"Oh, Kitty! How nice it would be if we could only get through into the looking glass house!"
Through the Looking Glass is the sequel to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. It’s more of the same: a children’s story and literary nonsense.
Though calling it nonsense is a bit unfair. There is some very serious stuff, such as the great battle between Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dee over a broken rattle. While preparing for battle, Tweedle-Dee remarks…
“You know,” he added very gravely, “it’s one of the most serious things that can possibly happen to one in a battle – to get one’s head cut off.”
But it didn’t wow me. Like Alice in Wonderland, It should be read as a child. I learned a few things though. For starters, most film portrayals of Alice in Wonderland are actually composites of both books. Second, the possible inspiration for Alice – Alice Liddell – is mentioned cryptically in Through the Looking Glass, which concludes with a poem. The first letter of each line of the poem, form an acrostic, spelling out her full name – Alice Pleasance Liddell. Carrol always denied that Liddell was the inspiration for fictional Alice.
We can’t know of course. Regardless, I’m glad to have finally read these classics even if they didn’t appeal to me much as an adult.
My rating: 3 ½ out of 5 stars
Alice, on being made queen in a life-size chess game.
“Well this is grand!” said Alice. “I never expected I should be a Queen so soon – and I’ll tell you what it is, your majesty,” she went on in a severe tone (she was always rather fond of scolding herself), “it’ll never do for you to be lolling about on the grass like that! Queens have to be dignified you know!”
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There is something about the weirdly surreal/real world of Alice that appeals to me; she's here but she's not here.
ReplyDeleteThere's definitely something...I like Alice's unflappability.
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