Victorians! discussion

Reading schedule to be posted here.

Deborah wrote: "Reading schedule to be posted here."

Hello all. Somehow (?) I have ended up the guest moderator for Alice's Adventures In Wonderland (AA) and Through The Looking Glass (LG). With much virtual handholding from Pip and Deborah, I may survive.

The first major decision was how to allocate the time for each week's read. Each book contains 12 chapters, but each separate chapter, in each book, is short. Indeed chapters 10 and 11 of LG are really brief.

While the chapters themselves are short, there is certainly no end to the speculations and comments we can make about these two remarkable books. I decided to divide our reading weeks as follows:

October 1 - 7. Chapters 1 through 6 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (AA)
October 8 - 14. Chapters 7 through 12 AA

October 15 - 21 Chapters 1 through 6 Through The Looking Glass. (LG)
October 22 - 29 Chapters 7 through 12 (LG)

If there is more to be discussed at the end of each week's reading, all the threads will remain open, so there may be some spill over, which would be great.

Let's tumble down the rabbit hole together and see what happens.

Yay, Alice! I'd love to join you, but my edition is at a friend's house so I'll have to get hold of it first. I'll do my best:)

Nina wrote: "Yay, Alice! I'd love to join you, but my edition is at a friend's house so I'll have to get hold of it first. I'll do my best:)"

We hope you can

I have been looking forward to this reading. I told my sister I was reading “Alice’s Adventures through the Looking-Glass” and told her how I would like to get a physical copy of it instead of reading it in my Tablet. She surprised me with a Penguin Edition which includes: “Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass” but also the manuscript version of “Alice´s Adventures Underground” and Carroll’s essay “Alice” on the Stage. I did not even know about the last two until she showed the book to me. I just gave her the biggest hug then!

I'm dusting off my Annotated AA and LG annotated by Martin Gardner. When I was teaching high school math I loved using Gardner's problems and puzzles along with his monthly columns in Scientific American on "recreational mathematics," as he called it.

For the annotations, he has winkled out many of the paradoxes, puzzles, and games embedded in these books. I read the book avidly when it first came out in 1960, and I'm looking forward to revisiting it.

As Gardner points out, while one doesn't want to take too scholarly an approach to AA and LG, they were written for a British readership now 150 years ago, and many of the allusions and references are totally missed by modern readers. So I'll wallow in the combination of two great minds both of whom loved to play mathematical and logical games. It'll be a joy!

A column discussing Alice and Gardner's annotated edition.
http://articles.latimes.com/1992-05-2...

A passage:

Alas, in the manner of classics, the books also became the subject of disquisitions, psychoanalyses, and Ph.D. theses. By the centenary of Lewis Carroll's birth in 1932, G. K. Chesterton lamented: "Poor, poor little Alice! She has not only been caught and made to do lessons; she has been forced to inflict lessons on others. Alice is now not only a schoolgirl but a schoolmistress. The holiday is over and Dodgson is again a don."


The further we moved from the 19th Century, the worse things seemed to get for Alice. Walt Disney flattened and candified her adventures. The drug culture made much of the mushroom that caused her to expand and diminish. Freudians thought they saw lineaments of Humbert Humbert and Lolita in the adoring bachelor and his long-haired little friend. Political scientists found references to everything from imperial skirmishes to theological wars: the Jabberwock, according to one professor, "can only be a fearsome representation of the British view of the Papacy."

By now Alice might have disappeared into Cliff Notes and the Disney Channel--but for the efforts of Martin Gardner. In 1960 he produced "The Annotated Alice," a sparkling attempt to rescue Carroll from the academicians, the sexologists and the potheads. In his introduction, Gardner set up the house rules: "We do not have to be told what it means to tumble down a rabbit hole or curl up inside a tiny house with one foot up the chimney." As he saw it, "The rub is that any work of nonsense abounds with so many inviting symbols that you can start with any assumption you please about the author and easily build up an impressive case for it."

Gardner subscribed to no theory and belonged to no school. Yet no one was better qualified to glean hidden messages from the Alice books. He was a scholarly columnist for Scientific American, an expert on English literature with more than 20 books in print, an amateur magician; and in earlier years he had been an editor of Humpty Dumpty's Magazine, a mirth-filled periodical for children.

