U.K. reviewers of Alice in Wonderland film enjoy 3D, great visuals

The new Alice in Wonderland film, directed by Tim Burton and featuring Johnny Depp, was released in the Opening night in London of Alice in WonderlandUnited Kingdom last week with a opening that featured royalty.  That is an interesting twist as the film, like the book, finds Alice figuring out how to deal with queens and kings in Wonderland or Underland, in the film.

Another similarity between the two Alice books and film is that many familiar characters from the first show up in the second. That is what has been heavily promoted in photos and video previews.  Those images look lush and appealing and are probably what will draw people to see the film. But the storyline is quite different, and that may be what causes many to be confused and leave somewhat frustrated.

The London Times is relatively positive. While "the characters may be familiar but the plot deviates insanely from the original," these changes don't stop the critic from enjoying The Caterpillar in Alice in Wonderlandthe new story and how it looks.

Meanwhile, a Guardian film critic bemoans that  Tim Burton's imaginative gothic style has lots its mojo. AS Byatt has a good essay in The Guardian about revisiting the book and why it's still a classic

The Mirror has a glowing review calling it a "terrifically twisted take on the Alice in Wonderland story in a gloriously lush 3D romp"

From OK! Magazine:  the visuals are great, but the storyline is confusing

From The Void blog "a subtle sequel mixing loving homage with out-and-out weird"

IGN likes Alice as "a rebellious, free-thinker" but doesn't like "the headache inducing visuals"

Alice is still bratty, even in an older version, according to The Daily Beast.  Even in the book Alice is "a cranky know-it-all with a low threshold for the nonsensical."

And, in other Alice news that flooding the media, it's curious to find a "thrice-removed" cousin of Alice Liddell managing a children's boutique in Abingdon where she stocks white rabbit merchandise.  RAR4YCRJAAA7

Arthur in Wonderland: NPR reviewer messes up Carroll's name

When Maureen Corrigan, the main book reviewer for NPR's Fresh Air show, The Beggar-Maid by Lewis Carroll, photograph in the collection of Princeton Universityreviewed Alice I Have Been, she revealed that she's not as meticulous or as sharp as I thought she was. The book she reviewed, by Melanie Benjamin, is poorly written and not carefully researched.  Corrigan praised the book and assumed that Benjamin wrote an historically accurate book -- which she did not. If Corrigan had done just a little research, she could have learned about the real Lewis Carroll. Corrigan -- who generally is a good book reviewer -- fumbles so badly that she calls Lewis Carroll by the name Arthur Carroll. (Initially, the transcript of the book review on the Fresh Air website even misspelled Corrigan's first name.)

I find it fustrating when poorly written books -- fiction or criticism -- get recognition. Actually Melanie Benjamin is a pen name and the author's name is Melanie Hauser.   I think that is the most clever aspect of this novel, since Lewis Carroll is the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. Besides reading her book, I also read a profile of the author by Julia Keller in the Chicago Tribune as Benjamin lives in the Chicago area (17 January 2010).
       What struck me was Benjamin's limited knowledge of Lewis Carroll.  She wandered into Chicago's Art Institute sometime between October 2003 and January 2004 and "discovered"  the traveling show of Lewis Carroll photographs, which was based on Douglas Nickel's Dreaming in Pictures: The Photography of Lewis Carroll (2002).  Nickel's book is not particularly good scholarship.  The exhibition, which I also saw, was okay.  There are far better books on Carroll's photography -- including Roger Taylor and Edward Wakeling's Lewis Carroll Photographer: The Princeton University Library Albums (2002), Morton Cohen's Reflection in a Looking-Glass: A Centennial Celebration of Lewis Carroll, Photographer (1998), Anne Higonnet's Lewis Carroll (2008), and even Helmut Gersheim's  groundbreaking Lewis Carroll: Photographer  (1949). This is to point out that bad novels are often built on poor scholarship.

