(Un)Birthday Celebration at UNC-Charlotte

Thanks to the Children's Literature Graduate Students and Mark West at University of North Carolina-Charlotte's English Department for inviting me to be part of their (Un)Birthday Celebration of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

I am looking forward to meeting with students and talking about "Alice and Multiple Wonderlands." How has Alice endured for so long? How did Lewis Carroll, particularly as the controller of the Wonderland empire, help to cement the book's legacy? What is it about the books that still appeals to readers? These are some of the questions that I have been pondering as I prepared the talk.

Management pointers by Lewis Carroll

"Long and painful experience has taught me one great principle in managing business for people, viz, if youQuad at Christ Church, Oxford University want to inspire confidence, give plenty of statistics. It does not matter that they should be accurate, or even intelligble, so long as there are enough of them." Lewis Carroll wrote in Three Years in a Curatorship by One Who Has Tried It (1886).

Among other things that Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) accomplished at Christ Church Oxford was to supervise the Common Room where faculty would gather for afernoon tea, or a glass or claret. He was responsible for ordering the supplies including a stock of wine with more than 20,000 bottles. Being detailed and fastidious, he also looked to improve the ventilation, lighting and furniture in the Commons Room. He describes this as improving "Airs, Glares, and Chairs." He wanted the room to be cheerful and efficient.A Commons Room today for senior students at Christ Church

The pamphlet, Three Years in a Curatorship by One Who Has Tried It, records his attempts to keep the Oxford dons well supplied and contented. With Carroll in command, the Commons room was cheerful and efficient. In no way did it resemble The Mad Tea Party in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

A psychedelic Alice opens in Disneyland

Looks like we'll have to go back to Disneyland to see the new Alice section in the revamped Disney California Adventure.  This Alice is inspired by the weird, colorful word of Tim Burton's film that's re-imagined through the theme park lens.  It's a House of Cards nightclub that opens in the evening with arcade and a rock band headed up by a Mad Hatter channeling Mick Jagger and a White Rabbit dj channeling deadmau5. The caterpillar dance in channeling Pilobus dancers.  Alice is channeling Ashley Tisdale from High School the Musical. Check out the video here.  Maybe just a little squeaky clean, or just squeaky teen Disney, but still seems fun.

Alice in Disneyland

Nice Review of Place of Lewis Carroll in Children's Literature in IRSCL

Thanks to Elisabeth R. Gruner of the University of Richmond, for the positive, thoughtful review of The Place of Lewis Carroll in Children's Literature in the review section of the International Research Society of Children's Literature website . Gruner writes that she found "particularly enlightening" the chapter comparing the social class differences bewteen Alice and Hesba Stretton's Jessica's Last Prayer and the similar class issues in Victorian Britian between coffee and tea. Gruner writes:

Susina’s great contribution here, it seems to me, is that by situating the Alice books alongside Jessica’s First Prayer—by setting up the tea-or-coffee dichotomy—he is able to make an important claim about the oft-repeated truism that Wonderland “almost single-handedly helped to revise the nature of children’s literature in the nineteenth century” (108). It did so, Susina here claims, by ignoring poor children.

I appreciate that Gruner understands the interesting issues that ensue as Carroll's imaginative book becomes rises in popularity among critics while the didactic social tracts, such as Jessica's First Prayer, is dismissed.

Gruner continues that, "Susina does not rest here, however—the book as a whole goes on to provide interesting links between Alice and the Christmas pantomime tradition and, in the last three chapters, the Alice books and many of the larger trends in children’s consumer culture today."

Thanks again for the great review.  It's much appreciated!

Who is fighting the Jabberwock in Alice in Wonderland?

In Tim Burton's new Alice in Wonderland, I think that teen-age Alice character fights the frightful Jabberwock. The Jabberwock in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking-Glass. Illustration by John Tenniel.At least that's what I understand from trailers and talking with Ramin Setoodeh, a reporter at Newsweek who saw the previews. In our email conversation, Setoodeh wondered who is fighting the Jabberwock in the original John Tenniel illustration in Lewis Carroll's the second Alice book, Through the Looking-Glass.

The question is interesting because if you look at Tenniel's woodcut our contemporary eyes see a girl with a mini-dress and striped stockings. But Victorian girls probably didn't wear that kind of clothing, out of modesty and fashion sense. Yet, the hair looks very much like a girl's, although some boys had long hair at this time. The facial features sort of look like a girl, too.

In Through the Looking-Glass, Alice reads the poem. There are two lines that refer to a male:

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!" (second stanza)

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?/Come to my arms, my beamish boy! (fifth stanza)

These lines clearly suggest that this is a boy fighting. Maybe it's a boy elf. The shoes look very elfish, for Victorians anyway. The entire outfit -- striped stockings, shoes, top and waist pouch -- seems like what an elf or pixie would wear. Then the huge sword would make more sense as an average sword might be big for an elf or pixie.

But it pretty clear that Alice isn't fighting in Carroll's original text. It's not as clear who Tenniel thought was fighting the Jabberwock.

Addendum on Feb 28: In Larry Rohter's article in The New York Times (Feb. 28, 2010), he also discusses this transformation of the Jabberwock image to one of Alice fighting the dragon in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland film.

addendum 2 After seeing the film, the ending is a somewhat silly fight between Alice and a Jabberwock, Curiously, Burton's film tries to recreate the original Tenniel drawing in many ways and then it veers off into typical fantasy fight sequence. some may even be frustrated that Alice never tries to practice using the torpal sword. Alice chops off the Jabberwocks's head, a la the Red Queen.