The more we think about it, the more we become convinced that Alice did not choose to follow the white rabbit in Lewis Carroll's classic, Alice’s adventures in Wonderland. The white rabbit allowed itself to be chosen. He seduced the curious Alice, checking the time. It was not the fact that he was speaking loudly and alone, shouting, nor that he was wearing a vest or elegant gloves, what powerfully caught the attention of the girl who was bored of “…having nothing to do”, it was the seductive indifference with which he showed himself. The most interesting thing is what he shouts: “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!”. Ask, answer, affirm and reaffirm. Time flies, we often say. Time is money, we also acknowledge that. The white rabbit knows this, and so he runs and jumps into its burrow.
Since its publication 150 years ago, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has kept a powerful grip on the public imagination. Robert Douglas-Fairhurst explores the origins and afterlife of Lewis Carroll’s famous creation
Robert Douglas-Fairhurst Friday 20 March 2015
One of the strangest creatures Alice meets in Wonderland is the Caterpillar, who languidly asks her “Who are you?” and receives the uncertain reply: “I – I hardly know, sir, at present – at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.” Alice’s confusion is understandable – over the course of her adventures she is variously mistaken for a housemaid, a serpent, a volcano, a flower and a monster. Today the Caterpillar’s question would be even harder to answer. Who is Alice?
Russian illustrations reimagine Lewis Carroll’s poetry for the apocalypse
August 11, 2020
Children’s classic Alice in Wonderland might be best known for its whimsical original roughs, but Igor Oleinikov’s new series of illustrations of Lewis Carroll’s The Hunting of the Snark — a poem from the timeless children’s tale — instead features men in suits and uniforms, transforming the text with a post-apocalyptic, anti-authoritarian spin.
Written in 1876, the nonsense poem was only published in Russia in 1991, where it became a bestseller with over 40 translations and a range of visual interpretations. The poem follows a crew of 10 trying to hunt the Snark (a creature invented by Carroll), which eventually turns out to be a very dangerous Boojum (another imaginary being, coined by the author).
Krasnodar-born, Berlin-based Oleinikov made the illustrations for a book which will be released later this year, accompanying a new translation of Carroll’s poem by Grigory Kruzhkov. The illustrations will also be available to view at an exhibition in Moscow.
The exhibition is running from 14–25 August at Open Klub in Moscow.
A weak king but a consummate drama queen, Richard II sends for a looking glass when he finds himself about to be deposed by his cousin Henry Bolingbroke. "Give me the glass, and therein will I read. / No deeper wrinkles yet?" Pronouncing his regal glory "brittle", he smashes the mirror on the ground, "For there it is, crack'd in a hundred shivers."
"Snow White", by the Brothers Grimm
Those famous lines addressed by the evil, vain queen to her magic mirror were originally in German: "Spieglein, Spieglein, an der Wand / Wer ist die Schönste im ganzen Land?" "You are," is always the mirror's answer, until one day the mirror tells her that her beauty has been surpassed by that of her step-daughter, Snow White . . .
"The Lady of Shalott", by Alfred, Lord Tennyson
The eponymous lady is condemned to watch the world indirectly, via a mirror that exhibits to her the shifting scenes of Camelot. "A curse is on her" if she look directly from her casement. But then Sir Lancelot rides by, and she cannot resist a gander. Oh dear. "The mirror crack'd from side to side; / 'The curse is come upon me,' cried / The Lady of Shalott."
Through the Looking-Glass, by Lewis Carroll
Alice is playing with her kittens in front of a large mirror. "How would you like to live in Looking-glass House, Kitty?" she asks. Before you know it, she is up on the mantelpiece. "Let's pretend the glass has got all soft like gauze, so that we can get through. Why, it's turning into a sort of mist now, I declare! It'll be easy enough to get through."
Dracula, by Bram Stoker A mirror shows Jonathan Harker that he really is in a fix. "This time there could be no error, for the man was close to me, and I could see him over my shoulder. But there was no reflection of him in the mirror!" Gulp!
The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde
Dorian is in the habit of taking a mirror up to the locked room containing his portrait and comparing his reflection with the increasingly horrid image on the canvas. When he realises what a monster he has become, he becomes another mirror-smasher. "He loathed his own beauty, and flinging the mirror on the floor, crushed it into silver splinters beneath his heel."
For the ageing poet, a mirror is a cruel thing. "I look into my glass, / And view my wasting skin, / And say, 'Would God it came to pass / My heart had shrunk as thin!'"Hardy sees his wasting frame but feels the old "throbbings of noontide".
