tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/lewis-carroll-14041/articles
Lewis Carroll – The Conversation
2023-08-29T12:24:41Z
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/210329
2023-08-29T12:24:41Z
2023-08-29T12:24:41Z
This course examines the dark realities behind your favorite children’s stories
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/544524/original/file-20230824-27-r4eqqd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=479%2C176%2C4677%2C3390&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some fairy tales aren't so innocent.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/girl-reading-under-sheet-using-flashlight-royalty-free-image/475017710?phrase=bedtime+stories">danez/iStock / via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="Text saying: Uncommon Courses, from The Conversation" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=375&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/499014/original/file-20221205-17-kcwec8.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=471&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/uncommon-courses-130908">Uncommon Courses</a> is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.</em> </p>
<h2>Title of course:</h2>
<p>“Children’s Literature”</p>
<h2>What prompted the idea for the course?</h2>
<p>The idea came from a book I bought at a used book sale.</p>
<p>It was Roald Dahl’s <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/176964">“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,</a>” but it wasn’t the version I expected.</p>
<p>While reading the book to my children in 2017, I discovered that in the copy of the book I had bought, Willy Wonka describes the Oompa-Loompa characters – the subservient chocolate makers in his factory – in a way that resembled the Black slave experience in the United States. Specifically, Willy Wonka says he smuggled them to his factory in crates.</p>
<p>“Imported direct from Africa!” Wonka says in this version of the book. “I discovered them myself. I brought them over from Africa myself – the whole tribe of them, three thousand in all. I found them in the very deepest and darkest part of the African jungle where no white man had ever been before.”</p>
<p>This version, which was published in 1964, <a href="https://revista.drclas.harvard.edu/roald-dahl-the-caribbean-and-a-warning-from-his-chocolate-factory/">did not include the changes that Dahl had made in the late 1970s</a> at the urging of the NAACP. Dahl subsequently made the Oompa-Loompa characters’ skin “rosy-white” and their place of origin “Loompaland.”</p>
<p>As a parent, I was so struck by my experience reading the book to my children that, the following year in 2018, I chose to create a course that shows how children’s literature has changed over time.</p>
<h2>What does the course explore?</h2>
<p>We examine books from different periods in time. The texts range from the bawdy Latin plays written for medieval schoolboys to contemporary works like Jacqueline Woodson’s <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/brown-girl-dreaming/oclc/870919395">“Brown Girl Dreaming,</a>” an autobiography written as a series of poems for young readers.</p>
<p>The course also explores how cultural biases shape people’s assumptions about what books are appropriate for children. We examine the ways race, gender, sexuality, class, ethnicity and age show up in children’s stories. We also explore shifts in capitalism, parenting, sexuality and mental illness that are reflected in texts such as <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/little-prince/oclc/57393678">“The Little Prince”</a> and <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/293680/peter-pan-by-j-m-barrie/">“Peter Pan.”</a> </p>
<p>I ask students to define childhood, what it looks like and what its purpose is. Students’ answers tend to reflect current cultural norms, describing childhood as a time of innocence in which we learn, play and make mistakes, under the protective gaze of caring adults. But as we read the course texts, it becomes clear just how varied childhood is and has been. Time has changed what people expect childhood to look like. For instance, a 17th-century version of <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/giambattista-basiles-the-tale-of-tales-or-entertainment-for-little-ones/oclc/777595973">“Sleeping Beauty”</a> has a king <a href="https://sites.pitt.edu/%7Edash/type0410.html#basile">impregnating a sleeping young lady</a>. In a <a href="https://sites.pitt.edu/%7Edash/type0410.html#grimm">19th-century version</a>, however, there’s no king but a prince, and no sex but a kiss.</p>
<h2>Why is this course relevant now?</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/by-the-numbers">American Library Association</a> reports that in 2022 there were more attempts to ban books than in any previous year on record. In the course we discuss the history of censorship. Philosophers and writers such as <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/1029203531">Jean-Jacques Rousseau</a> and <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/guardian-of-education-a-periodical-work/oclc/470574816">Sarah Trimmer</a> argued that fairy tales would morally corrupt children by distorting their grasp on reality. However, once realism in literature became popular in the 19th century, <a href="https://www.ala.org/advocacy/bbooks/frequentlychallengedbooks/decade1999">censors</a> tried to protect children from the harsh reality of societal ills.</p>
<h2>What’s a critical lesson from the course?</h2>
<p>Near the beginning of the course we examine the fairy tales that permeate modern culture. We read multiple versions of tales like “Little Red Riding Hood” and “Cinderella” to see how these stories were rewritten over time. </p>
<p>Students are often surprised by the overt sexuality and violence in these early versions of tales for children. They learn that the appropriateness of a book is debatable, not fixed.</p>
<h2>What materials does the course feature?</h2>
<p>• Lewis Carroll’s <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/27976103">“Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland</a>” – one of the earliest novels written expressly for children.</p>
<p>• Pamela Brown’s <a href="https://pushkinpress.com/books/the-swish-of-the-curtain-blue-door-1/">“The Swish of the Curtain</a>” follows a group of kids who realize their dream of performing on stage.</p>
<p>• Christopher Paul Curtis’ <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/35779/the-watsons-go-to-birmingham--1963-25th-anniversary-edition-by-christopher-paul-curtis/">“The Watsons Go to Birmingham, 1963,</a>” a novel with a young Black narrator who is a keen observer of his family’s struggles and joys.</p>
<h2>What will the course prepare students to do?</h2>
<p>My hope is that students will begin to look at children’s books in a more critical way. Many people never pick up a children’s book once they become adults, or, if they do, they are reading it to a child or for nostalgic reasons. My course is meant to get students to look at children’s books not just as sources of entertainment or enjoyment, but to better understand how those books are shaped by – and help shape – the cultural norms of the society in which we live.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210329/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Meisha Lohmann does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
A lecturer in English literature gets her students to examine children’s books through the lens of race, class and sexuality.
Meisha Lohmann, Lecturer in English Literature, Binghamton University, State University of New York
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/152816
2021-02-16T18:52:59Z
2021-02-16T18:52:59Z
Guide to the classics: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland — still for the heretics, dreamers and rebels
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</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Walt Disney Animation Studios, Walt Disney Productions</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>Alice! A childish story take<br>
And with a gentle hand<br>
Lay it where Childhood’s dreams are twined<br>
In Memory’s mystic band,<br>
Like pilgrim’s withered wreath of flowers<br>
Plucked in a far-off land.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What is it that draws us back to <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24213.Alice_s_Adventures_in_Wonderland_Through_the_Looking_Glass?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=mQi4a9W3Eo&rank=1">Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland</a> (Alice for short), both individually and collectively? What is it that makes Alice, in the words of literary critic, Harold Bloom, “a kind of Scripture for us” — like Shakespeare?</p>
<p>For we are drawn back. Since the publication of Lewis Carroll’s story, in England in 1865, it has never been out of print and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice%27s_Adventures_in_Wonderland#cite_note-Bandersnatch2-4">has been translated into around 100 languages</a>.</p>
<p>There have been numerous movie adaptations and many other works inspired by the story. Perhaps the greatest is a little-known, 1971 short film by the US Department of Health, Education and Welfare encouraging children not to do drugs.</p>
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<p>One fears the film might not have had the desired effect: while the speed-addicted March Hare provides a salutary example of how poorly things can go on his drug of choice, the Mad Hatter’s performance on LSD is a little too compelling.</p>
<p>Beyond the page and screen, a quick Google search reveals Alice-inspired art — from graffiti to Dali — tattoos, music, video games and shops.</p>
<p>Alice has strong mainstream appeal; this was entrenched by Disney’s 1951 movie <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043274/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2">Alice in Wonderland</a> (which is also responsible for people getting the title of the book wrong). However, Alice has become iconic for many subcultures, especially those with darker proclivities. Try exploring “zombie Alice” or “goth Alice”, or watching the new Netflix series, <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10795658/">Alice in Borderland</a>, which is set in Tokyo. (Alice is big in Japan).</p>
<p>And this brings us again to the beginning of the conversation (Alice reference here for the boffins): What draws us back?</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-the-secret-garden-and-the-healing-power-of-nature-132269">Guide to the Classics: The Secret Garden and the healing power of nature</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<h2>Striking a blow against the adult world</h2>
<p>The story begins with bored, seven-year-old Alice sitting on a riverbank with her older sister. Alice doesn’t care for the book her sister is reading because it doesn’t have pictures. She falls asleep and follows a dapper but flustered rabbit down a rabbit hole and into Wonderland.</p>
<p>In Wonderland she moves through a series of surreal vignettes in which she verbally tussles, but struggles to connect with, a stream of characters, such as the hookah-smoking Caterpillar, the Duchess, the Mad Hatter, the Cheshire Cat and the Queen of Hearts.</p>
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<span class="caption">Helena Bonham Carter as the Queen of Hearts in Tim Burton’s 2010 film version of Alice in Wonderland.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Disney Enterprises Inc</span></span>
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<p>We are drawn back to the book by the first-rate banter between Alice and these memorable characters. Consider the following from the Mad Hatter’s tea party:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Then you should say what you mean,” the March Hare went on.<br>
“I do,” Alice hastily replied; “at least — at least I mean what I say — that’s the same thing, you know.”<br>
“Not the same thing a bit!” said the Hatter. “You might just as well say that ‘I see what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I eat what I see’!”<br>
“You might just as well say,” added the March Hare, “that ‘I like what I get’ is the same thing as ‘I get what I like’!”<br>
“You might just as well say,” added the Dormouse, who seemed to be talking in his sleep, “that ‘I breathe when I sleep’ is the same thing as ‘I sleep when I breathe’!”<br>
“It is the same thing with you,” said the Hatter[.]<br></p>
</blockquote>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384166/original/file-20210215-15-n9dwyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384166/original/file-20210215-15-n9dwyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384166/original/file-20210215-15-n9dwyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=964&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384166/original/file-20210215-15-n9dwyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=964&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384166/original/file-20210215-15-n9dwyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=964&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384166/original/file-20210215-15-n9dwyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1211&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384166/original/file-20210215-15-n9dwyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1211&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384166/original/file-20210215-15-n9dwyi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1211&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>Notably, many of the creatures Alice meets stand for the real adults in her life, in that they scold her, order her about, try to teach her morals and make her recite poetry.</p>
<p>It is this transformation of the adult world into a mad place and the elevation of the viewpoint of the child that also draw us back. When we read Alice, not as children, but as adults, we strike a blow against the adult world, which some of us, at least, have never quite adjusted to.</p>
<p>The Cheshire Cat provides the greatest indictment of Wonderland-as-adult-world when he says to Alice, “we’re all mad here”. The cat is the only creature in the book who connects with Alice. Mark this, reader: It is the one who can connect with children who is also able to see the world for what it is — mad!</p>
<h2>A champion of childhood</h2>
<p>The West does have a long history of romanticising childhood. Wordsworth, in his 1807 <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45536/ode-intimations-of-immortality-from-recollections-of-early-childhood">Immortality Ode</a>, writes:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Heaven lies about us in our infancy!<br>
Shades of the prison-house begin to close<br>
Upon the growing Boy.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>But even if the “romantic childhood” is a creation of bourgeois 19th century England — of the likes of Wordsworth and Carroll — it is a powerful and arguably noble notion. So let us follow it a little farther down the rabbit hole.</p>
