Another World Book Club discussion

For August we're off to Wonderland with Lewis Carrol's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland!

You can download the ebook from the Project Gutenberg, or you can find the audiobook on LibriVox.

This read was perhaps the strangest for me. The storyline was lacking, too. In the beginning Alice was a bit annoying. I listened with my daughter and she commented that Alice "wasn't the sharpest crayon in the box." However, as the story progressed, she did seem to wisen up a bit.

I did think there were some interesting, valid, and lucid points made in the book. Throughout the story, Alice is asked to recite several poems and songs. When speaking to the Mock Turtle, she also does this. He replied to some effect that what is the point of being able to recite if you don't explain along the way. This resinated with me because it is something I often encounter teaching international students. Many of my Chinese students want to memorize words without really understanding them or being able to apply them. So, here maybe Carroll is calling out the education system since being able to recite information was quite common during this time period. Any thoughts?

In the right mood, I appreciate that Alice just sort of sits back and goes “what?” when she encounters Wonderland because when I first hit adulthood that seemed relatable.

But most of the time it does bother me that she doesn’t spend any time figuring out Wonderland’s interior logic, or the why she’s been made to memorize different things back home. The rhymes she recites remind me of School House Rock songs, because I know several people who can sing along with the song "Lolly Lolly Lolly Get Your Adverbs Here" and only a handful can tell you what any of it has to do with adverbs.

This is something I encounter a lot with my students overseas. We've kind of moved away from this in American education, but emphasis on memorization is strong in a lot of other countries. You so are right that many people remember but can't really apply or explain.

Ok ladies, I finished this book earlier this week. I have to say, I loved that it was a pretty light read. It was quirky and funny. You could tell that he wrote this for children to read. Alice goes to a dream land where she is curious and learns things and also gets to show her knowledge. Mostly when she is talking or thinking to herself. When Alice is small she gets pushed around, but when she is big she doesn't. It seems like as she is dreaming she is going on a journey from a child to an adult. She rescues a baby, she helps people, and she goes to court. And when she wakes up at the end of the book, she goes back to being a carefree child and her sister wistfully admires Alice's imagination.

I do agree that Alice had to recite a lot of things and remember them during the story. However, I have to remind myself that that is what school was like back then. Rote memorization was the preferred teaching/learning method.

I don't know if either of you have seen the Disney animated movie of Alice in Wonderland, but as I read I really felt that they did this book justice. So many of the things that happened to Alice in the book were also in the movie, just not always in the same order! I was surprised how close it was. Unfortunately I didn't get to read the second part (Through the Looking Glass) but I skimmed through and Tweedledee and Tweedledum in the illustrations looked almost exactly like they did in the Disney movie. So, it looked like to me that Disney put those two books together in one film.

Amber wrote: "Ok ladies, I finished this book earlier this week. I have to say, I loved that it was a pretty light read. It was quirky and funny. You could tell that he wrote this for children to read. Alice goe..."

I think this reread just rubbed me the wrong way. You're right, she did get a chance to grow and change throughout the book (even if it was just by having things happen passively to her). The fact that she does sort of reset to who she was before Wonderland reminded me of the things that upset me in the Chronicles of Narnia, so... I don't know. I think maybe I just wasn't in the mood for Carroll this month, or not beyond The Jabberwocky, anyway.