Do you remember, as a child, the first time you encountered Lewis Carroll’s book? We may have all had a few embarrassing thoughts, comparing it to more famous later adaptations. Or perhaps you fudged a few facts in a grade school book report after having half-read a book. This young Singaporean girl puts her heart on her sleeve, and presents an innocent first impression to anyone out there watching on the internet:
Extracted from her review, here are a few reasons to read the classic version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland:
“Pretty cheap, I just grabbed it and go,” because it looks “really classic.” The book is “really, really cheap.”
The book cover has Alice, The Mad Hatter, the Bunny, and perhaps a Lion? According to her, this book is one exception to the rule that you can’t judge a book by its cover.
The way it’s written is “way different” from the way “the movie is based.”
“The book is similar to the movies, actually though like the same, but the author wrote it in such a brilliant way, it makes everything different than the movie, and I know I’m doing like a lot of like hand gestures.”
“At first I was like, oh, this is another Alice in Wonderland book, and the Mad Hatter looks weird … I flipped through it, and I don’t even see a single dragon. … But maybe it’s a Caucus [cactus?] race. No.” (Perhaps she’s wondering where the movie’s Jabberwock is?)
“I really like this book a lot, you should get this. It was actually on sale. … I’m not sure you can get this anywhere else.”
In conclusion: pending its availability, it comes highly recommended due to its economical pricing, attractive cover, and the clever ways it departs from the film. One caveat: no dragon. She’s very charming though, and I hope she finishes reading it.
For years, our Facebook presence has been limited to a Group. The ribbon is now cut for the Lewis Carroll Society of North America’s new Facebook Page. If you’re a Facebook neophyte, all you have to do is click the “like” button. Links to this blog, information about Society events, and other trivialities will then occasionally but unobtrusively appear in your Newsfeed. The image we’ve chosen for our first Cover photo is from Mahendra Singh’s graphic novel version of The Hunting of the Snark (2010). Singh’s blog (with many more illustrations) is here. The LCSNA’s Twitter feed is here. A video of a snoring dormouse is here.
Thanks to the excellent facebook page Alice In Wonderland Inspired Photography, Movies and Art (we recommend “liking” it, if you enjoy the occasional Alice image in your news feed) for posting these images from the Tumblr blog Everything Is Better With Ducks, devoted entirely to re-imaging things with ducks. The mission statement: “Ducks are great and I LOVE them! They make things more awesome.”
For many collectors, the act of cataloging the collection can be an essential part of the pleasure. Caterina Morelli’s blog Alice in Wonderland is a great example. In her native Italian, Morelli painstakingly documents her extensive collection of Carroll editions; as she puts it, “every post is an index card of a book.” Each card starts with an evocative description of the edition, followed by detailed information about the illustrator, publisher, and text – even the dimensions and the construction of the book are recorded. The cards are organized by illustrator.
When she told me about her blog, Caterina mentioned that some day she would like to translate it into English. Perhaps someone reading this blog is an Italian-English translator and an Alice fan? Would you like to help with her project? What nicer way could there be to brush up on your Italian?
Would you take lessons in business management from the Mad Hatter? Charles Jennings, British “thought leader” and learning and performance consultant thinks that might not be such a bad idea.
“Alice looked back once or twice, half hoping they would call after her: the last time she saw them they were trying to put the Dormouse into the teapot”
Many [learning and development] people struggle with the challenge of engaging and enrolling business managers in employee development. Trying to wedge them into a place they don’t really want to be. More…
The post is the last in a series of three which uses Alice’s adventures to illuminate strategies for effective learning in the workplace wonderland. Previous posts covered “The Lobster Quadrille for Learning and Development” and topical advice from the Cheshire Cat.
.If you were wondering what to listen to in your car as you travel between Cut Bank, Montana, and McNab, Alberta (about a 105 minute drive, depending on traffic at the border), how about downloading Lewis Carroll’s mathematics book The Game of Logic, read as an audio book and free on iTunes?
This work is a part of the Lit2Go collection, a collaboration between the Florida Department of Education and the University of South Florida College of Education. Lit2Go is dedicated to supporting literacy teaching and learning by providing access to historically and culturally significant literature in K-12 schools.
They also have a complete audio book of Symbolic Logic, if you’re planning a longer drive. If you’d prefer to read The Game of Logic as a digital book or online, here it is free in many formats at Project Gutenberg.
COLOURS FOR -------------
COUNTERS |5 | 6|
___ | x |
| | |
See the Sun is overhead, |--y-------y'-|
Shining on us, FULL and | | |
RED! | x' |
|7 | 8|
Now the Sun is gone away, -------------
And the EMPTY sky is
GREY!
___
The Publisher’s Weekly blog PWxyz ranked The 5 Books that Inspire the Most Tattoos, finding Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in the top 5. Their online research seems to be thorough, even if the methods aren’t scientific: “We spent an untold number of hours combing the Internet’s two most extensive literary tattoo sites: Contrariwise: Literary Tattoos and The Word Made Flesh, then cross-checking the most frequently occurring tattoos with Google searches and Google image searches, all to get to the bottom of what books inspire the most tattoos and why.” Lewis Carroll’s book was beat out only by… Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, only because of the popularity of the phrase “So it goes.” So it goes.
2. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
Alice has inspired the most varied collection of tattoos of any book. Its wide cast of characters, quotes and images are all represented: the Cheshire Cat, the Dodo, the White Rabbit, and the Caterpillar all have fans out there. Out of the quotes, “We’re all mad here” was the most commonly occurring. Credit Alice‘s popularity among the tattooed to the fully-realized world Carroll created, and for tone specific to its story. More than any other book on this list, you’d be likely to get an Alice tattoo because it simply looks great and is hyper-intricate. Tim, who has an image of the Cheshire Cat on his shoulder blade, said on Contrariwise: “The Cheshire Cat is the only creature in Wonderland who uses logic. Though his words often seem mocking and bizarre, his process is always logical. To me the Cheshire Cat symbolizes the fragility of the border between genius and insanity.”
Alice in Wonderland is increasingly popular as a wedding theme on reality television and in life (one “credit crunch” bride has even described it as recession-defying). As ever, some couples go further than others. This week many blogs have been reposting these pictures of newlyweds Erin and Matt – a couple with a vision, to be sure. You can see many more pictures at BitRebels.
“Pretty cheap, I just grabbed it and go,” because it looks “really classic.” The book is “really, really cheap.”
