Monday, November 1, 2010

Curiouser and Curiouser...




With the release of Alice in Wonderland this year, a brilliant film by the one and only Tim Burton, there was a huge upsurge in Alice-loving, made most evident by this year’s Halloween celebrations--seriously, half the toddlers and a portion of the teenagers we saw trick-or-treating were dressed like Alice, and don’t even get me started on the slutty Alices I saw all over Facebook.  We indulged in a bit of our own Alice-loving by going to the library’s Halloween party:

I think every treat should come with one of these tiny signs.

Heading down the rabbithole!
Truth be told, my favorite Disney movie has always been Alice in Wonderland.  I memorized poems from the book in elementary school and have always felt a kinship with the day-dreaming, pensive blonde.  I re-read Lewis Carroll’s masterpiece this summer (one of the effects of my 1/3 life crisis was an intense return to all things I loved in the past in an effort to cling to something familiar...I know, DRAMA), and I felt even more connected to Alice when I rediscovered these tidbits:
“Come, there’s no use in crying like that!” said Alice to herself, rather sharply, “I advise you to leave off this minute!”  She generally gave herself very good advice (though she very seldom followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her eyes, and once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a game of croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people.  “But it’s no use now,” thought poor Alice, “to pretend to be two people! Why, there’s hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person!”
Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning?  I almost think I can remember feeling a little different.  But if I’m not the same, the next question is, Who in the world am I?
“I could tell you my adventures--beginning from this morning,” said Alice timidly: “but it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”
I’ll be the first to admit that Carroll’s world of Wonderland reads a little bit like an acid trip, but that makes it even more impressive since it was written in 1865.  Alice in Wonderland is timeless and simultaneously way ahead of its time.  Pick it up again, or enjoy it for the first time!


2 comments:

  1. I loved the Disney move of Alice, and I haven't seen the new one yet. But I like what you said about Alice so I think I'll download the book. After all, the books are always better than the movies.

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  2. I read it to Sylvia before we went to see the movie. Good times.

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