Alice Revisited

[poliphilo]

Ask me to name a favourite book and I'll probably say Alice in Wonderland- but up until yesterday I hadn't read it in decades.

What an anxious book it is.  First we're anxious about our identity- am I Alice or Mabel? Then we're anxious about abandonment- all alone at the bottom of the well. Then we're anxious about the body- all that stretching and shrinking. Then we're anxious about causing offence- to the Mouse, to the Caterpillar.Then we're anxious about physical violence- as the plates fly at the Duchess's house. Then we're anxious about the sudden comings and goings of the Cheshire Cat,  who- in an disturbing combination- is both the friendliest of the Wonderland creatures and the eeriest. Finally we're anxious about authority- as we encounter the monstrous Queen of Hearts.  As a child I found it all a bit unsettling,  but not unbearably so, because I took my cue from Alice herself- from her remarkable courage and commonsense.   

What a wise book it is.

Was Lewis Carroll a paedophile? No, I don't think he was.  He loved children the way Wordsworth and Blake loved children- because he was a romantic, and admired their openness and freedom from cant- that quality we misleadingly call "innocence".  There's nothing creepy in his regard for Alice. He looks up to her; she's his hero; he hangs out with her because he knows she can teach him things.

Comments

That's actually quite a nice summary.

[jorrocks-j.livejournal.com]

"Nice" as in "succinct, precise," as well as in "pleasant."

Re: That's actually quite a nice summary.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :)

[sovay]

He looks up to her; she's his hero; he hangs out with her because he knows she can teach him things.

Poem?

I loved Jonathan Miller's Alice in Wonderland (1966), by the way. It is disorienting and full of incomprehensible adult ritual and feels like something dreamed, but it's beautiful; and so is the cast (Wilfrid Brambell, Finlay Currie, Michael Redgrave, Leo McKern, Peter Cook, Michael Gough, Wilfred Lawson, Alison Leggatt, Malcolm Muggeridge, John Gielgud . . .).

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

A poem would be nice, but....

I think it's the best version. I wish Miller had made more movies.

[sovay]

A poem would be nice, but....

I can be patient.

I wish Miller had made more movies.

I grew up listening to Beyond the Fringe, but heretofore I'd only seen his Taming of the Shrew (1980) and Mikado (1987). After seeing Alice in Wonderland, I realized he would have been the perfect person to direct Gormenghast.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

He also directed a TV film of M.R. James' "Oh, Whistle and I'll Come to You"- with Michael Hordern. It's very effective.

[algabal.livejournal.com]

I think it's a difficult subject, because critics who are devoted to the works of a writer are going to use every tool at their dispoal to prevent their subject from being labeled a pedophile. The problem is that they always try to imply that, because someone like Dowson saw young girls as an ideal, that he wasn't capable of having consistent, strong sexual attractions to them as well.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's one thing to have sexual feelings about children- and another to act on them. I don't know what was going on it Lewis Carroll's head, but I think it's pretty well established that he never had any inappropriate sexual contact with his child friends. The most he did was photograph them naked- a practice he was quite open about- and which he openly defended as innocent.