"Mirror", by Sylvia Plath
Plath finds a mirror thoroughly uncanny. "I am silver and exact. I have no preconceptions. / Whatever I see I swallow immediately / Just as it is, unmisted by love or dislike." A woman gazes intro this glass, which is as unpitying as Hardy's. "In me she has drowned a young girl, and in me an old woman / Rises toward her day after day, like a terrible fish".
"The Mirrror", by Paul Muldoon
Muldoon's poem in memory of his father imagines another malign mirror, taking his father's "breath away" when he took it down from the wall. Now the dead man's life has gone into the glass. "When I took hold of the mirror / I had a fright. I imagined him breathing through it." Father and son seem to replace the mirror together.
The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters
The most overtly supernatural event in Waters's novel involves a mirror. Rod, heir to spooky Hundreds Hall, tells the narrator that he has just seen a mirror on a stand walk its way across his bedroom. Is he cracking up? Or is there a poltergeist? Hauntingly (in every sense) the novel ends with the narrator catching his own reflection in a mirror.
The first edition of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Macmillan, 1865, with 42 wood-engraved illustrations by John Tenniel).
'Legendary' first edition of Alice in Wonderland set for auction at $2-3m
The edition is one of only 22 known copies in existence, after Lewis Carroll withdrew the print run because of a problem with the illustrations
A “legendary” first edition of Alice in Wonderland – one of just 22 known copies in existence, after Lewis Carroll withdrew the entire print run – is due to be auctioned in New York next month, where it is anticipated to fetch between $2m and $3m (£1.3-£2m).
Two thousand copies of the first edition of Carroll’s classic children’s story were printed in June 1865. Macmillan & Co was planning to release it on 4 July, and sent 50 advance copies to the author for him to give away. But shortly afterwards, the book’s illustrator, John Tenniel, told Carroll that he was “entirely dissatisfied with the printing of the pictures”, so the author recalled the print run and asked for the advance copies he had sent out to be returned.
On 2 August, Carroll would write in his diary: “Finally decided on the reprint of Alice, and that the first 2,000 shall be sold as waste paper.” In an introduction to a later edition of Alice in Wonderland, Carroll scholar Morton N Cohen writes that the author “would probably have been content to leave the first edition stand and, at most, would have wanted the later impressions printed more carefully. For him it was simply a case of making concessions to his uncompromising illustrator.”
One of the illustrations in the first edition of Alice in Wonderland.
Cohen records that Carroll “suffered most by the need to reprint”, with it costing him £600 to do the book a second time. Carroll wrote in his diary that “if a second 2,000 could be sold it would cost £300, and bring in £500, thus squaring accounts: any other further sale would be a gain. But that I can hardly hope for.”
The book became one of the most beloved stories in children’s literature, and Cohen writes that “so choice” has the “inferior” first edition now become, that “collectors would trade whole segments of their libraries for a single copy of the ‘first’ Alice; bibliographers dream of uncovering an unrecorded copy; and literary chroniclers are at a loss to explain how, even in the heyday of Victorian publishing, such extravagant decisions could be made over a single children’s book as were made over this one.”
Christie’s, which will auction the text on 16 June in New York, says that surviving copies of the “legendary” 1865 edition are “excessively rare”. Sixteen of the known copies are in institutional libraries, and six in private hands.
The edition Christie’s is selling was personally given by Carroll to his Christ Church colleague George William Kitchin, who gave it to his daughter Alexandra. She sold it at auction in 1925, when it was acquired for the Pforzheimer library. It passed through the hands of different private owners until it was acquired by the Carroll scholar and bibliographer Jon Lindseth.
The book is being sold along with a photograph of Alexandra Kitchin taken by Caroll himself – she was one of his favourite models. The book is “in its true original state, with the text and binding as they were when the book was first produced”, says the auction house, and “no other copy in the original binding in this condition exists in private hands”.
From Lewis Carroll’s Cheshire Cat to Franz Kafka’s ‘Ungeziefer’, linguistically gifted beasts have made for some of the most luminous characters in fiction
Pajtim Statovci
A
nimal characters in works of fiction have generally been used in a rather anthropomorphic way. This can be seen as a problem, though, and many say that reading animals as symbols of us reduces them, makes them smaller, steals their right to be seen as subjects who have their unique, distinctive way of existing. Others say that it’s not a problem at all because it’s not as if animals – even though they’re each different in shape and thought – will ever get to know what we write about them, how we place, use and interpret them and give them meaning through human filters.
Placing myself in the discussion as a writer of animal characters (as I am in my novel My Cat Yugoslavia) is extremely difficult. Does a writer of fiction that includes animal characters commit an act of theft? Can nature really be appropriated? Who does it belong to, and who gets to say what counts as “animal culture”? Is it scientists, biologists, scholars in humanities, people who have lived with animals, or no one? The question is exceptionally complex. However, it is interesting and most welcome, too, that we continue to discuss the rights of beings that are unarmed, incapable of defending themselves through language that’s not clearly understandable to us.
