On Alice in Wonderland

• Published in: South Central Review Vol. 38; no. 2-3; p. 23
• Main Authors: Bruckner, Pascal, Bracher, Nathan J
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Baltimore Johns Hopkins University Press 01.07.2021
• Subjects: Carroll, Lewis (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) (1832-1898); Childrens literature; Word meaning; Word order
• ISSN: 0743-6831

When these books have the good fortune to be part of children's literature and also read by adults, they continue to suffuse our lives until adulthood and even resonate beyond our mature years through our progeny's acquaintance with them. [...]Alice is also a very special ambassador from the earliest years: as ordinary humanity's emissary in the land of nonsense, that very British art of inconsistent syllogism, she plunges into the hurrying rabbit's burrow, just as we plunge into meaningful unreason in order to delight these "old children" that we, who scurry around pointlessly before our eternal slumber, have become. Imbued with Anglican culture, pathologically shy, Carroll managed to invent a text that was sufficiently inoffensive to be pleasing to the society of his time, but subversive enough to interest future generations and captivate open minds. [...]the permanent scrambling of Alice's conversations with the Queen, the King, the Mad Hatter, and the Mad Hatter by crosstalk: if it is not possible to agree on the meaning of words, there can only be misunderstandings and only the strongest will force these confusions to be understood as irrefutable truths.