Product Details

• Published on: 1992-01-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 288 pages

Customer Reviews

Soso
Alice's Adventure

My first impressions of this book were that it was like reading C.S. Lewis on cheap drugs. The events are complete non sequiturs and the changes in plot are worse.

It appears to be a spoiled child wandering in a world she does not understand, nor is willing to learn about - unlike Lucy in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe who seeks to understand the local customs and circumstances.

The book is very easy to read but it leaves distaste in my literary mouth. I know it is considered a classic but I just do not see it, and if I did not have to read it for school I would not have bothered to finish it.

(First written as Journal Reading Notes in 1999.)

Through the Looking Glass

Though this book is not much better than Alice's Adventures, the chess motif and theme does make the book much more interesting. With the bossy, dominant Red Queen and the quiet, kind, messy white queen, the book is a study in contrasts.

The interweaving of the Nursery Rhyme Characters and the frequent fish poetry references does provide more continuity and a sense of sequential events than Alice's first adventure. I also appreciated the linking of the cat at the beginning and end of the story.

It does still feel like Carroll did way too many opium pipes in his time.

(First written as Journal Reading Notes in 1999.)

As Wonderful a Tale as has Ever Been Told
I couldn't put it down, man. I checked this book out at the local library and read through the opening 130 pages in one sitting until I was falling asleep at three in the morning. Lewis Carroll's classic tale of adventure and fantasy "Alice in Wonderland" is one of the best books I've ever read.

The story is about a little girl, Alice, who falls into a very deep rabbit hole, seemingly straight to the middle of the earth! Her adventures once she lands are as wonderfully imagined as any in the history of literature. Her encounters with the White Rabbit, the Mad Hatter, the King and Queen of Hearts, the Duchess, The Mock Turtle, The Gryphon, and The Wise Old Caterpillar are as fun and as pure and as well intended as any characters I've ever read a writer write.

The story behind how Alice in Wonderland came to be is equally interesting, and one worth reading up on. That Carroll wrote it without any pretension to selling it, or for money, or even to publish it, is truly one of the remarkable stories of world literature. His motives were pure, and (at least to me) this is one of the reasons why this book is so dear and so readable.

I highly recommend "Alice in Wonderland" to readers young and old and can only say that I look forward to reading "Through the Looking Glass" next! A marvelous, wonderful book, as fun as any book I've ever read.

Yours,
Stacey

Real Wonderland
Alice In Wonderland is a particularly rich and whimsical story, with something new to discover in every reading.
Alice herself is quite a character, and is able to stand up for herself against the strange and seemingly illogical world of wonderland. As she comes across each of the weird and wonderful creatures - like the White Rabbit, the Duchess and Cheshire Cat, the Caterpillar, the March Hare, Mad Hatter and Doormouse, the Gryphon and Mock Turtle, and the Queen and her court (as the Gryphon reminds us: ' It's all her fancy-that-They never executes nobody you know'.),creatures which are indeed rather argumentative and none too helpful to Alice's confusion, there is also a new story, a new song or game.

We learn that the real wonderland is the mind of a child, and the happy carefree long, summer days of innocence in which Alice dreamed her dream.