<p>While Alice is the child-hero of the story because she pushes back against the mad adults in Wonderland, she herself is on the cusp of adulthood.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384171/original/file-20210215-15-18f4e9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384171/original/file-20210215-15-18f4e9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384171/original/file-20210215-15-18f4e9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384171/original/file-20210215-15-18f4e9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384171/original/file-20210215-15-18f4e9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=973&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384171/original/file-20210215-15-18f4e9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1223&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384171/original/file-20210215-15-18f4e9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1223&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384171/original/file-20210215-15-18f4e9d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1223&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Alice Liddell, photographed in 1862.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>This tragedy is alluded to in the poem, dedicated to the real Alice — Alice Liddell — with which the book begins (the key stanza appears at the start of this article). </p>
<p>Liddell was, in her childhood, Carroll’s friend. The first version of Alice was told to Liddell and her two sisters in 1862 on a boat ride along the Thames in Oxford.</p>
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<span class="caption">A 1907 edition of the book.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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<p>The tragedy of growing up is reinforced in the story itself. While Alice’s imagination is able to create Wonderland, it cannot sustain it. In the final scene in Wonderland, Alice is watching a trial where many of the characters are playing cards. Frustrated by the illogical trial, she shouts, “You’re nothing but a pack of cards!” and is transported back to the real world.</p>
<p>This leads us to think Wonderland itself is the hero of Alice: the champion of childhood. It is in Wonderland that time has stopped — as we learn at the Mad Hatter’s tea party — and where authority is impotent. Despite the Queen’s repeated edict, “Off with her/his head”, no one ever really dies.</p>
<h2>‘The Carroll myth’</h2>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384167/original/file-20210215-23-1ib52v9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384167/original/file-20210215-23-1ib52v9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384167/original/file-20210215-23-1ib52v9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384167/original/file-20210215-23-1ib52v9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384167/original/file-20210215-23-1ib52v9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=941&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384167/original/file-20210215-23-1ib52v9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1183&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384167/original/file-20210215-23-1ib52v9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1183&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384167/original/file-20210215-23-1ib52v9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1183&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lewis Carroll aged 23.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, beyond Alice and Wonderland is Carroll himself. As Karoline Leach writes, in her <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5719494-in-the-shadow-of-the-dreamchild?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=khYf6va89h&rank=1">remarkable book about “the Carroll myth”</a>, at the centre of Alice lies, “the image of Carroll; a haunting presence in the story, a shifting dreamy impression of golden afternoons, fustiness, mystery, oars dripping in sun-rippling water.”</p>
<p>Lewis Carroll is the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (not easy to say quickly, unlike “Lewis Carroll”), who taught mathematics at Oxford. </p>
<p>The “Carroll myth”, which was as appealing in the 19th century as it is now, is that Dodgson, through his alter ego Carroll, and his many (chaste) relationships with children, in particular, Alice Liddell, found a way back to the immortality of childhood that Wordsworth spoke about.</p>
<p>So, when we read Alice, we are ultimately communing with this mythical Carroll, and this is no small thing.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guide-to-the-classics-orwells-1984-and-how-it-helps-us-understand-tyrannical-power-today-112066">Guide to the classics: Orwell's 1984 and how it helps us understand tyrannical power today</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Trolling pieties</h2>
<p>Beyond the banter and the homage to childhood, we are drawn back to Alice because it contains a timeless contribution to the 1860s version of our own culture wars. Where we have political correctness, the 19th century Anglophone world had its own buzz-killing piety, at times foisted upon children — and adults — through verse.</p>
<p>David Bates, a 19th century American poet, is likely responsible for the now thankfully forgotten poem, <a href="http://www.yourdailypoem.com/listpoem.jsp?poem_id=2272#:%7E:text=Speak%20gently%2C%20kindly%2C%20to%20the,Without%20an%20unkind%20word!">Speak Gently</a> (“Speak gently to the little child!/Its love be sure to gain/Teach it in accents soft and mild:/It may not long remain.)</p>
<p>Carroll’s glorious parody, which is spoken in Chapter 6 by the Duchess, a negligent mother, is: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Speak roughly to your little boy,<br>
And beat him when he sneezes:<br>
He only does it to annoy,<br>
Because he knows it teases.<br></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Here, and in other Alice poems such as "You Are Old Father William”, Carroll is trolling all those for whom piety is a mask for power. And like the pious, the politically correct are more concerned with their own superiority than with doing good.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384172/original/file-20210215-17-1goyj8s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384172/original/file-20210215-17-1goyj8s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384172/original/file-20210215-17-1goyj8s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384172/original/file-20210215-17-1goyj8s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384172/original/file-20210215-17-1goyj8s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384172/original/file-20210215-17-1goyj8s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384172/original/file-20210215-17-1goyj8s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384172/original/file-20210215-17-1goyj8s.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=551&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An image from the 1951 film version of Carroll’s book.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Walt Disney Animation Studios, Walt Disney Productions</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To cement the link between then and now, it is worth quoting from <a href="https://youtu.be/_W_npyI7Xsw">Stephen Fry’s recent objection</a> to political correctness. It is as if Fry is providing us with the key to Alice and even to Carroll himself. “I wouldn’t class myself as a classical libertarian,” Fry says,</p>
<blockquote>
<p>but I do relish transgression, and I deeply and instinctively distrust conformity and orthodoxy. Progress is not achieved by preachers and guardians of morality but […] by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels and sceptics.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>We are drawn back to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland because when we read it, we become the heretics, dreamers and rebels who would change the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/152816/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jamie Q Roberts does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
First published in 1865, Lewis Carroll’s children’s book has never been out of print. It continues to appeal to adults who prefer childhood.
Jamie Q Roberts, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, University of Sydney
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/126246
2019-11-18T14:01:02Z
2019-11-18T14:01:02Z
Why do teachers make us read old stories?
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300926/original/file-20191108-194650-13odlbe.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Teachers often assign older books.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/book-library-school-university-college-on-1444506608?src=bd16c503-99f0-4a1c-ba4a-9b2cf21e5301-1-6">vovidzha/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=293&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/281719/original/file-20190628-76743-26slbc.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=368&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/curious-kids-us-74795">Curious Kids</a> is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com</a>.</em></p>
<hr>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>Why do teachers make us read old stories? Nathan, 12, Chicago, Illinois</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<hr>
<p>There are probably as many reasons to read old stories as there are teachers.</p>
<p>Old stories are sometimes strange. They display beliefs, values and ways of life that the reader may not recognize.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://english.richmond.edu/faculty/egruner/">an English professor</a>, I believe that there is value in reading stories from decades or even centuries ago.</p>
<p>Teachers have their students read old stories to connect with the past and to learn about the present. They also have their students read old stories because they build students’ brains, help them develop empathy and are true, strange, delightful or fun. </p>
<h2>Connecting with the past and present</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300935/original/file-20191108-194641-19vyyru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300935/original/file-20191108-194641-19vyyru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/300935/original/file-20191108-194641-19vyyru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300935/original/file-20191108-194641-19vyyru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300935/original/file-20191108-194641-19vyyru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=956&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300935/original/file-20191108-194641-19vyyru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1201&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300935/original/file-20191108-194641-19vyyru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1201&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/300935/original/file-20191108-194641-19vyyru.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1201&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">William Shakespeare wrote plays in the 1600s that are still read today.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shakespeare#/media/File:Title_page_William_Shakespeare's_First_Folio_1623.jpg">Martin Droeshout/Yale University</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Shakespeare’s <a href="http://shakespeare.mit.edu/romeo_juliet/full.html">“Romeo and Juliet</a>,” for example, teenagers speak a <a href="https://lingojam.com/EnglishtoShakespearean">language that’s almost completely unfamiliar</a> to modern readers. They fight duels. They get <a href="https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/society/family/marriage.html">married</a>. So that might seem to be really different from today. </p>
<p>And yet, Romeo and Juliet fall in love and make their parents mad, very much like many teens today. Ultimately, they commit suicide, something that <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/01/health/youth-injury-death-rate-cdc-study/index.html">far too many teens do today</a>. So Shakespeare’s play may be more relevant than it first seems.</p>
<p>Additionally, many modern stories are <a href="https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/57225/11-modern-retellings-classic-novels">based on older stories</a>. To name only one, Charlotte Brontë’s <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1260/1260-h/1260-h.htm">“Jane Eyre”</a> has turned up in so many novels since its original publication in 1848 that there are entire <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/191995/summary">articles</a> and <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=CmVQDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA189&dq=growing+up+empowered+by+jane&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjq2s_E3trlAhUBm-AKHcrtCHQQ6AEwAXoECAUQAg#v=onepage&q=growing%20up%20empowered%20by%20jane&f=false">book chapters</a> about its influence and importance.</p>
<p>For example, <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/us/book/9781137539236">I found references to “Jane Eyre” lurking</a> in <a href="https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B000FC1T8U&tag=bing08-20&linkCode=kpp&reshareId=GG4QQ034GJ68KKBAB615&reshareChannel=system">“The Princess Diaries</a>,” <a href="https://stepheniemeyer.com/the-twilight-saga/">the “Twilight” series</a> and a variety of other novels. So reading the old story can enrich the experience of the new.</p>
<h2>Building brain and empathy</h2>
<p>Reading specialist <a href="https://www.maryannewolf.com">Maryanne Wolf</a> writes about the “special vocabulary in books that doesn’t appear in spoken language” in <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/9780060933845/proust-and-the-squid/">“Proust and the Squid</a>.” This vocabulary – often more complex in older books – is a big part of what helps <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/10/141021085524.htm">build brains</a>.</p>
<p>The sentence structure of older books can also make them difficult. Consider the opening of almost any fairy tale: “Once upon a time, in a very far-off country, there lived …”</p>
<p>None of us would actually speak like that, but older stories put the words in a different order, which makes the brain work harder. That kind of <a href="https://www.rd.com/culture/benefits-of-reading-books/">exercise builds brain capacity</a>.</p>
<p>Stories also make us feel. Indeed, <a href="http://reviewcanada.ca/magazine/2011/07/why-fiction-is-good-for-you/">they teach us empathy</a>. Readers get scared when they realize <a href="https://www.wizardingworld.com">Harry Potter</a> is in danger, excited when he learns to fly and happy, relieved or delighted when Harry and his friends defeat Voldemort.</p>
