Through the Looking Glass | Lewis Carroll

Publication Date: 1871

Author's Nationality: English

Author's Real Name: Charles Lutwidge Dodgson

Original Language: English

Genre: Classics (children's literature)

Pages: 121

I was not expecting this sequel to be better than the novel before it, but that's exactly how I felt and I believe it had something to do with having some sort of structure.  Alice walks through the looking-glass to a world on the other side and finds herself in a real life chess game.  The storytelling was original and I found myself seeing the pieces on a chessboard come alive and interact.  The Queens in the story move so fast, and if you think about it... this makes perfect sense.  There is no other piece in chess that can move all the way across the board in one move.  That said, the King doesn't even try to catch her... and why should he?  He can only move one space at a time.  In addition, the whole world created moves backwards... and isn't this just what a good chess player does?  Doesn't he anticipate the moves that will be made next and then makes something which he believes will take him to that eventual anticipated move?

There were numerous themes that captivated me in this work, as well.  Nature and human structures were constantly changing into one another, reminding me that we are inevitably linked and everything we create effects nature.  The work was slightly more humours as well... I actually laughed when Carroll described a living plum pudding as having "a thick, suety sort of voice" which took me back to the first time my mother tried to use suet (beef or mutton fat) to make a plum pudding... how they were originally made back in the day.

Humpty Dumpty also makes an appearance, and contrary to the Disney movie... he is the one who comes up with the term 'unbirthday'.  In this work, we also hear the complete poem "Jabberwocky" and the lovely "The Walrus and the Carpenter" story.

Anyway, I really enjoyed this work... much more than the original "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."  I'm wondering if anyone else enjoyed this work much more than the first book.  I'd be interested to hear from the blogger community.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland | Lewis Carroll

Publication Date: 1865
Author's Nationality: English
Author's Real Name: Charles Lutwidge Dodgson *
Original Language: English
Genre: Classics (children's literature)
Pages: 96

I've been a fan of the Disney film "Alice in Wonderland" since I was a child.  The story has always been very magical to me and I have certain favourites like the smoking caterpillar, the story of the walrus and the carpenter [actually in "Through the Looking Glass"], etc and I was very excited to start reading the original work.  Unfortunately, I don't have an edition with the original illustrations, but I have a nice copy from Dragon's World Ltd with some coloured illustrations by Malcolm Ashman. Overall I was pleased with the edition and the illustrations, but I long to read the original edition.

Moving on from that tangent, I was less than pleased with this book.  Maybe it has something to do with the Disney movie version I have so long admired, but I found there were parts in this book that did nothing for me... and I think Disney was correct in leaving them out.  There was a point with the Duchess who eventually turns into a pig and an episode with too much pepper, an episode with a sad turtle and a gryphon... and I just didn't feel they added much to the story.  As a whole, there were many more animal characters than in the movie and while it muddied it for me, I'm sure that some children would appreciate the diversity.  That said, it was not a novel for children to learn about animals, because they had obviously been given human traits not akin to their real nature in the wild.  This led to a further imagination for the reader, but I could see adults having to do a lot of explaining afterwords to inquisitive minds.  Perhaps this potential interaction between parents and their children is a good thing.

I'm torn a little with Carroll's wit.  Through the eyes his child protagonist, Alice, he was able to break down the meaning of things we say every day and turn them into literal meanings.  This had the effect of frustrating Alice while adding a bit of humour to the story but also a feeling of "okay, Carroll... we get it already.  Don't you think you're overdoing it a little?" 

The other thing that I never realized was that through the book references to the Jabberwocky appeared quite randomly.  In 'Through the Looking Glass', the poem is listed in its entirety.

On the whole, the story was an enjoyable one.  I could not imagine my life without Carroll's stories, but I just prefer the way Disney adapted it... which is unusual given that I usually despise changes from the original.  I will post another review on "Through the Looking Glass" shortly... as my thoughts towards that work are incredibly different.
----

*Note: This pseudonym was a play on his real name; Lewis was the anglicised form of Ludovicus, which was the Latin for Lutwidge, and Carroll an Irish surname similar to the Latin name Carolus, from which the name Charles comes
+Note2: In 1931, the book was banned in Hunan, China, because "animals should not use human language" and it "puts animals and human beings on the same level". In Woodsville High School in Haverhill, New Hampshire, the story also was banned, because it had "expletives, references to masturbation and sexual fantasies, and derogatory characterizations of teachers and of religious ceremonies". -Blogger's Note: The former is hilariously absurd and I didn't see those references at all... did I miss something?  It probably has something to do with the fact that Carroll liked to paint children in the nude... but it's important to note that no cases of paedophilia were ever substantiated.