Thursday, January 2, 2014

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

The first book for the year 2014. Revisited the classic written in 1865 and could not help wondering what Lewis Carroll was thinking of when he wrote that book. I get the feeling that Salman Rushdie might have been influenced by this work because reading Salman Rushdie is a bit like this - only a bit more complex.
Indialog, Rs. 75, 118 p
Alice slips off into dreamland and sees a white rabbit hurrying off down a hole while checking on its watch. Alice follows the white rabbit and that opens up a world that brings stuff that shrinks her and grows her, all kinds of creatures including a blue caterpillar, little Bill the lizard, a mad hatter, a hare, a dormouse who are stuck at a tea party forever because they had a tiff with time, a mock turtle that's always sad and who had a teacher who 'tortoise', a duchess and her pepper-crazy cook, a queen and king of a pack of cards, a Cheshire cat that disappears leaving its smile behind, a game of croquet that is played with live hedgehogs and flamingos and finally, a courtroom drama to end it all. Try thinking up something like this!

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, the author who wrote under the pseudonym of Lewis Caroll was a mathematician and a writer, and he writes brilliantly. It is a tale full of clever twists and great wit. Apparently he told the story in its first form when he went on a boat ride with the three young daughters of Vice Chancellor Liddell. When one of the young daughters Alice (10) asked him to write it down for her he did, and then revised it and well, here we have this book.

I am glad I started the year with this book because it does make one feel high, feel like wanting to try to be like that. You know, its never too late to read the old classics again. They are far better than some of the stuff we read these days. Now to watch the movie.

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