1889
Lewis Carroll
The Mad Gardener's Song
B-
Nifty little poem from Sylvie and Bruno. The gardener keeps hallucinating, till he realises that a bar of mottled soap isn't an argument that proves he's the Pope. Favorite rhyme: chimney-piece/Sister's Husband's niece/Police.
Overall, I'd say this Carroll collection averages out to a B.
Showing posts with label Carroll. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Carroll. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Eligible Apartments
1885
Lewis Carroll
Eligible Apartments
C
This puzzle story was originally published in a magazine before it was published in book form. It contains two puzzles, the second of which "The Lodgings," I've never understood, even with Carroll's explanation, so F+ for that. The other, "The Dinner Party," is more fun as it involves drawing family trees. If you want to try it yourself, here it is in a nutshell: "The Governor of Kgovjni wants to give a very small dinner party, and invites his father's brother-in-law, his brother's father-in-law, his father-in-law's brother, and his brother-in-law's father. Find the number of guests." The correct answer is one, but you have to work out how. I'd give that puzzle a B. And a C+ for the story itself, since the funniest thing in it is a mother-in-law joke. This averages out to a C.
And if you want to see Carroll's answer, this is one site that has it: http://www.onlinemathlearning.com/tangled-tale-knot2-answer.html
Lewis Carroll
Eligible Apartments
C
This puzzle story was originally published in a magazine before it was published in book form. It contains two puzzles, the second of which "The Lodgings," I've never understood, even with Carroll's explanation, so F+ for that. The other, "The Dinner Party," is more fun as it involves drawing family trees. If you want to try it yourself, here it is in a nutshell: "The Governor of Kgovjni wants to give a very small dinner party, and invites his father's brother-in-law, his brother's father-in-law, his father-in-law's brother, and his brother-in-law's father. Find the number of guests." The correct answer is one, but you have to work out how. I'd give that puzzle a B. And a C+ for the story itself, since the funniest thing in it is a mother-in-law joke. This averages out to a C.
And if you want to see Carroll's answer, this is one site that has it: http://www.onlinemathlearning.com/tangled-tale-knot2-answer.html
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
The Hunting of the Snark
1876
Lewis Carroll
The Hunting of the Snark: An Agony in Eight Fits
B+
Although this contains some of the vocabulary of "Jabberwocky," I wouldn't call it a children's poem. Take this recurring stanza:
They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care
They pursued it with forks and hope
They threatened its life with a railway-share
They charmed it with smiles and soap.
It's much funnier to me at 43 than it would've been 35 years ago. The absurdism of the poem, including that several professions are on board the ship and then there's a beaver who knits, feels different than the absurdism of the "Alice" stories. And of course the modern use of "snark," which urbandictionary.com says is a combination of "snide" and "remark" (making it a Carrollian portmanteau), seems more adult or at least adolescent than childish. The Snark here is a mythical beast who's pursued in Moby Dick fashion but, alas, turns out to be the dreaded Boojum. As in Wonderland, there's a ridiculous trial, in this case of a pig who turns out to be dead.
The rhymes are delightful, my favorites being in this stanza:
"What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators,
Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?"
So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply,
"They are merely conventional signs!"
The poem seems to be begging to be read aloud, and I'd love to hear recommendations of good readings on Youtube and elsewhere.
Lewis Carroll
The Hunting of the Snark: An Agony in Eight Fits
B+
Although this contains some of the vocabulary of "Jabberwocky," I wouldn't call it a children's poem. Take this recurring stanza:
They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care
They pursued it with forks and hope
They threatened its life with a railway-share
They charmed it with smiles and soap.
It's much funnier to me at 43 than it would've been 35 years ago. The absurdism of the poem, including that several professions are on board the ship and then there's a beaver who knits, feels different than the absurdism of the "Alice" stories. And of course the modern use of "snark," which urbandictionary.com says is a combination of "snide" and "remark" (making it a Carrollian portmanteau), seems more adult or at least adolescent than childish. The Snark here is a mythical beast who's pursued in Moby Dick fashion but, alas, turns out to be the dreaded Boojum. As in Wonderland, there's a ridiculous trial, in this case of a pig who turns out to be dead.
