Quote:
Originally Posted by astrangerhere
While I still come down on the side of disliking the text, the more I research it, the more depth it has for me.
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While I wouldn't quite say I disliked the text ( and certainly some parts were absolutely a slog), although I think the book is a failure, I agree with this. I wish Carroll had been able to make a more cohesive whole out of the best elements (I'm not even asking for coherency, necessarily, since I think the antic, even surreal tone of this is part of what makes it good). I'm even prepared to forgive the fairies as Victorian sentimentality; the romance, however, strikes me as bad even for then.
The book, by a famous writer and given its time is clearly important, IMO. as an early experiment in modernism presaging many of the most famous early 20th century works. Even Wikipedia cites is as an influence on
Finnegan's Wake and this would be Carroll's
Finnegan's Wake where
Alice was his
Ulysses. Or vice-versa!
The influence doesn't even have to be as high-flown as that. I mentioned
Peter Ibbetson; how about
The Little Prince who could step around his world? Although in his case, he used it to watch sunsets and not to shoot the enemy as it retreated.