MobileRead Book Club December 2017 Discussion: Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll (spoilers)

[issybird]

Thanks for that, fantasyfan. I wonder if we can even extend that to the two realities presented in Sylvie and Bruno? The Mister Sir who was a looker-on in Outland as an expression of Carroll and the one with the heart issue, friend of the doctor, as Dodgson? The first book had more Carroll in the mix than the second.

I was struck by his reference in the introduction to how after Alice, the same story was taken up by so many others as to kill it effectively, and wondered if George du Maurier adapted from Sylvie the concept of "dreaming true" in Peter Ibbetson, the story where an imprisoned man lived his real life in his dreams? It was published two years after Sylvie

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

The best parts were those set in Outland, and I was hoping (foolishly!) for a good dust-up to sort things out. It was not to be.

You and I both. I was quite entranced by the beginning of Sylvie and expected to love the book. I should have been warned by the introduction there were stormy seas ahead!

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by issybird

You and I both. I was quite entranced by the beginning of Sylvie and expected to love the book. I should have been warned by the introduction there were stormy seas ahead!

I didn't think the book was going to be rubbish based on the preface. I figured the preface was written after and doesn't really count. But, the book itself is rubbish and the preface just ramblings of a mad man.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I didn't think the book was going to be rubbish based on the preface. I figured the preface was written after and doesn't really count. But, the book itself is rubbish and the preface just ramblings of a mad man.

Why not tell us why you think the book is rubbish? Dismissing it as such doesn't forward the discussion.

As I said, I think the book was a failure, but I also found excellent elements in it. Carroll was amazingly prescient in some ways. Black light! And here's one I use every day - listening to audiobooks at a faster tempo than recorded, so as to get through them faster.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I didn't think the book was going to be rubbish based on the preface. I figured the preface was written after and doesn't really count. But, the book itself is rubbish and the preface just ramblings of a mad man.

I imagine that many people in Victorian England would have thought an epilepsy sufferer a "mad man." Lewis is said to have suffered from epilepsy all of his adult life.

The correlation between how people describe what they feel in seizures and how the narrator slips in and out of reality is striking:

For example I would be in an area I know really well, and I know I should know where I am but I don't. Or I would be watching something on TV that I know I should know, and I suddenly feel like I am watching from a distance and don't know where I am, or who the characters are.

Other people describe memory gaps, or a feeling of looking at one's self from the outside.

While I still come down on the side of disliking the text, the more I research it, the more depth it has for me.

[issybird]

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.

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.

[CRussel]

The hard part for me with this book was that every time I set aside some time to read it, I'd start in, and within a half hour or so, I found I was actively looking for some excuse to stop reading. I could see what Carroll was doing, understand what was good about it, and even enjoy (small) parts of it. But it was like trying to listen to music with a lot of sub-audible distortion. It was just very tiring. Had I not been reading for the club, I'd have abandoned it at the 10% mark, but as it was, I stuck it out for a lot longer.

The idea that this was a reflection of Carroll's epilepsy makes a lot of sense. I'm appreciate the research that people have brought to this, because without it I'd have simply blown the experience off as a waste of time. With the increased understanding brought here, I no longer think it a waste of time, but I'm still not motivated to try to finish even the first one.

[Dazrin]

Anytime I am ok with stopping in the middle of a chapter I know I am not enjoying a book that much. In this particular case, stopping mid-paragraph didn't seem any more jarring than some of the transitions in the book and I did it several times.

I didn't read Sylvie and Bruno Concluded, I have no desire to at this point, but I did read the preface which was enlightening about the preface of the first one.

[gmw]

I hope it's okay to join in here, though I'm running rather late - still only half-way through the first part/book. I've made a little pledge to myself that Ill ty to participate in the book club in the coming year, and I had wanted to start with this book, but my last read took longer than I thought it would ... anyway, I'm here now.


Aside from being too long and dry, the preface didn't worry me. As religious exposition goes I've read much worse (and recently). Many people express their moral ground in religious terms, but take away the religion and the moral ground is still there - which you may either share, or not.


I am slowly growing to enjoy the book as these early chapters progress, learning that I need to stay alert for the changing context and watch out for the links between the worlds.