The rhymes are delightful, my favorites being in this stanza:
"What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators,
Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?"
So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply,
"They are merely conventional signs!"
The poem seems to be begging to be read aloud, and I'd love to hear recommendations of good readings on Youtube and elsewhere.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Through the Looking Glass
1872
Lewis Carroll
Illustrated by John Tenniel
Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There
B
OK, so it turns out that I don't like this sequel as much as the original. Tenniel is as awesome as ever, and there's wordplay (like a pun on cutting food and cutting [snubbing] acquaintances) and absurdism, but it doesn't jell for me as much as the first "Alice" book. The chess game gives it more structure, but I've never really understood chess, so some of this may be lost on me. Some of the poetry is forgettable but I enjoy the multi-titled Knight's poem, the "Welcome Queen Alice" song, and of course "Jabberwocky" and "The Walrus and the Carpenter."
I like that Alice meets some comparatively nice people, like the Knight and the White Queen. And I've always loved that two-paragraph-long Chapter Ten is followed by a chapter that's one-sentence-long, with Tenniel changing the Red Queen to the black kitten. (This was before the inspired four-chapter sequence in New Moon where Stephenie Meyer lists months.) As a child, I pored over the back to back illustrations of Alice halfway through the looking glass. And yet, it's only on this reading that I realized that the "beamish boy" in the "Jabberwocky" picture looks like an adolescent girl (the figure and the long hair with a ribbon). Since the warrior has striped stockings, perhaps it's meant to be Alice in a few years.
By the way, it's always a shock that Alice is only 7 1/2, meaning she would've been about 7 in the first book, and she definitely doesn't sound like even the most precocious 7-year-olds I've heard. It makes me feel like Carroll didn't want us to take "the real world" much more seriously than Wonderland or Looking-Glass-Land.
In many adaptations, the two "Alice" stories are merged, so I sometimes have trouble remembering what happens in which. This is the one with Humpty Dumpty making words mean what he wants them to mean, an attitude that, like the "backwards" opinions in Erewhon, feels surprisingly contemporary. Perhaps the modern world is just a mirror image of the Victorian world.
I've now done more posts on the 1800s than any other century. The 1900s will of course break this record, but it's worth noting, especially as I'm not even done with 1872....
Lewis Carroll
Illustrated by John Tenniel
Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There
B
OK, so it turns out that I don't like this sequel as much as the original. Tenniel is as awesome as ever, and there's wordplay (like a pun on cutting food and cutting [snubbing] acquaintances) and absurdism, but it doesn't jell for me as much as the first "Alice" book. The chess game gives it more structure, but I've never really understood chess, so some of this may be lost on me. Some of the poetry is forgettable but I enjoy the multi-titled Knight's poem, the "Welcome Queen Alice" song, and of course "Jabberwocky" and "The Walrus and the Carpenter."
I like that Alice meets some comparatively nice people, like the Knight and the White Queen. And I've always loved that two-paragraph-long Chapter Ten is followed by a chapter that's one-sentence-long, with Tenniel changing the Red Queen to the black kitten. (This was before the inspired four-chapter sequence in New Moon where Stephenie Meyer lists months.) As a child, I pored over the back to back illustrations of Alice halfway through the looking glass. And yet, it's only on this reading that I realized that the "beamish boy" in the "Jabberwocky" picture looks like an adolescent girl (the figure and the long hair with a ribbon). Since the warrior has striped stockings, perhaps it's meant to be Alice in a few years.
By the way, it's always a shock that Alice is only 7 1/2, meaning she would've been about 7 in the first book, and she definitely doesn't sound like even the most precocious 7-year-olds I've heard. It makes me feel like Carroll didn't want us to take "the real world" much more seriously than Wonderland or Looking-Glass-Land.
In many adaptations, the two "Alice" stories are merged, so I sometimes have trouble remembering what happens in which. This is the one with Humpty Dumpty making words mean what he wants them to mean, an attitude that, like the "backwards" opinions in Erewhon, feels surprisingly contemporary. Perhaps the modern world is just a mirror image of the Victorian world.
