Alice: You Love Her and Don't Even Know It
*"All this time the Guard was looking at her, first through a telescope, then through a microscope, and then through an opera-glass. At last, he said, 'You’re travelling the wrong way,' and shut up the window and went away."
"What's your favorite book?" It is kind of a dumb question. Book people almost never have a "favorite" book. They might have ten or a hundred. Or they might have a favorite book for now. Today's favorite book might be different from yesterday's which might be different from tomorrow's. In conclusion, it is a dumb question and no one who is really into books ever answers it in a straightforward way.
That being said, I have a favorite book: Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass. Yes, I'm aware that those are two books. For that matter, those aren't even the full titles of the books. I refer you to my previous comment regarding not answering the question in "a straightforward way."
I first fell in love with the Alice stories because we owned this record:
I listened to the Alice side over and over and over and over. Not the Pinocchio side, it was terrifying--seriously. I eventually found a copy of the books, bound in one volume, in a cupboard where some of my mother's childhood books were. And then I read that book over and over and over.
I fell in love with the wordplay of the books, the absurdity, the fact that Alice loved hot-buttered toast (so did I!). I loved that random things happened to Alice. I loved that she jumped over a brook in Looking Glass and then she was sitting in a train car with a goat and a man dressed entirely in newspapers as pictured at the top of this post.
I'm not the only one, who loves Alice. With the possible exception of Sherlock Holmes, there is no more influential 19th-century character from English-language fiction than Alice. You may find the claim curiouser and curiouser as we proceed. I hope you don't feel you've tumbled down the rabbit hole, but I know you've sometimes believed six impossible things before breakfast. Just remember that we're all mad here. You may not believe me until pigs fly, but I'll try to convince you that you've been surrounded by the Alice books.
Alice Illustrations
The books were originally illustrated by John Tenniel. In my office, I have a framed poster of Tenniel's depiction of the Dodo presenting Alice with a "humble thimble" for running the Caucus Race. The thimble belonged to Alice who had to give it to the Dodo so the Dodo could present it to her as a prize:
This one I have hanging in my office at home:
*Copyright Fenway Fan
That picture is by Chinese-American artist Fenway Fan. I think it is childlike but not childish.
I probably have a dozen or so different illustrated editions of the Alice books I've collected over the years. There are lots and lots of different illustrators who've taken on Alice and the idea of collecting them all has never really appealed to me; just the ones that strike my fancy. In addition, the internet has kind of taken the fun out of finding different editions of Alice since I could just order them online which takes all the fun out of stumbling across something interesting in a used bookstore.
Besides the original Tenniel illustrations, my favorites are the illustrations by Mervyn Peake. Peake was a famous illustrator in his time and the author of the Gormenghast books which are what epic fantasy is when it grows up. His Alice illustrations are darker and more threatening than Tenniel's but I find them beautiful. This is Alice coming through the Looking Glass:
*Copyright owned by the Peake Estate.
Alice Films
My love of still pictures of the Alice books does not extend to moving pictures. I haven't seen the 60+ movie and TV adaptations or the 13 video games but every movie I've seen has been dull and disappointing. That includes the Disney film from 1951. Maybe especially the Disney film from 1951. Part of the problem is that the books are very thin on plot. In Wonderland Alice chases a rabbit down a rabbit hole and then spots a lovely garden behind a tiny door and tries to get to the garden. That's it. That's the plot. She just kind of wanders around and fantastic things happen to her. Looking Glass is, basically the same thing. The Looking-Glass world is a chessboard and she's trying to get across. This is not exactly Raiders of the Lost Ark in terms of driving action. For example, here's the very first movie adaptation of Alice in Wonderland made in 1903:
That film is only 8 minutes long and I'll bet you couldn't even sit through the whole thing. No, Alice doesn't make good cinema. And, don't talk to me about the Tim Burton monstrosities, they are abominations unto Dodgson.
The problem is that the books are supposed to be nonsense and people who make movies insist on putting motivations for actions and plots into them. The same goes for the recent Charley and the Chocolate Factory movies. Wonka is an other-worldly creature who defies explanation. Please spare me the nonsense about his mean dentist father turning him into a candymaker. Same with Alice. She's a young child trying to get into a pretty garden. Let it go at that.
Alice in Music
Do you like opera? We got Alice opera. Hell, we got two. You know what? Make it three. Prefer ballet? Gotcha covered there, too?
Do you like musicals? According to my official count, there are "a bunch" of Alice inspired musicals: Alice by Heart, Wonderland, Wonder.land. How many X-rated musicals do you know? Here's a SFW link to one
At some point in the 1960s, Alice became associated with hallucinogenic drug use. Go Ask Alice even lent its name to a famous anti-drug book in 1971, though there is reason to think it did not necessarily capture the drug scene completely accurately. The phrase, however, is not from the Alice books, but from the famous Jefferson Airplane song, White Rabbit. Now, why anyone associates that song with drugs is a mystery. Here's a lovely bluegrass-ish version:
Pink Floyd, the classic psychedelic band released Country Song (The Red Queen Theme). In Looking Glass the Red Queen has to run as fast as she can just to stay in one place, an idea that has lent is name to evolutionary biology as well as psychedelic rock.
Now kids, as your camp counselor, I'm gonna turn my chair around and sit down on it backwards and just rap with you, OK? There's lots of non-drug music inspired by Alice out there! You don't need drugs! Just listen to Lady Ga of Ga and get high on life! Listen to Tom Waits's wholesome music. Avril Lavigne is from Canada, ground zero of all things straight and narrow! Taylor Swift may be mind-controlling you to vote for Biden, but she also sings about Alice. The list could go on.
My favorite music inspired by Alice is that of singer-songwriter Emma Wallace. She's written three EPs around Alice: Down the Rabbit Hole, Alice in Wonderland, and Curiouser and Curiouser. To me, she captures the essence of the books and gives them a very sweet twist with her lovely voice and piano.
There you have it. Alice has been with us the whole time! Go enjoy!
jpj stories by John Jackson is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0
