A Trip Through Wonderland
No, I haven't been taking LSD. Or smoking pot. If you think I have been, go away. I don't want to know you. All I've been doing is reading a very cool book called The Annotated Alice. And it's been absolutely revelatory.
To modern readers, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures In Wonderland and the sequel Through The Looking-Glass seem incredibly weird, and read as if they were inspired by an opium dream. But this is just because the books are so dated that the puns, jokes, and wordplays make no sense to us--after all, most of the jokes were meant to be understood by British readers of the 1860s; other jokes were intended for residents of the village of Oxford; and STILL more jokes were private references for the amusement of three little girls with whom Carroll was friends (and, yeah, THAT'S a nasty rumour, too).
The Annotated Alice contains the full texts of both books PLUS side-notes which shed light on every little in-joke PLUS the original Sir John Tenniel illustrations PLUS a deleted chapter from Through The Looking-Glass. It's like a DVD special edition!
Anyway, if you have any love for fantasy or abstract nonsense, you should definitely read the Alice books, and read them in this great book, The Annotated Alice (notes and introduction by Michael Gardner).
Be seeing you,
Steven
To modern readers, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures In Wonderland and the sequel Through The Looking-Glass seem incredibly weird, and read as if they were inspired by an opium dream. But this is just because the books are so dated that the puns, jokes, and wordplays make no sense to us--after all, most of the jokes were meant to be understood by British readers of the 1860s; other jokes were intended for residents of the village of Oxford; and STILL more jokes were private references for the amusement of three little girls with whom Carroll was friends (and, yeah, THAT'S a nasty rumour, too).
The Annotated Alice contains the full texts of both books PLUS side-notes which shed light on every little in-joke PLUS the original Sir John Tenniel illustrations PLUS a deleted chapter from Through The Looking-Glass. It's like a DVD special edition!
Anyway, if you have any love for fantasy or abstract nonsense, you should definitely read the Alice books, and read them in this great book, The Annotated Alice (notes and introduction by Michael Gardner).
Be seeing you,
Steven
posted by Steven | 8:58 PM
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