The Annotated Alice:
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass
by Lewis Carroll, introduction & commentary by Martin Gardner
In January, I read Through the Looking Glass for the first time (I’d never read Alice’s Adventures, either) and, to be frank, I didn’t understand a lot of it. I figured that this was largely due to the fact that it is a nonsense book, but it wasn’t as funny as I’d expected. I suspected, knowing that Carroll had been very interested in logic and mathematics, that I was missing a lot of puns, logical puzzles/paradoxes/jokes, and the like. Well, it seems I was right. Gardner’s introduction tackles just this issue, suggesting that many of the jokes lose their essence to the modern American reader, because they play on popular songs, the ways words were pronounced, and other details peculiar to Victorian England (he also goes on for a very long time about how worthless it is to do psychanalysis of Carroll’s writings, preffering to look for plays on words, in-jokes and references to people in Carroll’s life, and logical/mathematical ideas and jokes).
Throughout the text, Gardner notes wordplay and reproduces the songs and poems that Carroll is lampooning in his (sometimes lengthy) nonsense songs and poems. Gardner also discusses the implications of anti-matter and the possibility of an anti-Alice through the looking glass, worrying that their meeting would certainly eliminate both. He reassures us that this is unlikely considering that, in Tenniel’s illustrations, Alice is not inverted in appearance… OK, so maybe Gardner gets a little off topic sometimes, but his insights and explanations are greatly appreciated in trying to read through these, actually very funny, stories.
read: 8 March 2008
