Alice in Wonderland

Lewis Carroll was the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (born January 27, 1832 in Daresbury, Cheshire, England; died 1898). He was the oldest son in a family of 11 children, his father was a clergyman. He was a lecturer in mathematics, a poet and an early photographer.

Alice Liddell, the daughter of Henry George Liddell, was the inspiration for Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (published 1865) which began as a story Dodgeson told to her and her sisters. The story was written down later and the novelist Henry Kingsley urged Carroll to publish it. It proved very popular and in 1871 the sequel, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There was published. 

This volume contains both books and I found the first one to be a better tale. Both stories are about what happens in Alice's dreams (or someone's dream anyway) and are full of nonsense verse and wordplay. Alice's Adventures has a stronger narrative line while Through the Looking-glass wanders about a great deal and relies on the dream phenomenon of suddenly finding oneself in a different location to move the story along. Looking-glass also has a lot of poems in it--Alice in not entirely happy about this which I thought was funny--which made the story seem a bit padded. There is an excellent section where the first stanza of "Jabberwocky" is explained by Humpty Dumpty.
The advice of the Cheshire cat (in Wonderland) was one of my favorite bits.

"Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?"
"That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat.
"I don't much care where--" Alice began.
"Then it doesn't matter which way you go," said the Cat.
"Just so long as I get somewhere," Alice added as an explanation.
"Oh, you're sure to do that," said the Cat, "if you only walk long enough." 

Humpty Dumpty's contention (in Looking-glass) that words mean just what he chooses them to mean "neither more nor less," and "which is to be master," him or the words is also quite wonderful.

#14

 
The Classics Club Spin number came up today and it was 14. That means I am reading Alice in Wonderland between now and April 1. Strictly speaking this is a re-read as the copy of this I have (the one pictured, but mine doesn't have the sticker on it) was given to me by my grandmother in August 1974 and I am sure I read it at the time.

This book should be a good fit with other things I plan to read in the next month as it is quite different from the Modern March titles and the biography of Julia Child that I just loaded on my MP3 player.

Classics Club Readathon

I have never done a readathon, and am not totally clear on the rules, but as I understand it the idea is to read for 24-hours which sounds excellent. This readathon begins at 8am EST with a kick-off post on the Classics Club blog and we will be reading for 24 hours after that!

I had everything set up for this project: groceries for crockpot Taco Soup purchased, my husband expecting to be at the office that day, and and a stack of classics from my list ready to begin. Then my husband's work project got sorted out and we were invited to a private tasting at a local brewery that evening and I am going to have to choose between beer and books on Saturday.

I think I will join in the readathon during the day, and will go to the beer event in the evening. That still gives me a solid 9 hours of reading time.

I am about 75 pages into The Woman in White, so I will be reading that and I want to re-read Murder in the Cathedral so I can finish the blog post I started about it in November. If I need a break from Wilkie Collins, I may set it aside and pick up on of the children's classics on my list (The Phantom Tollbooth or Alice in Wonderland perhaps).