Alice

The interwebs last week went all-in on the 150th anniversary of Alice, even though Alice's Adventures in Wonderland wasn't published until 1865. In other words, we have three years to wait until the anniversary of the publication of the first Alice book, but on July 4, 1862, the Reverend Dodgson, his friend Ducksworth and the three Liddell sisters, took a boat ride "all in the golden afternoon." Dodgson (he became the Dodo, Ducksworth stayed a duck) wrote up the story he had told that day in a quick early manuscript, with his own illustrations. You can pick up a copy of a facsimile, if you're so inclined. When the real book was published, with the John Tenniel illustrations, it was a big hit, and a few years later the author and his illustrator followed it up with a second Alice book. Probably most of us think of the two, one a trip down a rabbit hole, the other a trip through a mirror, as a single entity, that entity being Alice in Wonderland. In other words, it didn't matter how she got there; it only mattered what she found once she did get there.

It is no great achievement to be a fan of Alice, as I obviously am. (That cat peeking out of the Coachean "o" is not an accident.) Alice is one of the great classics of literature, and one of the smallish number that is actually read and enjoyed, and rewards endless rereads with endless further enjoyments. Yet it challenges our idea of what great literature is supposed to be. It reveals little, if anything, of the human condition. It does not take on a noble cause to uncover a societal ill. In fact, given that it's a book written for children, it barely succeeds at its stated goal, since kids don't really gravitate to it except in a general sense, and I would suggest that the vast army of Alice fans since the book's publication have been adults and not children. We may read the book as children, or know the story, but it is when we come back to it as older readers that we truly start to appreciate it.

For me, Alice came in high school. I have no idea why I read it then, and of course I knew the story because there have been enough adaptations of the work to rival the Bible, but it wasn't until I was in my teens that I sat down and read the thing. And was blown away. It was one of the first books I read from which I understood—really understood—that there was more to books than the story. This is the core lesson of literature, what separates English majors from people who like to read on airplanes. For me, Alice was key in that discovery. More than that, it was key to my realizing that, despite my abilities in other fields, I was first and foremost a book person. It's like Newton sitting in the garden and getting hit in the head with an apple and realizing he's a scientist, except of course that Newton never was hit in the head with an apple, or if he was, it was not in aid of his becoming a scientist or "discovering" gravity, but that's another thing altogether, and come to think of it, it's the sort of thing that I couldn't get away with if it wasn't for Alice. Maybe it was the Cheshire Cat that didn't knock that non-existent apple on Izzy's head. After all, if it wasn't the Cheshire Cat that didn't do it, then who did?

See what I mean?

As I said, there are umpty-ump versions of Alice; even Dodgson wrote a nursery edition. Some of them have scrumptious illustrations, but I'm sorry, as far as I'm concerned, Lewis Carroll requires John Tenniel. They are of a piece somehow. Possibly it's because they come from the same Victorian mindset; maybe it's just because that's how I first encountered the book. It doesn't matter. What is interesting, though, is that, given all the umpty-ump versions of Alice, and here I'm talking movies mostly, none of them are all that special. Disney, Hollywood, Oxbridge types—it doesn't matter. No one has been able to capture Alice in another medium. Maybe it just can't be done, because of the cerebral nature of the material. Maybe it's just that it hasn't been done. I think it's the former. The most recent big attack on the text was the second Disney feature, which was about as Alicey as Moby-Dick. Not that Burton tried to do the text directly, but his indirect text was sort of pointless. It added nothing to the story. I'm reminded of Spielberg's Peter Pan, AKA Hook, which took the remarkable what-if position of, what if Peter Pan grew up? Jeez Louise!!! The whole point of Peter Pan is that he doesn't grow up. Reimagining a story by ignoring the story's raison d'etre? Then again, at least it demonstrated some thought. I rather liked Burton's Alice, but not because of anything Alicey about it. I learned nothing about the story, I added nothing to my knowledge, from seeing this movie.

But if the book is unfilmable, it's hard to fault Burton, or anyone, for not filming it. I do draw your attention to one film that, while not a movie version of Alice in Wonderland is, indeed, a movie that will make you think about Alice. It's called Dreamchild, written by Dennis Potter (The Singing Detective, Pennies from Heaven), with animations from the Muppet shop. It's about Alice Liddell, all grown up. It's fairly obscure, but if you're an Alice buff, it's worth your attention.

So now the brouhaha of the 150th anniversary will die down until the real 150th anniversary. I would advise reading Alice a couple of times between now and then. In which case, you'll finally be able to answer the immortal question: Did you say pig, or fig?
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