<p>Older stories, then, can provide a rich depth of feeling, by exposing readers to a broad range of experiences. Stories featuring characters <a href="https://scenicregional.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Mirrors-Windows-and-Sliding-Glass-Doors.pdf">from a diverse range of backgrounds</a> or set in unfamiliar places can have a similar effect.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301648/original/file-20191113-77320-y64ze3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/301648/original/file-20191113-77320-y64ze3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301648/original/file-20191113-77320-y64ze3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301648/original/file-20191113-77320-y64ze3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=373&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301648/original/file-20191113-77320-y64ze3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301648/original/file-20191113-77320-y64ze3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/301648/original/file-20191113-77320-y64ze3.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ has been retold many times.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:De_Alice's_Abenteuer_im_Wunderland_Carroll_pic_23_edited_1_of_2.png">John Tenniel/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Reading can be fun</h2>
<p>Old stories are sometimes just so weird that you can’t help but enjoy them. Or I can’t, anyway.</p>
<p>In Charles Dickens’ <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/1400/1400-h/1400-h.htm">“Great Expectations</a>,” there’s a character whose last name is “Pumblechook.” Can you say it without smiling?</p>
<p>In Lewis Carroll’s <a href="http://www.alice-in-wonderland.net/resources/chapters-script/alices-adventures-in-wonderland/">“Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland</a>,” a cat disappears bit by bit, eventually leaving only its smile hanging in the air. Again, new stories are also lots of fun, but the fun in the older stories may turn up in those new stories.</p>
<p>For example, that cat returns in many <a href="https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781561458103">newer tales that aren’t even related</a> to Alice in Wonderland, so knowing the cat’s history can make reading that new story more pleasurable.</p>
<p>I won’t deny that some old stories <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/463520?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">contain offensive language</a> or <a href="https://isthmus.com/arts/books/laura-ingalls-wilder-little-house-reexamined/">reflect attitudes</a> that we may not want to embrace. But even those stories can teach readers to think critically.</p>
<p>Not every old story is good, but when your teacher asks you to read one, consider the possibility that you might build your brain, grow your feelings or have some fun. It’s worth a try, at least.</p>
<hr>
<p><em>Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to <a href="mailto:curiouskidsus@theconversation.com">CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com</a>. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live.</em></p>
<p><em>And since curiosity has no age limit – adults, let us know what you’re wondering, too. We won’t be able to answer every question, but we will do our best.</em></p>
<p>[ <em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=youresmart">You can read us daily by subscribing to our newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126246/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elisabeth Gruner does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Stories like ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ and ‘Jane Eyre’ are still relevant today.
Elisabeth Gruner, Associate Professor of English, University of Richmond
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/120133
2019-07-17T23:02:50Z
2019-07-17T23:02:50Z
Mathematics is about wonder, creativity and fun, so let’s teach it that way
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/284141/original/file-20190715-173355-10cjyhl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=2%2C79%2C994%2C534&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Why don't students say math is imaginative? Here, the White Rabbit character originally from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, written under mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson's pen name, Lewis Carroll. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Alice in Wonderland enthusiasts recently celebrated the story’s anniversary with creative events like playing with <a href="https://www.storymuseum.org.uk/about-us/what-we-do/alices-day/">puzzles and time</a> — and future Alice <a href="https://londonist.com/london/museums-and-galleries/alice-in-wonderland-exhibition-v-and-a-2020">exhibits are in the works</a>. The original 1865 children’s book <em>Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland</em>, sprung from a mathematician’s imagination, continues to inspire exploration and fun. </p>
<p>But is a connection between math and creativity captured in schools? Much discussion across the western world from both experts and the public has emphasized the need to <a href="https://www.nctm.org/Store/Products/Catalyzing-Change-in-High-School-Mathematics/">revitalize high school mathematics</a>: critics say the experience is <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/30/opinion/sunday/fix-high-school-education.html">boring</a> or <a href="https://qz.com/377742/this-school-in-norway-abandoned-teaching-subjects-40-years-ago/">not meaningful to most students</a>. Experts concerned with the public interest and decision-making say students need skills in <a href="https://cca-reports.ca/reports/some-assembly-required-stem-skills-and-canadas-economic-productivity/">critical thinking, creativity, communication and collaboration</a>. </p>
<p>Mathematicians, philosophers and educators are also concerned with the excitement and energy of creative expression, with invention, <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40248373">with wonder</a> and even with what might be called <a href="https://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2548/Whitehead-Alfred-North-1861-1947.html">the romance of learning</a>. </p>
<p>Mathematics has all the attributes of the paragraph above, and so it seems to me that <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci8020056">what’s missing from high school math is mathematics itself</a>.</p>
<p>I am now working with colleagues at Queen’s University and the University of Ottawa to develop <a href="http://www.rabbitmath.ca">RabbitMath,</a> a senior level high-school math curriculum designed to enable students to work together creatively with a high level of personal engagement. My preparation for this has been 40 years of working with teachers in high-school classrooms. </p>
<p>In partnership with grades 11 and 12 math teachers, we will be piloting this curriculum over the next few years.</p>
<h2>Mathematical novels</h2>
<p>When students study literature, drama or the creative arts in high school, the curriculum centres on what can be called sophisticated works of art, created in response to life’s struggles and triumphs. </p>
<p>But currently in school mathematics, this is rarely the case: students are not connected to the larger imaginative projects through which professional mathematicians confront the world’s problems or explore the world’s mysteries. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/284191/original/file-20190715-173351-drn82p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/284191/original/file-20190715-173351-drn82p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284191/original/file-20190715-173351-drn82p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284191/original/file-20190715-173351-drn82p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284191/original/file-20190715-173351-drn82p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284191/original/file-20190715-173351-drn82p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284191/original/file-20190715-173351-drn82p.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The author, Peter Taylor, right, at a Lisgar Collegiate Institute Grade 11 math classroom in Ottawa, 2018.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Ann Arden)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Mathematician Jo Boaler from the Stanford Graduate School of Education says that a <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-ca/Mathematical+Mindsets%3A+Unleashing+Students%27+Potential+through+Creative+Math%2C+Inspiring+Messages+and+Innovative+Teaching-p-9780470894521">“wide gulf between real mathematics and school mathematics is at the heart of the math problems we face in school education.”</a></p>
<p>Of the subject of mathematics, Boaler notes that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Students will typically say it is a subject of calculations, procedures, or rules. But when we ask mathematicians what math is, they will say it is the study of patterns that is an aesthetic, creative, and beautiful subject. Why are these descriptions so different?” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>She points out the same gulf isn’t seen if people ask students and English-literature professors what literature is about. </p>
<p>In the process of constructing the RabbitMath curriculum, problems or activities are included when team members find them engaging and a challenge to their intellect and imagination. Following the analogy with literature, we call the models we are working with mathematical novels. </p>
<p>For example, one project invites students to work with ocean tides. It would hard to find a dramatic cycle as majestic as the effect of that sublime distant moon on the powerful tidal action in the Bay of Fundy.</p>
<h2>Student engagement</h2>
<p>In the 1970s, the extraordinary mathematician and computer scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Seymour Papert, noticed that in art class, students, just as mature artists, are involved in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0020739700030306">personally meaningful work</a>. Papert’s objective was to be able to say the same of a mathematics student.</p>
<p>I had a parallel experience in 2013 when I was the internal reviewer for the Drama program at Queen’s. I marvelled at students’ creative passion as they prepared to stage a performance. And they weren’t all actors: they were singers, musicians, writers, composers, directors and technicians.</p>
<p>In Papert’s curriculum model, students with diverse abilities and interests <a href="https://flm-journal.org/index.php?do=details&lang=en&vol=37&num=2&pages=25-29&ArtID=1146">work together on projects</a>, whereby they collaborate on problems, strategies and outcomes. </p>
<p>As a pioneering computer scientist, Papert understood that students could directly access the processes of design and construction through digital technology. Papert used his computer system LOGO for this technical interface. LOGO was limited in its scope, but Papert’s idea was way ahead of its time. </p>
<p>Students in the RabbitMath classroom will work together using the programming language Python to construct diagrams and animations to better understand their experiments with springs and tires, mirrors and music. They will produce videos that can explain to their classmates the workings of a sophisticated structure.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/284162/original/file-20190715-173342-15mge07.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/284162/original/file-20190715-173342-15mge07.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=228&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284162/original/file-20190715-173342-15mge07.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=228&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284162/original/file-20190715-173342-15mge07.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=228&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284162/original/file-20190715-173342-15mge07.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284162/original/file-20190715-173342-15mge07.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/284162/original/file-20190715-173342-15mge07.PNG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=286&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">RabbitMath focuses on the analysis of complex structures. Students studying the curriculum will be involved presenting mathematical ‘stories.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(RabbitMath image by Skyepaphora)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Today, technology, the internet, computer algebra systems and mathematical programming provide possibilities for immediate engagement in processes of design and construction — exactly what Papert wanted. The platform for RabbitMath is the <a href="https://jupyter.org/">Jupyter Notebook</a>, a direct descendant of LOGO.</p>
<h2>Technical skill</h2>
<p>For too many years, real progress in school mathematics education has been hamstrung by a ridiculous confrontation between so-called “traditional” and “discovery” math. The former is concerned with technical facility and the latter is about skills of inquiry and investigation.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ontario-math-has-always-covered-the-basics-115445">Ontario math has always covered 'the basics'</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>There is no conflict between the two; in fact they support each other rather well. Every sophisticated human endeavour, from conducting a symphony orchestra to putting a satellite into orbit, understands the complementary nature of technical facility and creative investigation. </p>
<p>Stanford University Graduate School of Education mathematician Keith Devlin advises parents to ensure their child has mastery of what he calls number sense, “<a href="https://www.edge.org/response-detail/27097">fluidity and flexibility with numbers, a sense of what numbers mean, and an ability to use mental mathematics to negotiate the world and make comparisons</a>.” But for students embarking on careers in science, technology or engineering, that is not enough, he says. They need a deep understanding of both those procedures and the concepts they rely on — the capacity to analyze and work with complex systems.</p>
<p>A high-school math class is a rich ecosystem of differing abilities, capacities, objectives and temperaments. </p>
<p>The educator’s goal must be to enable a diverse mix of students to work together in a math class as creatively and intensely as students in the drama program, or to bring the same personal passion as they might to writing fiction.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/120133/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Taylor receives funding from: The Mathematics Knowledge Network; The Fields Institute;The Canadian Mathematical Society; The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
</span></em></p>
Mathematician Peter Taylor taught high school math to prepare to develop a new ‘RabbitMath’ curriculum that emphasizes collaborative creativity and learning to work with complex systems.
