JD Shaffer’s Reviews > Inventing Wonderland: the Lives and Fantasies of Lewis Carroll, Edward Lear, J.M. Barrie, Kenneth Grahame and A.A. Milne > Status Update

Thank heavens I'm done! What a bad book. Badly written, way too much supposition and unfounded claims, and no real information provided.

It seems very much to have been conceived as a "shocker" and therefore all sources were scoured for supporting (or even seemingly supporting) details. The rest of the details were ignored.

I'm likewise convinced that the author did not actually READ much of the books in question.

The chapter on Kenneth Grahame was a bit better. More historical and less speculation. However, it's still overflowing with Freudian analysis and very unsubstantiated claims.

Why does this author think that ever man views marriage as a horror??

Another false idea:

"... but not once in his writing [Wind in the Willows] does he mention parents."

Um.. how about Otter, the DAD of baby otter? The frequent mention of Toad's father, and how about the two young animals lost in the Wild Woods whom Badger takes in and feeds -- they talk about their mother!

I highly suspect this author has not even READ WitW... *sigh*

Does not improve. This author is fixated on themes of sexual repression and pedophilia. Geesh!

Horrible, horrible, horrible. So many unsupported claims, wild accusations, and at some points it's just so obvious the author didn't even read some of the stories she talks about!

She most obviously started with her theme, and then has spent all her time trying to squeeze these books and people into her preconceived ideas.

Tigger? Rebellious and wayward?

The animals in "W in the Willows" just play and party?

A painfully horrid book! Nearly every page I have marked with "Proof?" and "How do you get this from that?".

There is something seriously wrong with this author. Here is an example from page 50: "It is hard not to see in Alice [in Wonderland] a comic, nonsense version of a Victorian Everyman, bewildered by change, tormented by religious doubt, terrified of an empty, godless cosmos."

Say what?!?

I'm NOT enjoying this book.
The author exaggerates for effect, blowing things out of any logical proportion. She seems to take on "academic airs" at times, calling the weasels and stoat ruffians in "Wind in the Willows" a proletarian, and at other times starts describing society and people in purely Freudian themes.

I think she tried too hard to "sound" academic, and in the end just sounds mixed up and confused.

I'm not so sure about this author. The introduction feels exaggerated to make the book more appealing. If not exaggerated, then at least written in a way for dramatic effect. Not a good sign. I want solid scholarship, not dramatics and effects...