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For all the talk about Alice in Wonderland and the current “Alice-mania,” it seems that the actual plot of Charles Dodgson’s original books is never brought up. Not having read the entirety of the books since I was in the target age group, I’d forgotten that there is no real cohesive plot. Instead we have a series of loosely connected encounters. Dodgson’s world is wildly imaginative and sometimes utterly absurd, and it’s easier to see why more recent creators keep turning to his world for ideas than some others.
Dodgson clearly knew how children thought, and much of the book, which is full of social commentary and the occasional skewed history lesson, feels like a child’s view of the adult world. As far as Alice herself goes…well, she’s a clever seven-year-old with a lot of imagination. And if you’ve ever spent a significant amount of time with an imaginative seven-year-old, then you have a good idea of what Alice is like.
Through the Looking Glass is noticeably darker than Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. According to Martin Gruber, whose introduction would be quite good without all the hints that we should run and buy his “Annotated Alice” to get his really interesting ideas, the family of Alice Lyddell, the “real” Alice, cut off communication with Dodgson between books. Gruber mentions that one theory for this is that Dodgson approached the Lyddells’ for permission to marry Alice in the future and was told “OMG NO GET AWAY FROM OUR CHILD NOW!!!” I knew the “Dodgson was in love with Alice” theory (certain extremely attached, at the least) but not that one! I also had managed to escape knowing that he had a large collection of photographs of nude children. Now, I do think it’s possible to have an aesthetic appreciation of something that usually implies sexual interest with no sexual interest in it on your part whatsoever, but even if I were brave enough to speculate as to whether or not that was the case with Dodgson, I’m not sure there’s a way that would ever be appropriate in a person who would have children entrusted into his care.
Dodgson clearly knew how children thought, and much of the book, which is full of social commentary and the occasional skewed history lesson, feels like a child’s view of the adult world. As far as Alice herself goes…well, she’s a clever seven-year-old with a lot of imagination. And if you’ve ever spent a significant amount of time with an imaginative seven-year-old, then you have a good idea of what Alice is like.
Through the Looking Glass is noticeably darker than Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. According to Martin Gruber, whose introduction would be quite good without all the hints that we should run and buy his “Annotated Alice” to get his really interesting ideas, the family of Alice Lyddell, the “real” Alice, cut off communication with Dodgson between books. Gruber mentions that one theory for this is that Dodgson approached the Lyddells’ for permission to marry Alice in the future and was told “OMG NO GET AWAY FROM OUR CHILD NOW!!!” I knew the “Dodgson was in love with Alice” theory (certain extremely attached, at the least) but not that one! I also had managed to escape knowing that he had a large collection of photographs of nude children. Now, I do think it’s possible to have an aesthetic appreciation of something that usually implies sexual interest with no sexual interest in it on your part whatsoever, but even if I were brave enough to speculate as to whether or not that was the case with Dodgson, I’m not sure there’s a way that would ever be appropriate in a person who would have children entrusted into his care.