Peter Taylor, Professor, Queen's University, Ontario
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/83659
2017-12-06T12:26:02Z
2017-12-06T12:26:02Z
How Winnie the Pooh’s illustrator helped A.A. Milne draw out the bear we all know
<p>In children’s literature, a small number of classics are remembered for their illustrations as much as they are for the author’s words. Sir John Tenniel’s original drawings for Lewis Carroll’s “Alice” books are, for many readers, impossible to disentangle from the text. Roald Dahl’s stories have become almost inseparable from Quentin Blake’s pictures, and Thomas Henry’s images of William defined him as succinctly as the writing of Richmal Crompton. </p>
<p>The relationship between author and artist can vary greatly. Tensions occasionally run high between the creators of verbal and visual versions of a narrative. It <a href="https://ohiostatepress.org/books/BookPages/Hancher%20Tenniel.htm">has been said</a> that Tenniel was sometimes exasperated by the sheer volume of Carroll’s requested amendments to his drawings. This may have been a contributing factor to the artist’s apparent reluctance to commit to illustrating Through the Looking-Glass. </p>
<p>It can be difficult for authors to accept an illustrator’s interpretation of their creation. Many writers are reluctant to see their work illustrated at all, feeling that any imagery is an intrusion into the reader’s visual imagination. </p>
<p>Illustration itself is something of a hybrid art form, somehow straddling the worlds of graphic design and fine art, but traditionally always subservient to the written word. The UK has a particularly rich tradition of graphic art – from Hogarth, Rowlandson and Gillray through Randlolph Caldecott, Walter Crane, Beatrix Potter and on to Edward Ardizzone and Ronald Searle. </p>
<p>Yet compared to many nations, until recently it has never seemed entirely comfortable with according illustration and illustrators the highest status in its cultural institutions. Searle was honoured with a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jan/06/my-hero-ronald-searle-quentin-blake">major retrospective</a> at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris – but was never similarly celebrated in his home country. </p>
<p>So I welcome the opening of an exhibition which will shine a light on a great British illustrator whose drawings are known around the world. <a href="https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/winnie-the-pooh-exploring-a-classic">Winnie the Pooh: Exploring a Classic</a> at the Victoria Albert Museum in London will offer visitors the chance to see much of the original art and preparatory sketches of E.H. Shepard, whose work surely stands alongside that of Tenniel in the pantheon of great book illustration. </p>
<p>The exhibition will explore the interesting working relationship between Shepard and Winnie the Pooh’s creator, A.A. Milne, and the way the visual identities of their characters evolved. </p>
<p>Many of the drawings from the museum’s own collection are so fragile that they have not been exhibited for over 40 years. Correspondence between the two men and recently discovered early Shepard sketches reveal a great deal about the gradual emergence of Pooh as we have come to know him. </p>
<p>In particular, the process of making connections between drawing directly from observation and drawing from imagination, will be on display. Shepard’s Pooh Bear was initially modelled on the real toy bear of Milne’s son, Christopher Robin. But author and artist felt that he was too harsh and gruff-looking – not quite appealing enough. Instead, Shepard made a sketch of his own son Graham’s teddy bear, who was named Growler. Growler turned out to be just right and it was he who gradually “became” Pooh. </p>
<h2>Bear necessities</h2>
<p>Shepard’s great-granddaughter is married to James Campbell, who has overseen the Shepard estate since 2010. He recently uncovered a hoard of early drawings the artist had filed away and labelled as being of little importance. But they include what must have been some of the very first iterations of Pooh. In one of them, the bear is holding what appears to be a barrel, which Campbell suggests may have evolved into the familiar jar of honey. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TfB_3unWkY8?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Shepard’s meticulous, exacting draughtsmanship meant that he produced thousands of working drawings, which are key to understanding his process. This draughtsmanship was honed from an early age. Initially encouraged by his mother, who died when he was ten years old, Shepard continued to draw compulsively and gained entry to the Royal Academy Schools at the age of 19. </p>
<p>It was after he had become a regular contributor to Punch magazine that Shepard was recommended to Milne. The writer was not immediately convinced that his style was suitable, but he was pleased by the drawings for his collection of verse, When We Were Very Young. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-winnie-the-pooh-teaches-us-the-importance-of-play-83585">How Winnie the Pooh teaches us the importance of play</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Over time, artist and illustrator became friends. They collaborated closely on the Pooh books, not just on how or what to illustrate, but on the actual interplay between word and image. The term “picturebook” is now used to describe the book for young children that tells its story through a synthesis of words and pictures, neither of which would make sense if “read” independently of the other. </p>
<p>Word-image game playing has since become increasingly sophisticated. Back in the early 1920s, Milne and Shepard were among the first to explore the potential of the page as a kind of stage – where words might be adjusted and adapted to coexist and harmonise with the pictures they accompany.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/83659/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Martin Salisbury does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Milne and Shepard were a classic partnership of children’s literature.
Martin Salisbury, Professor of Children's Book Illustration, Anglia Ruskin University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/45265
2015-07-29T16:55:06Z
2015-07-29T16:55:06Z
Man Booker 2015: not much better than Lewis Carroll’s caucus race
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90170/original/image-20150729-30879-1o9wemj.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Alice thought the whole thing very absurd.'</span> </figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.cs.indiana.edu/metastuff/wonder/ch3.html">caucus race</a> that Alice happens upon in Alice in Wonderland has no start line and no finish line – perhaps because Lewis Carroll knew that we cannot agree where such lines might be drawn. As a result, everyone wins, in one fashion or another.</p>
<p>What does it mean for a writer to win a literary prize? Famously, Samuel Beckett’s wife, Suzanne Déchevaux-Dumesnil, responded to the news that Beckett had won the Nobel Prize in 1969 with the lament “<em>quelle catastrophe</em>”. More winningly, Doris Lessing’s response on being told she had won the same prize in 2007 was “Oh Christ”.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vuBODHFBZ8k?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>It is perhaps embarrassing to win a literary prize, as it is embarrassing to be lavishly rewarded or celebrated for doing anything that comes as a vocation. In Déchevaux-Dumesnil’s mannered dismay, one can hear a genuine resistance to the idea that literature and prizes should have anything to do with one another.</p>
<p>But if it is embarrassing to win a prize, it is also embarrassing not to win one. The myth is that Jorge Luis Borges regarded his failure to win the Nobel Prize as a cruelty and an injustice <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/jun/10/jorgeluisborges">difficult to bear</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Not granting me the Nobel Prize, has become a Scandinavian tradition; since I was born they have not been granting it to me. </p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90171/original/image-20150729-30846-1iygpvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90171/original/image-20150729-30846-1iygpvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90171/original/image-20150729-30846-1iygpvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90171/original/image-20150729-30846-1iygpvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90171/original/image-20150729-30846-1iygpvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90171/original/image-20150729-30846-1iygpvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90171/original/image-20150729-30846-1iygpvj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Time to get to the library.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/118118485@N05/16438065636/in/photolist-r3zodL-2XUSwK-7UKb4z-admap5-jSP7rT-4eWnzB-38wtvn-3Ht7Cd-59gKXG-ab91CJ-sqjv3U-ju2oG-8MuvLc-9bazKB-ghnoDc-4FqFGV-8WtZQw-4Cn766-ooFNGw-nU97kn-cYVDFh-4fpmBA-8dpeZZ-9AiLeq-aAWrcF-bCmPMN-dCcXMW-41gZtc-iS3V6d-miUDYz-4RjZxv-kF7j7X-fow1Qa-eAeTQa-og2Waz-2hUSHR-6jvjQF-4o9oWQ-oXSXSr-kakfbr-9WCQqL-9gDKtp-fkmUov-7S5Sqa-chakay-6irK2s-WmfVS-i9nuTS-axBBXr-7oGnyy">118118485@N05/flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As long as prizes exist, they exert a kind of influence both on writers and readers that is hard to escape. To win a prize is to have one’s work tarnished by the consolations of “approval”; to fail to win a prize is to find oneself in the category of “the neglected writer”, like one of those tennis stars habitually regarded as “the best player never to win a grand slam”. It is as hard for an undecorated writer to say they don’t want to win a prize as it would have been for Andy Murray, before the summer of 2013, to say he didn’t really want to win Wimbledon anyway.</p>
<h2>Booker season</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90173/original/image-20150729-30854-6urhh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90173/original/image-20150729-30854-6urhh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90173/original/image-20150729-30854-6urhh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90173/original/image-20150729-30854-6urhh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90173/original/image-20150729-30854-6urhh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90173/original/image-20150729-30854-6urhh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90173/original/image-20150729-30854-6urhh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90173/original/image-20150729-30854-6urhh6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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</figure>
<p>With the announcement of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/booker-prize">Man Booker</a> longlist, the question of who wins and who does not is again set to dominate literary discussion. The 2015 list is impressive in many ways. It is unusually international in scope, including novelists from New Zealand, India, Nigeria and Jamaica, as well as from Ireland, Britain and five from the US. It also contains some exciting novels, both by established writers and by debut novelists, suggesting that the novel as a form is thriving, despite the endless prophecies of its demise (most recently by <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/02/will-self-novel-dead-literary-fiction">Will Self</a>).</p>
<p>It is not surprising to see Marilynne Robinson’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/oct/12/lila-marilynne-robinson-review-john-ames-gilead">Lila</a> on the list, or Andrew O’Hagan’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/01/the-illuminations-review-andrew-ohagan">The Illuminations</a>, or Anne Tyler’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/01/spool-of-blue-thread-anne-tyler-observer-review">A Spool of Blue Thread</a>. But these major figures are placed alongside works such as Tom McCarthy’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/22/satin-island-tom-mccarthy-review">Satin Island</a> – reminding us of how difficult McCarthy found it to publish his first novel Remainder and how such difficulty was seen by some as proof of the literary market’s dogged resistance to experimentation. </p>