All that being said, here they come: my top 10 talking, zoomorphic animal characters.
1. Behemoth in The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov
This demonic beast, this marvellous shape-shifting creature, this sarcastic, vodka-loving cat, is one of the most iconic talking animals, and justifiably so. Behemoth, a member of an evil entourage led by Satan himself, will leave an everlasting mark on the reader. I promise you this. His whimsical, absurd and ingenious character inspired me tremendously when writing My Cat Yugoslavia.
2. The Cheshire Cat in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
This talking feline won’t terrify you with Behemoth’s cutthroat insults and deranged actions, but it will make you laugh just as copiously. Famous for its broad grin, it appears and disappears as it chooses, while tormenting Alice with philosophical statements and giving her advice that seems irrational. But that’s part of its alluring magic.
3. “Ungeziefer” in The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
Gregor Samsa wakes up one morning as a bug-like, monstrous vermin. A busy salesman who slavishly follows the rules, he immediately knows he’s in big trouble. While Gregor himself doesn’t seem to be bothered by his new clumsy shape and unsightly appearance, he’s rejected by his family and ends up suffering a terrible fate. There are many possible interpretations of the story. To me, it’s about how our battles and confrontations don’t necessarily make us stronger – sometimes they just make us weaker, sadder and more pathetic.
4. Maf in The Life and Opinions of Maf the Dog, and of His Friend Marilyn Monroe by Andrew O’Hagan
Frank Sinatra gave Mafia Honey, a Maltese terrier, to Monroe as a Christmas present in 1960. O’Hagan’s fourth novel follows the final years of the actor from the point of view of this singular pooch. This well-educated and articulate dog will not only give you a unique perspective on Monroe’s life, it will steal your heart away. He’s that charming and spot-on.
‘Some animals are more equal than others’ … a still from the 1954 animated film of Animal Farm. Photograph: Allstar/Cinetext/Halas/Batchelor
5. Napoleon and Snowball in Animal Farm by George Orwell
Napoleon and Snowball, two pigs greedy for power, start off as allies. As the story continues and violence proliferates, they become dedicated rivals. What the hatred and violence between them generates is simply more hate and violence. This novel feels more current than ever.
6. Bagheera in The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling
This black panther is one of my favourite talking animals in children’s books because he’s just the coolest. In Kipling’s Mowgli stories, as well as in various adaptations of them, Bagheera is a real class act. He’s smart, reliable and thinks ahead, and on top of that he has perfect timing. Mowgli would be in terrible trouble without the awesome Bagheera. Shere Khan has nothing on him.
7. Red Peter in A Report to an Academy by Franz Kafka
Here is an ape who has mastered the art of being a human being by leaving his “ape self” behind. After being captured on the Gold Coast he’s given two options: he can either live in a zoo or become a turn at a music hall. Red Peter chooses the latter, and adjusts to the highly oppressive and judgmental people around him. I guess sometimes it’s easier to adapt to being othered in various ways than to fight for the right to be seen and heard as an individual.
8. Pig Tales by Marie Darrieussecq
A young woman in her 20s lands a job at perfume counter. Soon after that, she understands that she’s expected to have sex with male customers. Then she starts gradually transforming into a sow. Darrieussecq’s debut novel – Truismes in the original French – was a massive success on publication in 1996. It offers one of the most distinctive and unique transformation stories of our time and explores questions of sexuality, identity and gender with much-needed insight and superb creativity.
9. The Cowardly Lion in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L Frank Baum
I have great sympathy for the Cowardly Lion. He is expected to be brave, powerful and courageous. Instead, he is terribly scared of the world around him. What makes him adorable is that he’s so freaking sensitive and sentimental, and extremely self-conscious about it. To me, he is a symbol of self-hatred. I’m sure everyone who has been told that they can’t do something, that they should act in a certain fashion, that they are not good or smart or capable enough can relate. We become blind to our strengths when our weaknesses are brought up more frequently, when we begin to think that we don’t deserve more and feel shame for what we should be proud of.
10. Sharik or Comrade Sharikov in The Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov
Overshadowed by The Master and Margarita, Bulgakov’s novella is an equally remarkable and momentous work of fiction. It tells the story of a wealthy and successful doctor who surgically implants human testicles and a pituitary gland into a stray dog, a mongrel he names Sharik. Sharik narrates the story until the surgery transforms him into something like a human being. Then the man/canine becomes Comrade Sharikov, a cat-killing nuisance who tortures and harasses virtually everyone in sight.
My Cat Yugoslavia by Pajtim Statovci, translated by David Hackston, is published by Pushkin Press, priced £14.99.