Back in 1865, US President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, the Civil War came to an end, William Booth founded the Salvation Army, Franz Schubert’s “Unfinished Symphony” premiered, and Charles Lutwidge Dodgson published Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland under he pen name, Lewis Carroll.

For many, Alice’s visits to Wonderland are the stuff of great fantasy. For me, not so much. In fact, I hate to admit it, but I’ve never actually read the full story. As a child I read a condensed version, probably put out by the Little Golden Books, but maybe by some other source. At any rate, I was less than enthralled. The story seemed absurd and nonsensical, and I really didn’t like any of the characters. The Cheshire Cat came closest, I think, to someone with a modicum of decency. But none of it had a purpose.

Although some praise the book as the first portal fantasy, and many find it imaginative and creative, I am . . . primarily bored. Alice has no goals and no real purpose for being in Wonderland beyond following the White Rabbit down his hole. Nothing there follows any set of rules, and therefore the plot points feel entirely arbitrary.

In addition, the story ends with the entire adventure being nothing more than a dream—the kiss of death to a story in today’s publishing climate.

But perhaps I’m taking issue with other readers’ favorite book (see for example this review at Fantasy Faction). I mean, the story is a classic. I assume there is a reason, but I haven’t discovered it yet.

When I encountered Lewis Carroll’s poem, “Jabberwocky,” (which appeared in Through The Looking Glass) I felt vindicated in my thoughts about his little children’s book. I mean, here was a poem that did all the right poetry things when it comes to rhyme and rhythm and other devices like alliteration, and yet it was nonsense:

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

‘Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!’

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought —
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood a while in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One two! One two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

‘And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
Oh frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’
He chortled in his joy.

‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

(Public Domain, posted at PoemHunter. Note: spell check had a field day with that one.)

Clearly there is some sort of story which the poem relates, but so much else of poetry is missing—particularly the emotionally evocative quality that makes a poem resonate in the soul.

And yet, there is much to praise, too. Words that are not, take on meaning. In contrast to the current trend which turns nouns and adjectives into verbs, Carroll turned a verb into an adjective (beamish) . . . I guess. It’s rather difficult to tell because some of his other nonsense words seem to suggest something familiar and still others have no apparent connection with reality at all.

In may ways “Jabberwocky” is Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland in a nutshell. Inventive? YES! “Brillig” in its own way!

And yet, who cares? So Alice had a dream in which illogical things happened. So the beamish boy decapitated the Jabberwock. Are we readers to go and do likewise? In other words, what do either of these works reveal about human nature? In the case of Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, at least, that should be a fair question because fiction seems to carry that requirement.

Is the great achievement of this work the fact that Carroll opens up the world of the imagination? That he allows for the magical and mysterious, and does so apart from God?

In fact, Carroll’s fiction falls into a category known as Literary Nonsense:

In literary nonsense, certain formal elements of language and logic that facilitate meaning are balanced by elements that negate meaning. These formal elements include semantics, syntax, phonetics, context, representation, and formal diction. The genre is most easily recognizable by the various techniques or devices it uses to create this balance of meaning and lack of meaning, such as faulty cause and effect, portmanteau, neologism, reversals and inversions, imprecision (including gibberish), simultaneity, picture/text incongruity, arbitrariness, infinite repetition, negativity or mirroring, and misappropriation. (Wikipedia)

If only I’d understood as a child that the story wasn’t supposed to make sense, maybe I would have liked it better.

At any rate, I found it interesting that the analysis of Literary Nonsense draws a clear line between it and fantasy:

Nonsense is distinct from fantasy, though there are sometimes resemblances between them. While nonsense may employ the strange creatures, other worldly situations, magic, and talking animals of fantasy, these supernatural phenomena are not nonsensical if they have a discernible logic supporting their existence. The distinction lies in the coherent and unified nature of fantasy.

As for me, I’ll stick with the coherent and unified. Still, I can’t help but give Lewis Carroll a nod by noting the fact that Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland has lasted so long and continues to spark the imagination of other writers. For this reason, if for nothing else, I’d say speculative readers and writers alike have much to be grateful for regarding this little children’s book. Happy birthday, Alice.

So where do you as a reader fall in the Alice In Wonderland love/hate spectrum? Have you read the book, or some condensed version of it? Did you watch the recent TV spin off of the story? Do you prefer fantasy to Literary Nonsense, or the other way around?