<p>Most pleasing of all is the inclusion of work by debut novelists, Bill Clegg, Chigozie Obioma and Anna Smaill, the originality of whose work suggests that the novel continues to develop and diversify even as the culture becomes more homogenous.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90172/original/image-20150729-30862-8ll0ts.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90172/original/image-20150729-30862-8ll0ts.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90172/original/image-20150729-30862-8ll0ts.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90172/original/image-20150729-30862-8ll0ts.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90172/original/image-20150729-30862-8ll0ts.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90172/original/image-20150729-30862-8ll0ts.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90172/original/image-20150729-30862-8ll0ts.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Chigozie Obioma, The Fishermen.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Zach Mueller</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The bereft</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90176/original/image-20150729-30886-fyqjh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90176/original/image-20150729-30886-fyqjh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90176/original/image-20150729-30886-fyqjh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=962&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90176/original/image-20150729-30886-fyqjh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=962&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90176/original/image-20150729-30886-fyqjh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=962&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90176/original/image-20150729-30886-fyqjh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1209&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90176/original/image-20150729-30886-fyqjh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1209&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90176/original/image-20150729-30886-fyqjh1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1209&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>So the announcement of such a list should be an uplifting moment for those who love reading books. But the inevitable logic and rhetoric of prize culture makes it difficult to respond to the announcement as a simple celebration of talent, either of the wonderful luminosity of Marilynne Robinson’s prose, or the musical complexity of Smaill’s. Because immediately, attention turns to those who are not on the list. </p>
<p>Harper Lee’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/go-set-a-watchman">Go Set a Watchman</a>, the bookies’ favourite to take the prize, doesn’t even make it onto the longlist – a difficult gesture from the judges to interpret. I had hoped Ben Lerner’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/jan/04/10-04-review-ben-lerner-great-writer">10:04</a> might be included, but was disappointed. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90175/original/image-20150729-30882-mmcukp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90175/original/image-20150729-30882-mmcukp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90175/original/image-20150729-30882-mmcukp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90175/original/image-20150729-30882-mmcukp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90175/original/image-20150729-30882-mmcukp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=855&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90175/original/image-20150729-30882-mmcukp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1074&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90175/original/image-20150729-30882-mmcukp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1074&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90175/original/image-20150729-30882-mmcukp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1074&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<p>There is no place for Kazuo Ishiguro’s <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/04/the-buried-giant-review-kazuo-ishiguro-tolkien-britain-mythical-past">The Buried Giant</a>. Is this because readers and critics accused the author of straying into the territory of “fantasy”? And if so, does genre fiction not really count as literary fiction, and is this what the judges are implying by leaving him off the list? No doubt such questions are already being asked.</p>
<p>Even when attention is not focused on the losers, the nature of the discussion tends towards a kind of meanness, a narrowing of the range, which leads us to choose between one kind of fiction and another, between, say, Tom McCarthy’s “experimentalism” and Marilynne Robinson’s “realism”. </p>
<h2>The caucus race</h2>
<p>The criteria and aims of the prize are laudable and surely non-controversial. It simply sets out to honour the best novel written in English each year, and to increase the readership of all of those nominated, thus raising the profile both of good novels and good novelists. </p>
<p>But the problem – which emerges, in fact, whenever one seeks to promote the arts – is that this simple value judgement tends to do violence to the work we are judging. We all make value judgements all the time, but evaluating an art work is a delicate task which tends to be fraught with contradiction. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90177/original/image-20150729-30886-di9frr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/90177/original/image-20150729-30886-di9frr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90177/original/image-20150729-30886-di9frr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90177/original/image-20150729-30886-di9frr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90177/original/image-20150729-30886-di9frr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90177/original/image-20150729-30886-di9frr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/90177/original/image-20150729-30886-di9frr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=505&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Andrew O'Hagan, The Illuminations.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Tricia Malley Ross Gillespie</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is the job of literary criticism to acknowledge these contradictions, and to make them part of the process of judging and discrimination itself. Literary criticism has to suspend fixed conceptions of value in order to evaluate; but the job of naming the best novel of the year will always involve us in a kind of brutality – the kind of barbarism that, as Walter Benjamin <a href="https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/benjamin/1940/history.htm">discovered</a>, is the underside of any “civilized” gesture.</p>
<p>All literary prize announcements draw us all into this kind of brutality, this tendency to substitute the open generosity of reading with the absurd competition of Lewis Carroll’s caucus race. It leads us to a kind of judgement that is perhaps inimical to the work of what Philip Roth rather pompously calls the “serious writer”, who “writes in order to think”.</p>
<p>Yes, this is a somewhat vacuous claim, begging the question of what we mean by a serious writer rather than helping us to escape from its triviality. But for the serious reader – who reads in order to think – the entire apparatus of competition and corporate endorsement can be a distraction, like trying to read with the radio on (even if it is tuned to Front Row).</p>
<p>The annual discussion of the state of literary fiction in the UK triggered by the Booker is surely welcome, as is the “boost” that the prize gives to sales. But when I hear that the list has been announced, I am always reminded of Lessing, at the moment of her triumph, muttering: “Oh Christ.”</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/45265/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Boxall does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
The release of the long list has opened the gates to the annual torrents of literary hobnobbing.
Peter Boxall, Professor of English, University of Sussex
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/44060
2015-07-04T01:03:09Z
2015-07-04T01:03:09Z
From avatars to apps: why we still love to go down the rabbit hole with Alice
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87374/original/image-20150703-20487-15fdy61.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Playtime in Wonderland.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Children-play-on-alice-in-wonderland-sculpture-central-park-new-york-3.jpg">Pratyeka/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Few in the English-speaking world (and even the non-English-speaking world) are unfamiliar with Alice and her encounters with nonsense and play in Wonderland, whether through the original texts, or their many adaptations. Alice has walked across pages, stages, and screens; she is playable and played. </p>
<p>This timeless text speaks to all - adult, child, reader and player. The adaptability of Lewis Carroll’s language, the openness of its storyworld and the malleable nature of Alice’s character all beckon us to return to Wonderland in its many different guises.</p>
<p>From its publication in 1865, Carroll’s masterwork was a transmedia text – a story which could take many different forms. Its original telling was oral; the story was related by Carroll to the eponymous Alice Liddell and her sisters during a boat outing. The books retain this, as do many of the later adaptations: it is Carroll’s play with language – sounds, rhythms, and amorphous meanings – that sustains all of Wonderland.</p>
<p>The fun of Alice’s adventures is mostly found in the language itself, which emphasises the nonsensical nature of Wonderland and its mad characters. Carroll invents portmanteaus like “slithy” (a combination of “slimy” and “lithe”), creates absurd associations using rhyme and alliteration (as in <a href="http://www.jabberwocky.com/carroll/walrus.html">“The Walrus and the Carpenter”</a>), and jumbles up literal and figurative meanings (like the “caucus race” and the “clotheshorse”).</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87368/original/image-20150703-20493-4vi6rr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87368/original/image-20150703-20493-4vi6rr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87368/original/image-20150703-20493-4vi6rr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87368/original/image-20150703-20493-4vi6rr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=853&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87368/original/image-20150703-20493-4vi6rr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1072&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87368/original/image-20150703-20493-4vi6rr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1072&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87368/original/image-20150703-20493-4vi6rr.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1072&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Alice’s second incarnation.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/misopocky/8094521102/sizes/l">misopocky/Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
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<p>The nonsense and play were a revelation to Victorian England; a society defined by rules, decorum and moral tales. The books flew off the shelves, and were quickly followed by stage adaptations. As each new technology emerged – film, radio, television, and digital media – Alice and Wonderland leaped into new life, from silent films to tablet apps, with varying degrees of success.</p>
<p>Walt Disney’s 1951 animated version – although a flop at the time – is now often regarded as a classic, and is perhaps the adaptation that modern audiences are most familiar with. Yet in his attempt to recreate the success of MGM’s <a href="http://www.filmsite.org/wiza.html">The Wizard of Oz</a>, Disney changed a fundamental aspect of the source work: he shoe-horned Alice’s sequence of non sequitur adventures into a formulaic film narrative. Perhaps this explains its initial lack of success, as well as that of later adaptations such as ABC’s recent TV series <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2802008/?ref_=nv_sr_5">Once Upon a Time in Wonderland</a>.</p>
<h2>Sandbox Wonderland</h2>
<p>Where Alice has proven rather successful as source material, however, is in realms where wordplay, riddles, and nonsense are free to gallop at will: roleplay, games, and cosplay. Sandbox, or open world games (such as <a href="http://www.thesims.com/">The Sims</a>, <a href="http://secondlife.com/">Second Life</a>, and <a href="http://minecraft.net">Minecraft</a>), invite the player to explore, engage in adventures, encounter new players and characters, and interact with them according to the rules of the gameworld (or lack thereof).</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87049/original/image-20150701-27131-1elk9ss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87049/original/image-20150701-27131-1elk9ss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87049/original/image-20150701-27131-1elk9ss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87049/original/image-20150701-27131-1elk9ss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87049/original/image-20150701-27131-1elk9ss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87049/original/image-20150701-27131-1elk9ss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87049/original/image-20150701-27131-1elk9ss.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Otakuthon Alice and the Chesire Cat.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Wonderland itself is a sandbox of wordplay, nonsense, and fanciful characters, a world that cycles through literary, literal, and metaphorical games. It’s no surprise, then, that gamers have followed Alice down the rabbit hole for decades. From Japan and Korea to the UK and the US, Alice has played through <a href="http://msmemorial.if-legends.org/games.htm/wonder.php">text adventures</a>, <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0272444/">visual novels</a>, <a href="http://au.pc.gamespy.com/pc/american-mcgees-alice/">horror games</a>, and plain old <a href="https://www.mobygames.com/game/alice-in-wonderland___">video games</a>.</p>
