Philosopher's Alice Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass

by Peter Laughlan Heath

9 1/2 x 6 1/2 inches. True first edition by Academy Editions. Blue boards in long format. An excellent resource for the Carroll fan or scholar. Scarce in this edition.

Genres: Philosophy, Fiction, Literature, Fantasy, Childrens

Paperback

First published December 1, 1982

Reviews

[Douglas]

Because I haven't finished this book, this is a preliminary review. I wanted to preserve some of my initial thoughts which I think might encourage others to read it and thereby revise their understanding of Lewis Carroll. I certainly need to myself because, in my time, I too was subject to the prevailing philosophy that Carroll was either a humorous spouter of "nonsense" or an advocate of the absurd. Also, we need to understand that the contrast between his authorial persona and the "real" Charles Dodgson is one more example of what the philosopher, David Stove, has called our Horror Victorianorum--the fear, dread and loathing of all things Victorian, the weave of which is so integral to the fabric of our own outlook, especially the part embodying the Sexual Revolution.

I must say that if you want an immediate reason for getting this book, then you can find it in its introduction--by Peter Heath--which is worth the price of the whole. In addition to the providing an entertaining introduction to the amusement to be had from Carroll's story, it gives promising insights which are to be gained by reading the annotations provided by Heath.

One of the first things it points out is that, although children can often enjoy reading the book and also that Carroll intended them to enjoy it and even gain from its moral, ethical and philosophical lessons, the latter are--in perhaps a miscalculation on Carroll's part--almost wholly missed by infant readers. It is adults, and until recently, even among them almost exclusively a group of furtive philosopher-readers of Alice In Wonderland, who take them in. Heath takes it as his goal to distribute the gems acquired by this esoteric group, to a wider range of reader.

Heath intends to carve out new ground by accompanying us in our reading of Alice and showing how Carroll is neither an exponent of nonsense nor an enthusiast for the absurd. In our relativistic, anything-goes era, people are inclined to see him through one lens or the other. In contradistinction, Heath intends to show that Carroll respects the rules and conventions; it is only the excesses resulting from "adhering to them long after it has ceased to be sensible to do so" that he protests and for which he uses Alice as a vehicle for encouraging his readers to join him. In short, he was an advocate of "common sense"--a term widely used today but very seldom understood. Heath wishes to help us discover this key to Carroll's Alice.

Of lesser importance, but still a corrective to the Carrollian myth, Peter Heath states that Carroll was not the eminent mathematician people often think he was. The tale that Queen Victoria, after being delighted with Alice, wished to obtain a copy of Carroll's next work, only to be delivered a book with the abstruse title Elementary Treatise on the Theory of Determinants is just that--a tale. Moreover, it seems that Carroll's only noteworthy contribution to mathematics dealt with the mathematical theory of voting--coming to be appreciated only in our own time. Otherwise most of his mathematical career consisted of teaching--according to Heath even dreary teaching--mathematics. But even this is essential to understand as being perhaps a main motive for the modern casting of him as a "colorful figure", rather than a man who lived entirely within Victorian conventions and upheld its basic viewpoint and morals.

That's all for now, likely I will revise this when I've finished the book.