic’s Smile ~ A Play in 3 Acts (2007), Vanity of Vanities (2011), A Time to Love in Tehran (2015), Little Hometown, America (2020); A Time to Forget in East Berlin (2022), and Conquergood & the Center of the Intelligible Mystery of Being (2023).
He has a B.A. in English, an M.Ed. in Higher Education Leadership (honors), an M.A. in Literature (honors), and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing & Fiction. He was born in Texas in 1979.
A TIME TO FORGET IN EAST BERLIN
BREW Book Excellence Award Winner
BREW Readers’ Choice Award Winner
“A spellbinding tale of love and espionage set under the looming shadow of the Berlin Wall in 1975… A mesmerising read full of charged eroticism.”
~ Ian Skewis, Associate Editor for Bloodhound Books, & author of best-selling novel A Murder of Crows (2017)
“An engrossing story of clandestine espionage… a testament to the lifestyle encountered in East Berlin at the height of the Cold War.”
~ Lone Star Literary Life Magazine
“There is no better way for readers interested in Germany’s history and the dilemma and cultures of the two Berlins to absorb this information than in a novel such as this, which captures the microcosm of two individuals’ love, relationship, and options and expands them against the blossoming dilemmas of a nation divided.”
~ D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review
“A Time to Forget in East Berlin is a dream-like interlude of love and passion in the paranoid and violent life of a Cold War spy. The meticulous research is evident on every page, and Fewston’s elegant prose, reminiscent of novels from a bygone era, enhances the sensation that this is a book firmly rooted in another time.”
~ Matthew Harffy, prolific writer & best-selling historical fiction author of the “Bernicia Chronicles” series
“Vivid, nuanced, and poetic…”
“Fewston avoids familiar plot elements of espionage fiction, and he is excellent when it comes to emotional precision and form while crafting his varied cast of characters.”
“There’s a lot to absorb in this book of hefty psychological and philosophical observations and insights, but the reader who stays committed will be greatly rewarded.”
“Readers of The Catcher in the Rye and similar stories will relish the astute, critical inspection of life that makes Little Hometown, America a compelling snapshot of contemporary American life and culture.”
“Fewston employs a literary device called a ‘frame narrative’ which may be less familiar to some, but allows for a picture-in-picture result (to use a photographic term). Snapshots of stories appear as parts of other stories, with the introductory story serving as a backdrop for a series of shorter stories that lead readers into each, dovetailing and connecting in intricate ways.”
~ D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review
“The American novelist CG FEWSTON tells a satisfying tale, bolstered by psychology and far-ranging philosophy, calling upon Joseph Campbell, J. D. Salinger, the King James Bible, and Othello.”
“In this way, the author lends intellectual heft to a family story, exploring the ‘purity’ of art, the ‘corrupting’ influences of publishing, the solitary artist, and the messy interconnectedness of human relationships.”
~ Lone Star Literary Life Magazine
GOLD Winner in the 2020 Human Relations Indie Book Awards for Contemporary Realistic Fiction
FINALIST in the SOUTHWEST REGIONAL FICTION category of the 14th Annual National Indie Excellence 2020 Awards (NIEA)
“Fewston’s lyrical, nostalgia-steeped story is told from the perspective of a 40-year-old man gazing back on events from his 1980s Texas childhood…. the narrator movingly conveys and interprets the greater meanings behind childhood memories.”
“The novel’s focus on formative childhood moments is familiar… the narrator’s lived experiences come across as wholly personal, deeply felt, and visceral.”
This is my good friend, Nicolasa (Nico) Murillo, CRC, who is a professional chef & a wellness mentor. I’ve known her since childhood & I’m honored to share her story with you. In life, we all have ups & downs, some far more extreme than others. Much like in Canada, in America, the legalization of marijuana has become a national movement, which includes safe & legal access to cannabis (marijuana) for therapeutic use & research for all.
“This is a wellness movement,” Nico explains. The wellness movement is focused on three specific areas: information, encouragement, & accountability.
In these stressful & unprecedented times, it makes good sense to promote & encourage the state or condition of being in good physical & mental health.
To learn more you can visit: Americans For Safe Access & Texans for Safe Access, ASA (if you are in Texas).
The mission of Americans for Safe Access (ASA) is to ensure safe and legal access to cannabis (marijuana) for therapeutic use and research.
Link: https://www.safeaccessnow.org/
TEXANS FOR SAFE ACCESS ~ share the mission of their national organization, Americans for Safe Access (ASA), which is to ensure safe and legal access to cannabis (marijuana) for therapeutic use and research, for all Texans.
Link: https://txsafeaccess.org/about-1
Stay safe & stay happy. God bless.
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