<p>It’s only a short hop from sandbox games to sandbox software. Alice has loaned her name and her sense of play to the educational softwares <a href="http://www.alice.org/index.php">Alice</a> and <a href="http://www.inanimatealice.com">Inanimate Alice</a>. Her appeal to children and adults alike makes learning object-oriented programming and multimedia design fun and welcoming, encouraging experimentation and play with tools often seen as daunting and dull. The very elements – nonsense and play – that relieved Victorians from the doldrums of their rule-oriented society today relieves learners from the tedium of rote programming.</p>
<h2>Alice the Avatar</h2>
<p>What also helps Alice appeal to children and adults, players and learners, is her innate lack of a singular identity. Her one-size-fits-all character – never changing, never growing – can fit almost anyone. She is innocent and completely naïve to the rules of Wonderland; yet she is knowledgeable, frustrated at the subversion of the court. She is weak, failing to comprehend the oddities of the mad tea party; yet she is powerful and capable of working through the assorted language puzzles.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87369/original/image-20150703-20475-1qhpjd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87369/original/image-20150703-20475-1qhpjd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87369/original/image-20150703-20475-1qhpjd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87369/original/image-20150703-20475-1qhpjd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=800&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87369/original/image-20150703-20475-1qhpjd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87369/original/image-20150703-20475-1qhpjd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87369/original/image-20150703-20475-1qhpjd3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1005&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An unnerving question.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/spam/3355004619/sizes/l">Smath./Flickr</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>The caterpillar repeatedly asks Alice; “Who are you?”, but Alice is generally unable to achieve a sense of her own self. While “Where am I?” is the central question of other fantasy stories such as <em>The Wizard of Oz</em> and_ The Chronicles of Narnia_,_ Alice in Wonderland_ cycles around the question of identity. </p>
<p>Alice is a figure in transition, between child and adult, learner and learned, apprentice and master. Her struggle in a world where language twists the rules and games cannot be won make her universal. We all relate to her experiences of being lost, misunderstanding and being misunderstood, and chasing shifting goalposts. In reality, these experiences are frustrating and stressful; in Wonderland they leave us, our parents and our children delighted.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44060/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lyle Skains has received funding from HEFCW's Strategic Insight Programme.</span></em></p>
As Carroll’s classic turns 150, it’s time to reflect on what pulls us back to Wonderland.
Lyle Skains, Lecturer in Writing, Bangor University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/44049
2015-07-03T14:09:02Z
2015-07-03T14:09:02Z
After 150 years, we still haven’t solved the puzzle of Alice in Wonderland
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87342/original/image-20150703-20493-1aeooun.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Making sense of madness.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_i_Eventyrland#/media/File:John_Tenniel_-_Illustration_from_The_Nursery_Alice_(1890)_-_c03757_07.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Alice is turning 150 this year, yet we still love to read about (or watch) this curious little girl’s adventures in Wonderland again and again. There’s something about this book that has made it a timeless classic, a fascinating story which has reached far beyond the children of the mid-19th century, for whom it was first written. </p>
<p>Part of the reason is that <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org/files/11/11-h/11-h.htm">Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland</a> was a turning point in children’s literature. Earlier books and stories for children tended to have a strict focus on moral education and improvement. Most books were there to teach you how to be a good little boy or girl, rather than entertain or excite your imagination. But Lewis Carroll changed all that. </p>
<h2>Alice knows best</h2>
<p>Instead of instructing the child, Carroll centres his narrative on a young girl who lectures adults, in a world where everything is topsy-turvy. Alice dishes out advice on manners right, left and centre, and reprimands the inhabitants of Wonderland for rudeness and general madness. She knows best – the adults are unreliable, illogical and somewhat insane. This is a complete reversal of the way children and adults were portrayed in earlier literature.</p>
<p>The outcome is hilarious: the book’s irreverent humour appeals to the anarchic nature of the child. For example, well-respected verse of the time is ruthlessly parodied. The Mad Hatter recites “Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! / How I wonder what you’re at!”, while Alice manages to perform a comical rendition of Robert Southe’s “<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/jan/03/poem-week-lewis-carroll-robert-southey">The Old Man’s Comforts and How He Gained Them</a>”. </p>
<p>Carroll uses his narrative to mock the Victorian education system. Alice uses long words she doesn’t understand because they seem important. At school, the Mock Turtle has learned “Reeling and Writhing” and the “different branches of Arithmetic”: “Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision”. Word-play, nonsense, humour, parody, and role-reversals: these are staple ingredients of children’s books today, thanks to Carroll.</p>
<h2>(Mis)interpreting the mystery</h2>
<p>The reasons for Alice’s success abroad are a bit more complex, but they may be related to perceptions about the quintessential Britishness of the book. Wonderland has a queen, tea parties, games of croquet, and domestic servants. The nostalgic view of an idealised Victorian society is surely part of its attraction. These are some of the same ingredients that have made <a href="http://www.itv.com/downtonabbey">Downton Abbey</a> or the <a href="http://harrypotter.bloomsbury.com/uk/">Harry Potter</a> series so successful around the world.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87310/original/image-20150703-20484-17jyy8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87310/original/image-20150703-20484-17jyy8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=802&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87310/original/image-20150703-20484-17jyy8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=802&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87310/original/image-20150703-20484-17jyy8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=802&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87310/original/image-20150703-20484-17jyy8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1008&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87310/original/image-20150703-20484-17jyy8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1008&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87310/original/image-20150703-20484-17jyy8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1008&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A bad influence?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%88%B1%E4%B8%BD%E4%B8%9D%E6%A2%A6%E6%B8%B8%E4%BB%99%E5%A2%83#/media/File:Alice_05a-1116x1492.jpg">Wikimedia commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But, perhaps most intriguingly, there is a lingering suggestion that the book has a dark underside. It has often been suggested the many magic foods that Alice consumes in Wonderland could be <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19254839">allusions to drugs</a>. She does eat from a magic mushroom, after all, while conversing with a hookah-smoking caterpillar. This is a pop culture interpretation, based on the way the surreal sequences of the book were perceived by later generations – notably the hippie culture of the 1960s and 70s – rather than any hard evidence. But it is a reading persists to this day, as demonstrated by the opening scenes of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2003/02/26/the_matrix_1999_review.shtml">The Matrix</a>. </p>
<p>Slightly more worrying were the doubts and aspersions cast on Lewis Carroll’s interest in Alice Liddell, the little girl for whom the story was originally told. Lewis did take <a href="http://www.photography-news.com/2015/01/lewis-carrolls-haunting-photographs-of.html">photographs of young girls</a>, which we might look at suspiciously today. Despite the fact that <a href="http://www.randomhouse.co.uk/editions/the-story-of-alice-lewis-carroll-and-the-secret-history-of-wonderland/9781473510999">recent scholarship</a> has proved such suspicions to be unfounded, the rumours <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/bbc/11368772/BBC-investigates-whether-Lewis-Carroll-was-repressed-paedophile-after-nude-photo-discovery.html">keep coming back</a>. </p>
<h2>Always a puzzle</h2>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87308/original/image-20150703-20481-jao7xu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/87308/original/image-20150703-20481-jao7xu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=617&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87308/original/image-20150703-20481-jao7xu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=617&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87308/original/image-20150703-20481-jao7xu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=617&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87308/original/image-20150703-20481-jao7xu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87308/original/image-20150703-20481-jao7xu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/87308/original/image-20150703-20481-jao7xu.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=775&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Unlocking a deeper meaning.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alice_par_John_Tenniel_03.png">Wikimedia commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Other readers go deeper into the text, in search of meaning. <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/3826513?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents">On one reading</a>, the “dream” framework of the story is a metaphor for the journey inwards, towards the uncontrolled urges of the subconscious. After all, Alice seems to threaten to eat many of the characters in Wonderland, perhaps reflecting Freud’s <a href="http://www.britannica.com/topic/oral-stage">oral stage</a> of psychosexual development. And she is continually asked, “who are you?”, to which she does not always have a clear answer. </p>
<p>Or, it could be an allegory for the tumultuous process of growing up, represented by Alice literally waking up to reality at the end of the story. The search for a “deeper” meaning is made all the more captivating by the apparent meaninglessness of Alice’s strange and nonsensical encounters. </p>
<p>Ultimately, Alice in Wonderland is a wonderful example of an “open text” – a text that can mean what you want it to mean, depending on your perspective. It has become folklore, a meme that we love to reproduce. It is a story ambivalent enough to allow a multitude of interpretations. Fairy tales survive because they are versatile: they mean different things in different contexts. Alice in Wonderland has become a sort of modern fairy tale, and it will no doubt continue being adapted and interpreted for many more years to come. </p>
<p>As we wish happy 150th birthday to Alice, it’s also worth remembering that this is a story by a mathematician. I’m sure Carroll would have loved to know that his book remains a puzzle, which so many people are still trying to solve.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/44049/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dimitra Fimi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
Carroll’s pivotal children’s classic offers a timeless mystery for generations to come.
