Alice's Adventures in Wonderland? or Alice's Adventures in Crazy Land?

Everybody knows the classic story of Alice in Wonderland from the beloved Disney movie. Alice follows a late rabbit with a pocket watch down a rabbit hole, then eats a cupcake and drinks something that changes her size a few times. She meets a caterpillar smoking a hookah, a Mad Hatter and the March Hare. but most importantly the Queen of Hearts. The Story line makes sense in the Disney Movie but not so much in the Lewis Carroll Classic.

The Main character is of course Alice, and she is a young girl, I picture to be around 11 years old. She loves her cat Dinah and to recite school lessons. She is also very insightful and imaginative. She seems pretty normal right? Think again. In this book Alice seems as if she has multiple personality disorder. She always talks to herself and will go off on tangents. Sometimes having complete conversations with herself. odd...

One of the worst things about the book though is how hard it is to follow after a certain point. The beginning of the book makes sense and is understandable, but after the first several chapters the book just gets too confusing. It's hard to explain but the crazy confusion actually adds to the story in a way, because it shows how utterly mad Wonderland is.

Another downside to the book is the characters are badly described if they are even described at all. There is one character called the Mock Turtle. The name implies he is some sort of fake turtle but I had no clue what he really was until I saw a picture of it farther into the chapter. it was basically a cow with a large turtle's shell on it's back, but nowhere in the text did it describe it. For most of the characters in this book you need to rely on prior knowledge to picture the characters in your head while reading.

But, my favorite part of the book is how Lewis Carrol has so many weird quotes, ideas, and symbols. He also uses word play. in one part of the story Alice confuses a mouse's tail with it's tale. and on the next page it shows a mouse with it's tail made out of words of a story. Little things like this make the story exciting, different, and fun to read. One symbol I found in the book was when the caterpillar tells Alice if she eats one side of the mushroom it will make her grow larger and the other side will make her shrink. Try to figure out the symbol. ;) Just food for thought.

Although this book is a little weird and took me a while longer to understand what was happening at the end of the book, I would recommend you to read it, not only because it is a classic written in 1865, but because it is an unique entertaining writing style and it is a generally quick read. It's actually pretty funny. Grade B-

P.S. - Sadly, the Mad Hatter does not sing the Unbirthday Song in the book and there is no Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dum either.

Funny Quotes from This Book That I Love:

"In that direction," the Cat said, waving its right paw round, "lives a Hatter: and in that direction," waving the other paw, "lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad."

"But I don't want to go among mad people,"Alice remarked.

"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."

"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.

"You must be,' said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."

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"Tut, tut, child! Everything's got a moral, if only you can find it."

"There's a large mustard-mine near here. And the moral of that is -- The more there is of mine, the less there is of yours."

- The Dutchess

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"Speak English! I don't know the meaning of half those long words, and I don't believe you do either!"

-Eaglet

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The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was,"Why is a raven like a writing-desk?"

"Come, we shall have some fun now!" thought Alice. "I'm glad they've begun asking riddles.--I believe I can guess that," she added aloud.

"Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?" said the March Hare.

"Exactly so," said Alice.

"Then you should say what you mean," the March Hare went on.

"I do," Alice hastily replied; "at least--at least I mean what I say--that's the same thing, you know."

"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"!"

"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"!"

"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"!"

"It is the same thing with you," said the Hatter, and here the conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute, while Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and writing-desks, which wasn't much.

...

"Have you guessed the riddle yet?" the Hatter said, turning to Alice again.

"No, I give it up," Alice replied: "what's the answer?"

"I haven't the slightest idea," said the Hatter.

"Nor I," said the March Hare.

Alice sighed wearily. "I think you might do something better with the time," she said, "than waste it in asking riddles that have no answers."