Status: In a child-like state
"I had sent my heroine straight down a rabbit-hole ... without the least idea what was to happen afterwards." — Lewis Carroll
I'll say! A perpetually late White Rabbit, a disappearing cat, a lecturing mouse, a race-organising Dodo, a gardening lizard, a gigantic puppy, a caterpillar who takes insult when people point out his size, Fish- and Frog-Footmen, an ugly Duchess, a Mock Turtle (as opposed to a real one), a Gryphon, a deck of cards come to life (including a Queen of Hearts, obsessed with decapitation) and, of course, a Hatter who is, as you would expect from a tale this ludicrous, mad.And all that's before Alice passes Through The Looking-Glass! Yep, I've been getting reacquainted with the first of Carroll's two-part tale, a classic for children, on whom Carroll's amazing knack for puns, wit and all-around cleverness must be utterly lost.
Everything about Carroll's writing sparkles and Alice is as well-crafted and imaginative a character as the creatures who populate the world around her. The Penguin Classics edition, which I'm reading, contains both stories and is packed with a lengthy introduction, annotations, appendices, an essay, the manuscript of Alice's Adventures Under Ground, which became the first of the two stories, and John Tenniel's fantastic illustrations.
It is with nothing but pure excitement that I await Tim Burton's adaptation of this phenomenal book.
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