In "The Annotated Alice," nothing seems to escape the polymath. Burrowing deep into the narrative, he notes that Carroll's celebrated comic verses are parodies of now-forgotten verse. Gardner unearths them all. "Speak roughly to your little boy./ And beat him when he sneezes" is a sendup of David Bates' sentimental "Speak gently! It is better far/ to rule by love than fear." Robert Southey's "You are old, father William, the young man cried,/ the few locks which are left you are gray" becomes, in Carroll's hands, "You are old, father William, the young man said/ And your hair has become very white/ And yet you incessantly stand on your head--/ Do you think, at your age, it is right?"

Everyman wrote: "A column discussing Alice and Gardner's annotated edition.
http://articles.latimes.com/1992-05-2...

A passage:

Alas, in the manner of classics, the books also became ..."

Yes. The Gardner edition is a great source. The reading of these books will, I hope, spin us all in various directions. I am going to enjoy watching where everyone goes with the texts. In re-reading these books I kept wondering what it would be like if I could strip my mind of everything rumbling around in it and imagine what it would be like to hear/read/or have this book read to me 150 years ago.

This is so exciting! I'm thrilled I waited to read AA & LG till now. This is the perfect forum to enjoy it, an intellectual discussion with historical references that do not take away from the whimsy of the tale. Excellent start!

Victoria wrote: "This is so exciting! I'm thrilled I waited to read AA & LG till now. This is the perfect forum to enjoy it, an intellectual discussion with historical references that do not take away from the whim..."

I'm glad you will be joining us.

Everyman wrote: "I'm dusting off my Annotated AA and LG annotated by Martin Gardner. When I was teaching high school math I loved using Gardner's problems and puzzles along with his monthly columns in Scientific A..."

Located a copy in my local library. I am looking forward to the discussions.

Ginny wrote: "Everyman wrote: "I'm dusting off my Annotated AA and LG annotated by Martin Gardner. When I was teaching high school math I loved using Gardner's problems and puzzles along with his monthly column..."

The more the merrier. Down the rabbit hole we will all tumble.

Hello! I'm new to the group and look forward to the discussion for this book. I have the Kindle and Audible versions ready to go while I wait for The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition to be routed to the branch of our library closest to my home. I ordered it tonight, so I should have it in hand this weekend.

Theresa~OctoberLace wrote: "Hello! I'm new to the group and look forward to the discussion for this book. I have the Kindle and Audible versions ready to go while I wait for [book:The Annotated Alice: The Definitive Edition..."

This edition is becoming increasingly tempting.... Off to check on the health of my piggy bank.

Would it make sense to open a separate thread for Gardner annotations? It will be so tempting to post some of them, but people may want to have a more "pure" discussion in the main discussion thread, which could quickly get clogged up with Gardner annotations.

Just a suggestion. Doesn't matter to me personally, but I can see that some people who don't have and don't want to read Gardner and don't want to micro-examine the text might be put off by excessive comments based on his work.

Everyman wrote: "Would it make sense to open a separate thread for Gardner annotations? It will be so tempting to post some of them, but people may want to have a more "pure" discussion in the main discussion thre..."

I think comments re annotations from Gardner would be helpful to everybody. Large verbatim copying of the annotations should be kept to a minimum. Instead, a brief in your own words synopsis would be better. I think separate threads will dilute the main discussion.

Hi, guys! I agree with Deborah! I don't have this Gardner version but I still would love to read more about it! :)
Feel free to post anything you find interesting about these annotations.

Rose wrote: "Hi, guys! I agree with Deborah! I don't have this Gardner version but I still would love to read more about it! :)
Feel free to post anything you find interesting about these annotations."

Hi Rose

Our discussion is sure to be informative, entertaining and lively no matter what version of AAIW anyone uses.

The thread is open today, a day early this week. The poor White Rabbit must really be confused about whether he is a bit early or very late.

Please join us.

Can't wait to get reading with everyone! Both books are also on Scribd, if you have an account with them. That's how I'll be reading. I can't say that I've ever actually read these, just seen the Disney version a 100 times over, so, I'm looking forward to experiencing the real thing.