Alice's Adventures in the Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass (1865 & 1871)
by
Lewis Caroll
Book Read: 30 November - 02 December 2015
Note Written: 09 December 2015
The combined version of 'Alice's Adventures in the Wonderland' and its sequel 'Through the Looking Glass' would one of the most non-sensical and weird works of literature of all-time. It is a strange feeling when you read all these classic novels and contemporary fiction (Dostoevsky, Kundera, Tolkein, Saramago, Cervantes etc) and switches to a 'children's book' like Alice in Wonderland. The events and the narration are so silly - it's non-sense combined with a kind of brilliance. I kept trying to find something profound, some underlying philosophy which the author was secretly giving us - but it's all bollocks! We maybe able to interpret something of the sort, that's all.
I constantly kept thinking that maybe this guy (Lewis Caroll) was high on acid or something - 'full tripping', as we say in Kerala now; maybe he had a dream journal and put all the weird things from it to make a story for children. The poems, the illustrations, and the witty exchanges between the bizarre characters are sure to take you to one of the weirdest/strangest settings of all-time. I normally dream a lot and they are mostly vivid, with a lot of strange events happening; but Alice's dreams (or are they really dreams?), as told by Lewis Carrol tops every one of my dreams. Through the Looking Glass is a great idea- a world which is the mirror image of the world you are in; a great fantasy, a great idea indeed. Does such a world really exist? The children might know; adults never do.
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