        So in 2003, Benjamin "discovers" that Lewis Caroll actually took photographs (!) of little girls (!!) and that there was a real child who was the inspiration for the protagonist of the Alice books (!!!).  Oh my gosh. Stop the presses -- have we got a story to tell.   To quote Benjamin, from the Chicago Tribune feature, "I didn't know there had been a real girl named Alice."   Imagine Benjamin's surprise when she discovered that there are at least two book-length biographies of Alice Liddell:  Anne Clark's The Real Alice: Lewis Carroll's Dreamchild (1981) and  Colin Gordon's Beyond the Looking Glass: Reflections of Alice and Her Family (1982).  If readers want to "discover" the true of Alice Liddell, I would encourage them to read either of these  books rather than Alice I Have Been.  They  contain a great deal more accurate information about Alice Liddell, are better written and full of wonderful illustrations.  It seems that Benjamin is just a bit behind the learning curve in terms of  Carroll studies. (For more on Carroll studies, check out the websites of the U.S. and U.K. Carroll societies)
       It reminds me of when my wife was teaching a college course on popular culture and James Cameron's  1997 film Titanic was released. After seeing the film, some of her students indignantly remarked, "Why didn't anyone tell us about the Titanic?!"   Frankly, I don't believe there was much of an international conspiracy to keep people from knowing about the sinking of the Titanic or that Lewis Carroll was a noted photographer of  children and considered, by most scholars, to be, along with Julia Margaret Cameron, one of the two best photographers of children in the nineteenth century.  But all of this seems to be news to Benjamin when she wandered into the Art Institute.
    What seems ironic and telling about Alice I Have Been is that Benjamin was inspired to write the novel as the result of  her "discovering"  the photography of Lewis Carroll at the Art Institute. But the novel's cover features a photograph that was not  taken by Lewis Carroll, but another Victorian photographer, Clementina, Viscountess Hawarden.  The photograh is Hararden's "Clementina before a mirror," and features the photographer's own daughter.  If you want to read about a somewhat creepy Victorian photographer, forget Carroll and read about Hawarden.  I good place to start is  Carol Mavor's Becoming: The Photographs of Clementina, Viscountess Hawarden (1999).
       The other disappointing aspect of the novel is that it follows, or repeats, much of  the plot of Gavin Millar's 1985 film Dreamchild, in which Alice Liddell is an old woman who looks back and reflects on her relationship with Carroll.  So it seems that Benjamin was unfamiliar with Carroll's photography and Dreamchild.
      If authors wants to write historical fiction, they ought to know history.  Alice I Have Been wants to re-invent the wheel and does it rather poorly.  It frankly reads like a rush job that was intended to cash in on the release of Tim Burton's film adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. Actually Benjamin acknowledges this in the Tribune feature.
        Maureen Corrigan's mess up on Lewis Carroll's name reminds me of that infamous anti-drug tract Go Ask Alice (1971). It  was touted to be an actual teen diary, but turned out to be written by Beatrice Sparks, a Mormon youth counselor,  who misidentified the author of the Alice books as  "Lewis G. Carroll"  and wrote, " I feel like Alice in Wonderland. Maybe Lewis G. Carroll was on drugs too." 
        Just as Go Ask Alice was a poorly written and deceptive novel, and I feel the same is the case with Benjamin's Alice I Have Been.  But that doesn't seem to stop them from becoming popular.  Unfortunately, this is how myths and distortions concerning Lewis Carroll are promoted.  Facts are replaced by fiction and then assumed to be accurate.
       I would prefer that readers interested in Lewis Carroll read Morton Cohen's  Lewis Carroll: A Biography (1995), the standard, for a more accurate portrait of Carroll's life.  They might even want to read my recent book, The Place of Lewis Carroll in Children's Literature (2009), which includes  the chapter, "The Beggar-Maid: Alice Liddell as Street Arab." In it, I examine in detail Carroll's most famous photograph of Alice Liddell.  I think some readers might enjoy discovering  that the facts of Lewis Carroll's life are as interesting as the myths.
    While I am reluctant to draw unnecessary attention to Alice I Have Been, I do want to let interested readers know that it is far from original,  sometimes distorts the facts, and there are a number of excellent books about Alice Liddell, Lewis Carroll, and his photography published prior to Alice I Have Been that will provide a more accurate understanding of these subjects. The best aspect of the inaccurate historical book is that it may direct some readers to Carroll's Alice books and his photography.  I hope that is the case.

     By the way, Happy birthday to Lewis Carrol today!

Gazing into the Looking-Glass behind high fashion

Alice in Wonderland is inspiring high fashion designers as they pick up on trends from the upcoming film, the Victorian Alice novels and its upper-class, very proper British sensibility. 

Stella McCartney is creating Alice-themed jewelry for Disney that's scheduled to appear in stores in January.  Stella's certainly been steeped in Alice culture through simply being an upper-class girl in England and through her dad's band The Beatles.  John Lennon had numerous references in songs to Lewis Carroll and his world.  Carroll, of course, is pictured on the cover of Sgt. Pepper.Tom Binns' Alice jewelry

Tom Binns, high-end jewelry collaborator with Vivienne Westwood and Malcolm McLaren, has a collection of chunky, opulent jewelry with keys and trinkets that are inspired by Alice in Wonderland. These are also in collaboration with Disney and will sell for $100 to $2,000.  Michelle Obama, by the way, has worn Binns' creations.

OPI has a special edition of colors linked to the upcoming Tim Burton Alice in Wonderland film. The glittery, over-the-top colors include: Absolutely Aice, Mad as a Hatter, Off With her Red!, and Thanks So Muchness! 

OPI's display for Alice in Wonderland nail polishFashion has always been an important part of the Alice novels.  Of course, she does spend a great deal of time looking into a Looking-Glass. Carroll, too, was a devotee to fashion.

According to Alice Liddell, Carroll "always wore black clergyman's clothes in Oxford, but when he took us out on the river, he used to wear white flannel trousers.  He also replaced his black top-hat with a hard white straw hat on those occassions, but of course retained his black boots, because in those days white tennis shoes had not yet been heard of."  Carroll favored black, always a fashion statement, and tended to wear his hair longer than others.  He was decidedly class conscious in his clothes.  He almost always wore gloves in public.

In the novels, Alice is a bit of a snob, a proper upper-middle-class child who longs toStella McCartney's jewelry inspired by Alice in Wonderland play croquet with royalty.  When she falls down the rabbit hole and wonders who she is she is afraid she might be Mabel and be forced to live in that "poky little house" and "have next to no toys to play with."

More fashion designers teaming with Disney include Sue Wong for Walt Disney Signature. "I have long been mesmerized by the fantastical tales of Alice and her surrealistic adventures in Wonderland and am thrilled to be collaborating with Disney on this project," explains designer Sue Wong whose Alice clothes will be sold in Bloomingdale's, Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom's, Lord and Taylor and Macy's, as well as on www.SueWong.com.

Alice Is The New Black. Here's a video of how Disney promoted its high-end fashion last year at the MAGIC Convention in Las Vegas.