It’s Just a Bunch of Nonsense
A Review of “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll
By Julia A. Keirns
This review is also published at medium.com.
Everything in this entire book is complete and utter nonsense but it demands to be read by everyone. I imagine Lewis Carol as an adult imagining what a little girl would think and say and do should she fall into a hole and have quite an adventure. This is an account of an absolutely wonderful imagination imagining all sorts of nonsense. It can be read to a child one chapter each night, as the chapters are short and actually go quite fast.
Alice follows a white rabbit and falls into a rabbit hole. She gets small and then big and then small again and almost drowns in a pool of her own tears. She meets several creatures including a mouse who hates cats and dogs. She has an interesting conversation with all of them. There is an eaglet, a dodo, and owl and a duck among other creatures. One of the first lessons comes out of this encounter to never lose your temper.
As she meets the white rabbit again, she runs to his house to fetch his fan and white gloves and drinks another potion and finds herself so big she cannot get out. When she gets small again, she runs into an enormous puppy. She meets the caterpillar and recites the poem “You Are Old, Father William.” Eventually the caterpillar gives her some more wonderful advice.
Alice gets ahold of a baby only for it to turn out to be a baby pig so she lets it go, stating that if it had grown up it would have been a dreadfully ugly baby. The nonsense continues as she meets the Cheshire Cat and attends a mad tea party. Some of the more memorable creatures from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland include the March Hare, the Mad Hatter, and the Dormouse. Alice makes it quite clear that it was the stupidest tea party she ever did attend.
She goes on to meet the King and Queen of Hearts and plays quite the game of croquet and almost gets her head chopped off. She meets the Duchess who tells her to remember that there is a moral to every story. She meets a mock turtle, a tortoise, a gryphon, and a lobster. Each adventure is filled with much nonsense and lessons. There is the issue of the stolen tarts and the trial where Alice has to prove her innocence.
Her sister finally wakes her up and Alice figures it had been a wonderful dream. She decides that it is better to dream and keep a wonderful imagination as she grows up and vows to always tell wonderful stories to her own children someday. If the book has no other message than that, it would be enough. Lewis Carroll did a wonderful job of writing this story and I can easily see why it has been so loved for so many generations.
I have reviewed Through The Looking-Glass in it’s own post.