Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Childish book for grown-ups

Charles Dodgson, a professor of mathematics by profession, is better known by his literary pen name Lewis Carroll. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was first printed in 1865 with only 5,000 copies. In the future, this book would bring the author world fame and be translated into 170 languages. Even Queen Victoria liked the book so much that she asked the author to send her the next book as soon as it was published. The queen was probably very surprised to see the book sent to her by this request, for the work was called An Experiment on Determinants. Of course, it is normal for a professor to write such scientific works, but nonsense books such as “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” and “Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There” made him known in the world.

Yes! This was the beginning of a new genre called “Nonsense”. The book tells about what happens to a little girl who falls into a fantastic world. The work is written in poetic language and contains some seemingly meaningless words spoken by children who learns to talk in small ages (like reading as reeling, writing as writhing, pig as fig). Nevertheless, it would not be correct to call the book as a work written only for children. Also, the subtext criticizes the classes in England, some social issues, and the education system in general. The writer does not hesitate to freely wander all readers in his colorful fantasy world. Dragons, frogs with fish heads, fighting playing cards, a cat with only its grin visible, a hookah-smoking caterpillar, and more. Many of these characters reflect real-life famous people of the time, even another mathematician Martin Gardner wrote a book “The Annotated Alice” in 1960 on that topic.
All this shows that creativity does not look at the profession. Everyone can and I think should do any kind of art, regardless of what they do.
Some quotes from the book:

• “Who in the world am I?” Ah, that’s the great puzzle.”
• “Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat. “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
• “Of course it is,” said the Duchess, who seemed ready to agree to everything that Alice said; “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.”
• “Alice: How long is forever?”
• White Rabbit: Sometimes, just one second.”
• “Who am I then?” Tell me that first, and then, if I like being that person, I’ll come up; if not, I’ll stay down here until I’m someone else.”

Thanks for reading! I wish you a great day ahead!😊