“It seems very pretty, but it is very hard to understand!” - Alice on the Jabberwocky poem.
Reading “Alice in Wonderland”, and its sequel “Through a Looking Glass” was in equal part amusing and disorienting. I spent a Saturday afternoon diving into the rabbit hole, as the saying goes. The whole affair felt like a fever dream. In some strange, indescribable way, I quite enjoyed it. How fantastical! How nonsensical!
To give some context, Alice in Wonderland is a famous 1865 children’s novel by Lewis Carroll. Its influence on popular culture, children’s story, and the fantasy genre can hardly be overstated. It has been translated into 174 languages and there are hundreds of screen adaptions, musicals, ballets, operas, etc. Given it’s cultural impact, I thought it behooved me to read it.
I can’t really describe the plot in full, despite having read it 2 hours ago. In the first book, Alice fell down a rabbit hole (chasing a rabbit in waistcoat) and adventure ensues. In the second book, Alice fell through a mirror, and adventure ensues. There were talking poker cards, a smiling cat, a baby that turned into a pig, a croquet game played with flamingos and hedgehogs, and Alice who kept growing and shrinking in size for some reason.
Reading some of the literary dissection online, I learned of an interesting concept called literary nonsense. It is a literary technique whereby writers inject nonsensical elements to provoke thoughts, explore boundary of language and meaning, and create a sense of playfulness. It is different from actual nonsense in that it is intentional and serves a literary purpose. If I hadn’t read Lewis Carroll, I wouldn’t have appreciated literary nonsense. In fact, I probably would’ve derided it.
By injecting his story with literary nonsense, Lewis Carroll created a world accentuated by a sense of playfulness, and a fantastical creativity unbounded by conventions. Children throughout the ages love it. Many commentators note that Alice in Wonderland represents a departure from an era of didacticism in children literature, where the goal was to instruct rather than entertain.
“Alice in Wonderland” evoked in me a sense of wonder, but also a sense of confusion and discomfort. I felt the child in me being pulled, like Alice, into a fantastical, whimsical world. Yet the adult in me kept pulling me back out. Maybe I’ve lost some of that childish wonder and curiosity. Why should everything make sense anyways? Why must a story have a narrative structure? Sometimes random things happen for no particular reason.
What does it mean for something to make sense anyways? As I am writing this. I am eagerly waiting for dinner time. Isn’t the real world equally absurd? Why am I waiting for this rock floating around in space around a giant fireball to rotate to a specific angle, so that I can nourish myself with plants and animals delicately arranged on a plate?
Our curiosity of the world seems to vanish as we get older. Everything seems to be explainable by science. No, silly goose, thunder isn’t caused by a hammer-swinging Norse god fighting giants. It’s the result of buildup of electrical charges in the atmosphere due to movement of water droplets whereby electrons are transferred leading to separation of positive and negative charges. Eventually a difference in electrical potential builds up between the ground on the sky and the electric field becomes strong enough to overcome the insulating properties of air resulting in rapid discharge of electricity as it zigzags through the air, heating it up to immense temperatures which causes shockwaves that we hear as thunder.
Does science enrich or diminish our sense of wonder about the world. I think the answer depends on your age. What’s less debatable in my opinion, is that science is a huge drain of curiosity. I have no idea how computer processors work, but I know some “scientist” out there does so I need not bother.
Maybe there is wisdom in embracing serendipity, and in trying hard to regain that childish sense of wonder and curiosity about absolutely everything.
In Walter Isaacson’s biography of Leonardo Da Vinci, he repeatedly stressed Da Vinci’s almost demonic sense of curiosity. Who else would put on his to-do list: “describe the tongue of a woodpecker”, or “describe a goose’s foot”, or stare at turbulent water near a river for hours and cramming 730 conclusions about water flow into eight pages of his notebook?
I’m reminded of Nietzsche’s three metamorphoses. Isn’t it provocative that the final stage of self-overcoming is to become a child again?
But tell me, my brethren, what the child can do, which even the lion could not do? Why hath the preying lion still to become a child?
Innocence is the child, and forgetfulness, and a new beginning, a game, a self-rolling wheel, a first movement, a holy Yea.
Aye, for the game of creating, my brethren, there is needed a holy Yea unto life: its own will, willeth now the spirit; his own world winneth the world’s outcast
-Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Here are some amusing excerpts to give you a taste.
“Are you ready?” he called. “This is the driest thing I know.” Then he began to talk about politics. He went on and on, like he was reading out loud from the most boring book.
“It was a dreadfully ugly baby,” Alice said, “But it makes a rather handsome pig”
“Would you tell me please which way to go from here?”
“That depends on where you want to get,” the Cheshire Cat said.
“I don’t care where-“ Alice said.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go”
“Have some lemonade,” the March Hare said.
Alice looked around the table. All she saw was tea. “I don’t see any lemonade,” she said.
“There isn’t any,” said the March Hare.
“When did you begin?” said the King
“Fourteenth of March, I think” said the Hatter.
“Fifteenth,” said the March Hare.
“Sixteenth,” said the Dormouse.
“Write that down,” the King told the jury.
The jury eagerly wrote down all three dates. Then they added them up and divided them into nonsense.
“You’re a very poor speaker,” the King said, “If that’s all you have to say, you may stand down.”
“I can’t go any lower,” the Hatter protested. “I’m on the floor now as it is”
“Then you may sit down,” the King said.
Where Alice lived, there was butter-fly. Here, there was bread-and-butter-fly.
It was a present form the White King and Queen. An un-birthday present.
“What is that?” Alice asked, confused.
“A present given to you when it isn’t your birthday. Obviously”
“Can you do addition?” the White Queen asked. “What’s one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one and one?”
“I don’t know,” Alice said. “I lost count.”
“She can’t do addition,” the Red Queen said.