[Bookpossum]

The points made by fantasyfan and astrangerhere made me start digging around on the internet, and it's salutary to see how many wildly opposing ideas there are out there about Carroll:

* He was a paedophile./His friendship with children was entirely innocent and approved by the children's parents.
* He was very shy because of a bad stammer and felt more comfortable with children than with adults./He was quite a gregarious person who spent a lot of time in society, and his speech impediment was just a slight hesitation at times.
* He had eating disorders and was obsessed with food and changing body size (See Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in particular.)/His attitude towards food was perfectly normal.
* There was a terrible falling out with the Liddell family because he wanted to marry Alice, then aged 11./It was nothing to do with Alice, but with a rumour that he wanted to marry the children's governess.

And on it goes. The possibility of his having epilepsy, mentioned by astrangerhere, is an interesting one when thinking about Sylvie and Bruno and the way the narrator drifts into and out of fairyland.

So while I found the book itself to be a mess and in serious need of a good editor, I have found the discussion and various ideas very interesting - thank you!