Dimitra Fimi, Lecturer in English, Cardiff Metropolitan University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/40398
2015-04-29T05:11:44Z
2015-04-29T05:11:44Z
Dressing down the rabbit hole – how to become Alice in Wonderland
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79611/original/image-20150428-3062-hsscfb.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fearne Cotton photographed for a Wonderland-inspired magazine shoot, 2006. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Ellis Parrinder</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The blue dress, the blonde hair, the white apron and the sense of adventure: Alice in Wonderland has certainly leapt free of Lewis Carroll’s pages into our imaginations, onto our screens and stages and beyond. These days, it’s a fairly common occurrence to “be Alice”. </p>
<p>As a series of images and objects in the V&A Museum of Childhood’s upcoming exhibition, <a href="http://www.vam.ac.uk/moc/exhibitions-and-displays/the-alice-look/">The Alice Look</a> makes clear, people from across the world and all walks of life regularly dress as Alice for parties or Halloween, high-end photo shoots or even (their own) weddings. </p>
<p>Countless others wear garments adorned by Alice or associated with that unmistakable “Wonderland aesthetic” (think rabbits, playing cards, teacups, pocket watches). For the most part, this is a relatively superficial affair, lasting an evening or couple of days at most. But in some cases, a much more enduring and profound engagement with the character takes place. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79621/original/image-20150428-3048-7944b8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79621/original/image-20150428-3048-7944b8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79621/original/image-20150428-3048-7944b8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79621/original/image-20150428-3048-7944b8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79621/original/image-20150428-3048-7944b8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79621/original/image-20150428-3048-7944b8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79621/original/image-20150428-3048-7944b8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Poster advertising ladies boots manufactured by T Elliot & Sons, 1960s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">© Victoria and Albert Museum, London</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I recently met four such women who, over a sustained period, have lived, breathed and worked to actually become Alice. Fiona Fullerton was there, star of the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068190/">1972 feature film</a> directed by William Sterling. Then there was soprano Fflur Wyn, who is due to reprise her lead role in Opera Holland Park’s <a href="http://www.rbkc.gov.uk/subsites/investecoperahollandpark/alicetheopera.aspx">production</a> this summer, and Royal Ballet principal dancer Lauren Cuthbertson, for whom Christopher Wheeldon <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/lauren-cuthbertson-royal-ballets-first-alice-dances-into-prima-ballerina-wonderland-2226774.html">created the role of Alice</a> in 2011. Lastly, Lucy Farrett – who is one of the actresses in the <a href="http://www.alice-underground.com/">immersive theatre extravaganza</a> currently being performed in the Vaults under Waterloo station.</p>
<h2>Demanding Alice</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79618/original/image-20150428-3062-rcw7cn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79618/original/image-20150428-3062-rcw7cn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79618/original/image-20150428-3062-rcw7cn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=883&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79618/original/image-20150428-3062-rcw7cn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=883&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79618/original/image-20150428-3062-rcw7cn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=883&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79618/original/image-20150428-3062-rcw7cn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1110&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79618/original/image-20150428-3062-rcw7cn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1110&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79618/original/image-20150428-3062-rcw7cn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1110&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sir John Tenniel illustration, 1886.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>What quickly emerges in conversation with these women is the sheer physical strain of the role. There’s an impressive degree of multi-tasking involved: being Alice encompasses acting as well as dancing, puppetry and singing. Carroll himself was fully aware of the demands of the part, writing in an 1888 letter that it is “about as hard a one as a child ever took”, and observing with appropriately mathematical exactitude that it involved speaking no less that “215 times!” </p>
<p>Lauren Cuthbertson also quantified the gruelling nature of her version of the part: the terrible realisation that Act One involved dancing some 14 scenes back-to-back with no rest except a couple of rapid costume changes – and the 38 bruises which emerged in the aftermath of the first ever performance. In her open-air performance, Fflur Wyn endured the torments of multiple layers of costume under an unusually co-operative but fierce summer sun. </p>
<p>In the Vaults production, Alice is a deliberately fleeting presence, but the nature of the show still means that Farrett must deliver the same lines no less than 36 times… per evening! And if, for Fiona Fullerton, filming seems to have been a fun-filled series of interactions with British acting royalty, cycling merrily around Shepperton studios, it nevertheless involved three months away from home, trying to keep up with schoolwork whilst lodging in a provincial hotel filled to the rafters with elderly residents. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/CXONhMCk4Wk?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<h2>Navigating age</h2>
<p>The demands of the role are such that it is highly unusual for children to play the role of Alice, who is just seven years old in the original text. </p>
<p>It seems certain that Carroll would have looked askance at the tendency to cast adults in the role. He once wrote of 30-year-old Ellen Terry (in a different production): “The gush of animal spirits of a light-hearted girl is beyond her now, poor thing! She can give a very clever imitation of it, but that is all.” </p>
<p>Many productions help bridge the gap between character and performer by making Alice older, frequently doubling her age or more. But a considerable age difference often still remains. Navigating between the pitfalls of excessive maturity and panto parody is surely one of the biggest challenges for performers and producers of Wonderland today. It’s perhaps made easier by the fact that performing freshness and innocence remains such a staple requirement for women on stage and screen – and beyond – today. </p>
<p>Fuzziness around the age issue is compounded in modern productions by the fact that the visual cues which enabled Victorian readers and audiences to immediately recognise Alice as a little girl (hair down, hem just below the knee, short sleeves) no longer pertain. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79584/original/image-20150428-3093-3bxai8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79584/original/image-20150428-3093-3bxai8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79584/original/image-20150428-3093-3bxai8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79584/original/image-20150428-3093-3bxai8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79584/original/image-20150428-3093-3bxai8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79584/original/image-20150428-3093-3bxai8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79584/original/image-20150428-3093-3bxai8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=626&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alice in Wonderland cotton chintz, C F A Voysey, 1920s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Victoria and Albert Museum, London</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Blue and white</h2>
<p>Tenniel’s original illustrations nevertheless serve as the model for countless Alice costumes including those of Fullerton and Wyn which, despite the 30 years separating them, differ from each other very little at all. </p>
<p>To set themselves apart, other productions deliberately eschew this classic Alice look of full-skirted blue dress and white pinafore. The Alice of the Vaults production, for example, wears a turquoise-green, neo-Victorian shabby-chic dress devoid of pinafore – although with key elements of Wonderland iconography such as a small gold pocket watch. </p>
<p>Similarly, in the Royal Ballet production, Cuthbertson wore, not blue, but lilac (perhaps in tribute to the first coloured Macmillan edition which adopted this colour). She also sported a short dark bob modelled not on Tenniel’s Alice but the real-life Alice (Liddell) for whom the book was initially produced.</p>
<p>Relatively minor modifications to colour and style notwithstanding, Alice’s appearance in each of these productions retains a distinct flavour of olde-worlde otherness and nostalgia. This is a point underlined by the fact that on the night we met, each of the Alices without exception appeared in a costume which has long dominated the female wardrobe but is still to make inroads into Alice’s look: namely, trousers. </p>
<p>It’s obvious that despite being widely hailed by critics and pundits in this anniversary year as a feisty, go-getting feminist icon, Alice has nevertheless remained – not unlike Lansley’s Alice trapped behind the looking-glass – in a considerably constrained conception of femininity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40398/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kiera Vaclavik is the curator of 'The Alice Look' exhibition at the V&A Museum of Childhood. She receives funding from the Arts & Humanities Research Council. The views expressed in this article are her own.</span></em></p>
Meet four women who have lived, breathed and worked to actually become Alice.
