I just watched this interview of Harold Bloom, in which he says he hopes children move on from reading Harry Potter to reading "high literature," such as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
I've read Alice a few times. Why is this book so fawned over by critics? I get that it was original in its time, but I can't really see how modern kids have anything to gain from it. It's just a fun story with witty prose. You can't really study it or gain some new insight into the human condition. It's not even that clever, is it? I'm just struggling to find any "high" value in this book other than "it was new at the time." Any thoughts?
by KidCharlemagneII
6 Comments
Read it again. Much of my understanding of navigating modern culture comes from the lessons of Alice.
I suggest you research it. Incredible political and cultural satire throughout an amazing ‘children’s story’. Not to mention the arithmetic – Dodgson was a mathematician. Although most of that goes over my head because I suck at math. lol
Now, I DON’T suggest you research his activities with pre-teen girls. It’ll make it harder to appreciate his genius.
This book was required reading in my Victorian Literature class in college as an English major. We know it as a children’s book, but it is actually a book intended for adults. The entire story is a massive allegory for the British monarchy and political system during the Victorian era. It’s full of Easter eggs, essentially. Everything has a deeper meaning that relates to satirical critic of Victorian society and culture. So, it is actually quite high brow, or high literature. It’s been ages since I was in college, and it wasn’t my favorite book in the course, but, for example, I remember that the Mock Turtle character was in reference to Mock Turtle soup, which was very fashionable at the time. Turtle meat was expensive, so they used veal, and I believe the Mock Turtle illustration looked like a calf? Just this small detail was an extensive comment on cuisine at the time, eating trends, monetary values, etc., etc. You can deconstruct it for an entire semester it’s that filled with allegory and metaphor and deeper meaning and insight into what life was like at that pivotal time in Europe and the UK. Hope this helps answer.
A friend in her 40s started getting into books, she asked for recommendations and I gave her, Metamorphosis, Guns Germs, amongst others, and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
I read it on January 12th 2016. Maybe it came at the right time but the questioning on reality and identity hit me so hard. Before reading it I thought it would just be a social justice thing with the famous “off with their heads” but that was extremely lame compared to how hard the other ideas hit me.
I see myself as someone that doesn’t pick subtle things, but this was mind blowing
I’ve been meaning to re-read it
Anyone else find Harold Bloom hard to watch? Even though I love most of the things he always praises, he’s just…..too much for me.
Ngl, we studied it in a children’s literature class… My friends also had a wedding (tastefully) inspired by the whimsy and surrealism around it.
Personally? I never got into it. I don’t like that kind of writing… I don’t like Brave New World, either, and I actually enjoy most of Huxley’s other stuff.
That being said, I understand the broader themes and points, and I appreciate the authors making their point in a creative way–even if they don’t speak to me personally.
They’re both satirize England’s hierarchies, and arbitrary societal rules of propriety. The struggle of loss of individual identity in conforming. And they use absurdism to do so… To sum it up.