I've now done more posts on the 1800s than any other century. The 1900s will of course break this record, but it's worth noting, especially as I'm not even done with 1872....
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
1865
Lewis Carroll
Illustrated by John Tenniel
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
B+
This is one of those books that I can't remember first reading, which isn't true of all the children's books I own. It's just one of those stories that's always been in my life, and so many other lives. This is the first time I've read it in the midst of Dickens and all the other mid-1800s authors, so I was more aware of the way that eccentric and/or unpleasant people (and creatures) are presented. Compared to later children's books, it's striking that Alice doesn't really meet anyone sympathetic. Dorothy has her posse in Oz, but Alice wanders alone, continuously offending and being offended. In fact, the only way she gets out of her dream (nightmare) is to tell off a whole court (royal and judicial).
I can remember not getting all the puns as a child, like the one about the "soles and eels" of shoes. I like that the king/judge angrily makes the court laugh at his pun. Some of the wordplay is lost because I didn't grow up with Victorian poetry, although I've always enjoyed Carroll's version of "Father William."
I think the story by itself would only get a B, but the Tenniel drawings remain both beautiful and disturbing. I remember preferring the text of Through the Looking-Glass to Wonderland, so we'll see if that still holds true.
Lewis Carroll
Illustrated by John Tenniel
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
B+
This is one of those books that I can't remember first reading, which isn't true of all the children's books I own. It's just one of those stories that's always been in my life, and so many other lives. This is the first time I've read it in the midst of Dickens and all the other mid-1800s authors, so I was more aware of the way that eccentric and/or unpleasant people (and creatures) are presented. Compared to later children's books, it's striking that Alice doesn't really meet anyone sympathetic. Dorothy has her posse in Oz, but Alice wanders alone, continuously offending and being offended. In fact, the only way she gets out of her dream (nightmare) is to tell off a whole court (royal and judicial).
I can remember not getting all the puns as a child, like the one about the "soles and eels" of shoes. I like that the king/judge angrily makes the court laugh at his pun. Some of the wordplay is lost because I didn't grow up with Victorian poetry, although I've always enjoyed Carroll's version of "Father William."
I think the story by itself would only get a B, but the Tenniel drawings remain both beautiful and disturbing. I remember preferring the text of Through the Looking-Glass to Wonderland, so we'll see if that still holds true.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
A Photographer's Day Out
1860
Lewis Carroll
C+
Not as good as the "Hiawatha" poem, this very short story tells of another family who want to be photographed. In this case, the photographer develops (ha ha, pun) a crush on the eldest daughter and gets beat up by a farmer for trespassing on his land.
Lewis Carroll
C+
Not as good as the "Hiawatha" poem, this very short story tells of another family who want to be photographed. In this case, the photographer develops (ha ha, pun) a crush on the eldest daughter and gets beat up by a farmer for trespassing on his land.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Hiawatha's Photographing
1857, from the Jupiter Books edition of The Illustrated Lewis Carroll 1978
Lewis Carroll
Original and purchase price unknown
Hardcover in good shape except for missing jacket and a few food stains
This poem a B-
While definitely one of Carroll's minor works, in both length and quality, I like it for two of the same reasons I like Humphry Clinker. It shows how family members can react to the same situation in very different ways, and it captures a particular moment in social history. Portrait photography was very new in the late 1850s, yet Hiawatha's subjects have each worked out a particular pose and style. As you can guess from the title, this poem follows the meter of "The Song of Hiawatha."
Lewis Carroll
Original and purchase price unknown
Hardcover in good shape except for missing jacket and a few food stains
This poem a B-
While definitely one of Carroll's minor works, in both length and quality, I like it for two of the same reasons I like Humphry Clinker. It shows how family members can react to the same situation in very different ways, and it captures a particular moment in social history. Portrait photography was very new in the late 1850s, yet Hiawatha's subjects have each worked out a particular pose and style. As you can guess from the title, this poem follows the meter of "The Song of Hiawatha."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)