(Lewis Carroll, 1865)

What’s great about Disney is that they dumb down stories so much that when you get a chance to examine the original text for yourself you find that you can enjoy it in a whole new way, creating your own picture of the characters and the story independent of theirs. Not that I don’t love the cartoon version of Alice in Wonderland because I do, but I was surprised by how much more to the story there is than Disney presented. For me, the Alice books are about growing up and what is lost in doing so. Alice dreams (or perhaps she doesn’t!) herself into a world where she doesn’t belong and where what is true in her England isn’t necessarily true anymore. Within Carroll’s Wonderland there is no linear path to life, where one event will lead seamlessly into another adding meaningful experience upon meaningful experience. Instead life is made up of a series of oftentimes unrelated events, by conversations you never fully understand, with others you can’t reason with, and all in a world quite literally unpredictable, foreign, and ever-changing. Some of the best parts — and indeed mostly what the entire two books are about — are the conversations Alice has with other characters where she has trouble following their reasoning because she’ll say something colloquial or idiosyncratic to her world and they’ll take it for the literal face value. Like when describing how to make bread, Alice mentions needing flour but the Queen asks where you pick the flower. I caught myself laughing out loud a couple times because it’s funny to see how retarded some of the things we say must seem to someone who would need to translate them word for word.

Although I enjoyed reading these two books, I would recommend not reading them straight-through together. The books really are just a series of chapters where Alice has a conversation with a new character about another weird topic, so it’d be fine to just read a new chapter every now and then for a good laugh, or to simply remind yourself how fun it must have been to be a curious child with a simpler view of the world.

Recommendation: 50/50

Notable excerpt:

“Who did you pass on the road?” the King went on…

“Nobody,” said the Messenger.

“Quite right,” said the King. “This young lady saw him too. So of course Nobody walks slower than you.”

“I do my best,” the Messenger said in a sullen tone. “I’m sure nobody walks much faster than I do!”

“He can’t do that,” said the King. “Or else he’d have been here first.”