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Memories of Alice
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From: Peggy Rader <rader004>
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 16:30:18 -0500
As a serious Alice lover since childhood, I've been looking forward to this discussion. I, too, discovered Alice in a bookcase at home, probably when I was seven or eight. We had few books in our home (my mom and I made weekly visits to the library but we actually owned very few) and I indiscriminately explored the ones we had as soon as I began learning to read. We had what I believe to be a bookclub edition of the set of Alice books. They were slender volumes, one with a red spine, one with a blue, and the covers were pastel-striped, each with a boxed Tenniel illustration (Alice and the Rabbit on one, Alice and the White Knight on the other). I still own them, along with many other versions (though not so many as Monica!).
The illustrations drew me in to begin with as they were not of the variety I was used to (Disney/Golden Book/Casper the Friendly Ghost/etc.) Something about those illustrations told me these books were for me, but I couldn't read them with any ease. I kept trying, though. I, like Kathleen, loved the words shaped like a tail and, like Monica's students, loved the caterpillar and the Cheshire Cat. At some point while still in grade school, I could read the Alice books in a way that allowed me to own them intellectually and emotionally. I mostly loved the nonsense of these books, the silliness, the freedom from a strictly linear plot, just the utterly enormous imagination of them. These were no Golden Book! I was and continue to be most fascinated by the pool of tears. For whatever reason, it is a concept and image that reverberates for me. What an amazing idea, to think of LITERALLY drowning in your own tears. Put THAT in a country-western song!
During my senior year in high school I chose to write my major research paper in English lit on Lewis Carroll. I truly enjoyed that research, delving into the political parodies and math puzzles underlying so much of the Alice books as well as the lives of a shy don and the lucky girl who had two books written just for her. I still have that 10-page paper somewhere. It took me past my childhood appreciation into a scholarly realm, but didn't destroy my sense of wonder for these books in any way.
One baby boomer note: I didn't indulge in psychotropic drugs in the 1960s, but gained something of an understanding of the experiences of those who did when they explained it through comparisons to the Alice books. I have strong memories of rec room parties with Grace Slick wailing "White Rabbit" in the background.
Although I own the Helen Oxenbury edition and am a serious Oxenbury fan, her Alice is a bit too nice for me. I like Anthony Browne's very much, and I also have the Ralph Steadman editions with that wonderful shrieking quality that can sometimes seem just right to me for Alice and the playful madness held within the covers of these books. Tenniel will probably always remain my favorite illustrator of Alice, though.
I think Monica's Web site (it's wonderful!) easily establishes that Alice is most certainly for *today's* children and that they can appreciate her just as much as I did in my untutored way in the 1950s and as did children much earlier than that. My only disappointment in connection with the Alice books is my son's utter and insistent dislike of them that continues to this day. Perhaps because I pushed them too hard out of my own love of them?
Does anyone else remember the story about the wasp in the waistcoat? As I remember it, Carroll had included a section in one of the books that involved a conversation with a wasp in a waistcoat. It was axed from the book when Tenniel (rather waspishly) insisted that NO ONE could possibly draw a wasp in a waistcoat. I think this section of book had been lost (?) and then rediscovered with the wasp drawn (pretty nicely as I remember) by Carroll himself.
Peggy J. Rader Coordinator, publication and media relations College of Education and Human Development University of Minnesota 612b6?82, rader004 at tc.umn.edu http://education.umn.edu
"Whenever people say 'We mustn't be sentimental,' you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add 'We must be realistic,' they mean they are going to make money out of it." -Brigid Brophy
Received on Tue 03 Oct 2000 04:30:18 PM CDT
Date: Tue, 3 Oct 2000 16:30:18 -0500
As a serious Alice lover since childhood, I've been looking forward to this discussion. I, too, discovered Alice in a bookcase at home, probably when I was seven or eight. We had few books in our home (my mom and I made weekly visits to the library but we actually owned very few) and I indiscriminately explored the ones we had as soon as I began learning to read. We had what I believe to be a bookclub edition of the set of Alice books. They were slender volumes, one with a red spine, one with a blue, and the covers were pastel-striped, each with a boxed Tenniel illustration (Alice and the Rabbit on one, Alice and the White Knight on the other). I still own them, along with many other versions (though not so many as Monica!).
The illustrations drew me in to begin with as they were not of the variety I was used to (Disney/Golden Book/Casper the Friendly Ghost/etc.) Something about those illustrations told me these books were for me, but I couldn't read them with any ease. I kept trying, though. I, like Kathleen, loved the words shaped like a tail and, like Monica's students, loved the caterpillar and the Cheshire Cat. At some point while still in grade school, I could read the Alice books in a way that allowed me to own them intellectually and emotionally. I mostly loved the nonsense of these books, the silliness, the freedom from a strictly linear plot, just the utterly enormous imagination of them. These were no Golden Book! I was and continue to be most fascinated by the pool of tears. For whatever reason, it is a concept and image that reverberates for me. What an amazing idea, to think of LITERALLY drowning in your own tears. Put THAT in a country-western song!
During my senior year in high school I chose to write my major research paper in English lit on Lewis Carroll. I truly enjoyed that research, delving into the political parodies and math puzzles underlying so much of the Alice books as well as the lives of a shy don and the lucky girl who had two books written just for her. I still have that 10-page paper somewhere. It took me past my childhood appreciation into a scholarly realm, but didn't destroy my sense of wonder for these books in any way.
One baby boomer note: I didn't indulge in psychotropic drugs in the 1960s, but gained something of an understanding of the experiences of those who did when they explained it through comparisons to the Alice books. I have strong memories of rec room parties with Grace Slick wailing "White Rabbit" in the background.
Although I own the Helen Oxenbury edition and am a serious Oxenbury fan, her Alice is a bit too nice for me. I like Anthony Browne's very much, and I also have the Ralph Steadman editions with that wonderful shrieking quality that can sometimes seem just right to me for Alice and the playful madness held within the covers of these books. Tenniel will probably always remain my favorite illustrator of Alice, though.
I think Monica's Web site (it's wonderful!) easily establishes that Alice is most certainly for *today's* children and that they can appreciate her just as much as I did in my untutored way in the 1950s and as did children much earlier than that. My only disappointment in connection with the Alice books is my son's utter and insistent dislike of them that continues to this day. Perhaps because I pushed them too hard out of my own love of them?
Does anyone else remember the story about the wasp in the waistcoat? As I remember it, Carroll had included a section in one of the books that involved a conversation with a wasp in a waistcoat. It was axed from the book when Tenniel (rather waspishly) insisted that NO ONE could possibly draw a wasp in a waistcoat. I think this section of book had been lost (?) and then rediscovered with the wasp drawn (pretty nicely as I remember) by Carroll himself.
Peggy J. Rader Coordinator, publication and media relations College of Education and Human Development University of Minnesota 612b6?82, rader004 at tc.umn.edu http://education.umn.edu
"Whenever people say 'We mustn't be sentimental,' you can take it they are about to do something cruel. And if they add 'We must be realistic,' they mean they are going to make money out of it." -Brigid Brophy
Received on Tue 03 Oct 2000 04:30:18 PM CDT