Kiera Vaclavik, Senior Lecturer in French and Comparative Literature, Queen Mary University of London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/38042
2015-02-26T00:20:21Z
2015-02-26T00:20:21Z
Be open to the impossible: Alice in Wonderland turns 150
<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73024/original/image-20150225-1814-1r15h8u.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Mia Wasikowska looks down the rabbit hole in Tim Burton's 2010 film adaptation of Alice in Wonderland.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Disney Enterprises/Imagenet/Leah Gallo</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The star of Melbourne’s White Night 2015, held last weekend, was Alice. Tributes to her adventures were colourfully projected across buildings along Flinders Street, and formed a fantastical animation on Flinders Station, while the façade of the State Library had a sliding showcase of artistic interpretations of the story, including John Tenniel’s original illustrations. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73029/original/image-20150225-1807-13pn31m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73029/original/image-20150225-1807-13pn31m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73029/original/image-20150225-1807-13pn31m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73029/original/image-20150225-1807-13pn31m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73029/original/image-20150225-1807-13pn31m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73029/original/image-20150225-1807-13pn31m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73029/original/image-20150225-1807-13pn31m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73029/original/image-20150225-1807-13pn31m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alice in Wonderland, 1903.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Paul Dalgarno</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Entering the rabbit hole (actually, the library doors), a 3-D dreamscape was created on the Dome’s ceiling, set to an electro-pop soundtrack. And the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (<a href="https://www.acmi.net.au/">ACMI</a>) showed a film adaptation from 1903, a sophisticated production at approximately 12 minutes running time. </p>
<p>Considering “wonderland” is such a key term for describing the White Night experience, it seemed as if Alice in Wonderland was the perfect partner – and this year the partnership was perfectly timed.</p>
<p>2015 is the year we get to celebrate 150 years of Wonderland. It was 1865 that Alice’s adventure was first published for the general public, having started as an oral tale in 1863, told to entertain three young sisters. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73022/original/image-20150225-1780-1tsliz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73022/original/image-20150225-1780-1tsliz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73022/original/image-20150225-1780-1tsliz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73022/original/image-20150225-1780-1tsliz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=945&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73022/original/image-20150225-1780-1tsliz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1187&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73022/original/image-20150225-1780-1tsliz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1187&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73022/original/image-20150225-1780-1tsliz1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1187&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An illustrated page from the manuscript of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Carroll first wrote the story down in 1864, as a keepsake for his child-friend, Alice Liddell. The story was then called Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, and with publication, this was changed to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. </p>
<p>150 years later, Wonderland is no longer simply a children’s story. It is films, theatre productions, songs, video games, and theme park rides, and forms the spine of <a href="http://aliceinaworldofwonderlands.com/book.html">thousands of literary adaptations</a>, printed in more than 170 languages. </p>
<p>I can’t remember the first time I encountered Wonderland, but the story has been with me from a young age, in various incarnations. </p>
<p>Disney’s 1951 film had as strong an impact on me as Carroll’s original story. Looking to my experience, it is likely one which parallels the experiences of other readers and viewers of Wonderland. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/KLIqErnQCuw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for Alice in Wonderland (1951).</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Wonderland moved out of copyright in 1907, which means writers and illustrators have had over a century in which to create new versions of the story and characters. It is now a part of our collective memory and cultural history, even for those who have never engaged with the original text. </p>
<p>Adaptations are now such a substantial part of the world of Wonderland that the story stands as one of the most adapted in literature.</p>
<p>The original story, with its fantastical world and characters, lends itself to flexibility. Wonderland has remained popular with readers, and a result from this combination of fantasy and enduring popularity, is that the story has remained a similarly popular choice with adapters from all mediums. </p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73021/original/image-20150225-1765-4ezb85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73021/original/image-20150225-1765-4ezb85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73021/original/image-20150225-1765-4ezb85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73021/original/image-20150225-1765-4ezb85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73021/original/image-20150225-1765-4ezb85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=705&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73021/original/image-20150225-1765-4ezb85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73021/original/image-20150225-1765-4ezb85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73021/original/image-20150225-1765-4ezb85.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=886&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The cover of the Nursery Alice.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wikimedia Commons</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>White Night 2015 showed how fixed Wonderland is in popular culture: that the organisers of the event knew enough attendees would feel connected to the story for them to cast Alice in a new leading role. It also showed the brilliant form celebrations of Carroll’s story can take. </p>
<p>The diversity of these tributes testifies to not only the creativity of their creators, but the extraordinary story Lewis Carroll created. What a thrill then to see what will come next. </p>
<p>For those interested in keeping track of global celebrations, two of the largest Lewis Carroll Societies are working alongside Carroll scholars and enthusiasts to <a href="http://lewiscarrollresources.net/2015/index.html">track events scheduled </a> throughout 2015. Some 91 events are planned so far, and over 100 publications, not counting the new literary adaptations publishers are planning. </p>
<p>For Melbourne, surely the next major celebration will occur as part of the <a href="http://www.emergingwritersfestival.org.au/">Emerging Writers’ Festival</a>, in May, and the <a href="http://www.mwf.com.au/mwf-2015/">Melbourne Writers Festival</a> in August, (hint hint). </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73023/original/image-20150225-1828-pqvnpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73023/original/image-20150225-1828-pqvnpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/73023/original/image-20150225-1828-pqvnpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73023/original/image-20150225-1828-pqvnpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73023/original/image-20150225-1828-pqvnpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=398&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73023/original/image-20150225-1828-pqvnpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73023/original/image-20150225-1828-pqvnpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/73023/original/image-20150225-1828-pqvnpy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Alice in Wonderland as street art.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Céline/Flickr</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>To calculate the contribution Carroll’s story has made to English literature and popular culture would be a mammoth undertaking, as Wonderland grew roots which moved the story into unexpected places. It can seem almost impossible to believe that this children’s story can be positioned behind only the collected works of Shakespeare and the Bible as the most widely quoted book in the Western world. </p>
<p>One impression the Alice books left on readers however, is to be open to the idea of the impossible:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“I ca’n’t believe that!” said Alice.<br>
“Ca’n’t you?” the Queen said in a pitying tone. “Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.”<br>
Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.”<br>
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”<br></p>
</blockquote>
<p>My current research is on Alice and some of the literary adaptations which make up such a large component of the Alice industry. This year is exciting for me, but for so many others as well. This anniversary provides all of us who love the story, a space to talk, read, see, and marvel at what Wonderland has become. </p>
<p>What Lewis Carroll created deserves to be celebrated. Here’s to Alice!</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38042/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rebecca Ciezarek does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>
This year is the 150th anniversary of Lewis Carroll’s classic Alice in Wonderland – and the story shows no signs of running out of steam.
Rebecca Ciezarek, PhD candidate in Children's Literature, Victoria University
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.
tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/35442
2014-12-12T16:49:57Z
2014-12-12T16:49:57Z
The tale of squirrelling away books that sparked a nutty row over children’s literature
<p>Maurice Sendak, author of Where the Wild Things Are, was an ardent defender of children’s literature, believing the works of Beatrix Potter to be equal to “the greatest English prose writers that have lived”.</p>
<p>One wonders therefore what he would have made of the <a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/arts/books/article4294862.ece">rather unedifying row</a> between the executors of his estate and the Rosenbach Museum and Library, to which he bequeathed his collection of rare books, including several volumes by Potter, on his death in 2012. His executors are refusing to hand them over, arguing that they are “merely” children’s books.</p>
<p>Thus the death of one of the great children’s writers of our generation has forced a court to seek a legal answer to a literary question, about which Sendak was surely never in doubt. </p>
<h2>Alice in lawyerland</h2>
<p>My <a href="http://www.aliceinwonderland.qmul.ac.uk/">own research</a> on Lewis Carroll’s protean and enduringly youthful heroine, Alice, has brought me into close contact with Carroll collectors whose houses are often filled from floor to ceiling with Alice editions and all manner of more or less related articles. While some have already made decisions about where to house their collections after their deaths, others are mulling over the possibilities. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67109/original/image-20141212-6048-1c4dph9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67109/original/image-20141212-6048-1c4dph9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/67109/original/image-20141212-6048-1c4dph9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67109/original/image-20141212-6048-1c4dph9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67109/original/image-20141212-6048-1c4dph9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=384&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67109/original/image-20141212-6048-1c4dph9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67109/original/image-20141212-6048-1c4dph9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/67109/original/image-20141212-6048-1c4dph9.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Where the Wild Things Are.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/vaivenarp/4431519295/in/photolist-5BdmfH-iLrfBG-48Nk8D-7KAGi6-6xVzJB-8mTHDk-6eyW8L-7o491A-5qx1kA-78GoSy-9ZyAKG-hkfc8-7ZVXgh-hkfes-9ZXNgo-ehxtQy-6cpVEv-9yHG2o-7bt66k-5wBrkF-7rUmB9-7bZbwq-8rjWaD-btmZz7-nvKt3s-oXgLKM-8rJ7WE-bUREi1-bUREnY-bUREeG-79ceG5-uXLEU-7bFKza-8tN7c9-44CGZk-dUkN4N-7bZcp5-7bZbY7-dUfc1Z-ahv1NW-78S8Bw-bUQ2T1-7snhFU-dUkNGG-dUkNeE-bvrkrF-6xVzJt-84vmbU-8rYYPM-882Vh2">Andrea Rodriguez Pabon</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the light of the Sendak case, they would be well advised to pay close attention to the fine print and terminology of their bequests (not to mention the character of their executors). Are they leaving collections of children’s literature? Or simply of literature? </p>
<p>The literary merit of children’s books is regularly cast into doubt. What’s interesting and ironic about the wrangle over Sendak’s Potter books is that it brings into the frame both their cultural and their monetary value. It’s in the interests of the estate to hang on to them.</p>
<h2>Big business for small people</h2>
<p>Books for small people are indeed a very big business, one of the only parts of the global publishing industry to remain in relatively fine fettle, to not only survive but to flourish in recent years. </p>
<p>New works are being produced at a staggering rate and often to exceptionally high standards. At the same time, older works of a fairly substantial list of Victorian and Edwardian writers and illustrators, and all their associated items, are highly prized and sought after: just this week <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-30400219">a Pooh drawing sold for a six-figure sum</a>. </p>
<p>Classic children’s literature, such as Pooh and Potter, abounds on publishers’ lists and indeed often effectively finances new works. Interestingly, “classic” children’s literature tends to be the children’s books that adults often like, buy, and collect. </p>
<p>If the “literature” part of “children’s literature” is often called into question, the “children’s” part is no less problematic. Definitions of children’s literature inevitably crumble, made complicated by “crossover” books for adults and children – and by books which were for adults but flip into the children’s category (such as Gulliver’s Travels) and vice versa (arguably any of the children’s classics mentioned here). </p>
<p>This body of works, however designated, can of course become fossilised, reactionary and dripping with twee Olde Worlde nostalgia. It’s often the stuff of endless, unimaginative re-editions. But it can also be cutting-edge and revolutionary – it can and does inspire new generations in new ways. </p>
<p>The ever increasing avalanche of events and products scheduled for the <a href="http://lewiscarrollresources.net/2015/">150th anniversary</a> of the first publication of Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in 2015 makes this abundantly clear. Yes, there will be lots of (not always particularly innovative) new editions, but there will be others designed by Dame Vivienne Westwood, not to mention concerts and tattoo chains and exhibitions galore. </p>
<h2>But is it art?</h2>
<p>Classic children’s literature is, then, a particularly popular form of literature. For some, those two things still make uncomfortable bedfellows. Mass appeal is compounded by utilitarianism which, in the realm of creativity, has been regarded with withering disdain at best for the last century and a half. Asking whether children’s classics are on a par with literary classics, or a distinct subspecies, whether they are really literature, is akin to the question: “is it really art?” And it plays on many of the same prejudices and sensitivities. </p>
<p>In the literary firmament, children’s literature – classic or otherwise – still tends to be seen as a minor constellation at best. But as with contemporary art, it will always depend on who is asking, when, and why.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/35442/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kiera Vaclavik receives funding from the Arts & Humanities Research Council.</span></em></p>
Maurice Sendak, author of Where the Wild Things Are, was an ardent defender of children’s literature, believing the works of Beatrix Potter to be equal to “the greatest English prose writers that have…
Kiera Vaclavik, Senior Lecturer in French and Comparative Literature, Queen Mary University of London
Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.