I find that I like the contemporary (to Carroll) setting most, here there seems to be something tangible to the characters. In Outland there is little to like so far, except perhaps the gardener. Bruno is annoying and Sylvie is bland to the point of invisibility, while the others are merely farcical props for his playful language. This lack of character in the characters is nothing new to Carroll, but this work - so far - lacks the charm of Alice in Wonderland and that makes the lack more obvious. The most interesting aspect to Outland, so far, is the way the narrator is both there and not there with the characters; I find myself watching for him, wondering if he's every going to fully materialise there in Outland.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by gmw

I hope it's okay to join in here, though I'm running rather late - still only half-way through the first part/book. I've made a little pledge to myself that Ill ty to participate in the book club in the coming year, and I had wanted to start with this book, but my last read took longer than I thought it would ... anyway, I'm here now.

Of course it is. The more, whenever, the merrier. And you're not so late as all that anyway.

I am slowly growing to enjoy the book as these early chapters progress, learning that I need to stay alert for the changing context and watch out for the links between the worlds.[.quote]

I enjoyed that aspect, the shifts between worlds and how organically they occurred. From the way the book started, right in the middle of things, to the second chapter which he called the start of the story, the shifts required attention. I also think the way he managed them indicated that the one world wasn't solely a dream world. There would be more evidence of this later, of course. There's also the question of how many others in the "real" world may be shifting in and out of "dream" worlds of their own.

[gmw]

I read these lines:

‘That is all very beautiful sentiment,’ I said, ‘but it is not practical. It is not like you.

He either fears his fate too much,
Or his desert is small,
Who dares not put it to the touch,
To win or lose it all.’

‘I dare not ask the question whether there is another!’ he said passionately. ‘It would break my heart to know it!’
‘Yet is it wise to leave it unasked? You must not waste your life upon an “if”!’

And was strongly reminded of the Kipling poem "If", enough to wonder whether it had been inspired by that poem ... only to see that "If" was first written in 1895, and this book first published in 1889. So now I am left wondering whether Kipling gained some inspiration from Carroll or whether they both gained inspiration the same source. The quoted poem in Sylvie and Bruno is from James Graham (1612-1650), if this source https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/James_...ss_of_Montrose is not in error.

Just a curiosity.

[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!

[JSWolf]

I'm not finding the ideas interesting. I'm finding this book to be one big disjointed mess. It reads like it's written by someone with severe mental difficulties such as paranoia, schizophrenia and various other psychosis.

[gmw]

One of the interests in reading a book of this age is to get some idea of the way people thought in those times. Given that so much has a apparently changed since then, it can sometimes be surprising to notice what hasn't changed.

In chapter 19 the narrator and Arthur agree that the country church seemed a better representation of a "house of God" than the more formal city churches. I remember very similar remarks made about the country church I attended as a child, and the expression of city church services a "performances" is also familiar to me - although I don't remember the phrase "blatant little coxcombs" being used.


Also in chapter 19 is a discussion about whether giving (self-sacrifice) is truly good/noble if the gift is only made in the expectation of some later return (as being offered by the church "a thousandfold"). Though this is couched in religious terms in the book, it is a more general philosophical question.

Selfishness and selflessness seems to be a theme overlaying both the contemporary and the Outland settings of the work. There is, by the end of the first book, no sign that selflessness is particularly rewarding, but then that would be consistent with the idea expressed ch19: it wouldn't be selfless if it was rewarding.


In chapter 21 we see the scene with Sylvie and the dead hare. This is a reiteration of Carroll's thoughts from the preface concerning good hunters vs bad hunters. Of course this idea is expressed in religious terms, but again it is not necessary to be religious to have at least some sympathy with the idea that such careless and purposeless killing is wrong. I can't say that I can really see this as theme of the work, though it would appear to have been strong in Carroll's mind at the time.

[gmw]

While I can understand how the book seems disjointed, I am almost surprised at how cohesive it has become (at least up to the end of the first book). Despite the fragmentary beginnings described by Carroll in the preface, in some respects I have found this story more coherent and purposeful than Alice in Wonderland (etc.), though the latter was more fun.

There is, for me, no sense that Carroll did not know what he was doing, and by the time we get to chapter 22 we have the narrator with a watch that alters time, and find him saying "I valued my own reputation for sanity too highly to venture on explaining to him what happened". This begins to put a real-world perspective over what, up to now, might otherwise be explained away as dreams or hallucinations ... and we still might, but these explanations demonstrate that Carroll is quite conscious of the effect he has created.

In chapter 23 we have the Earl give a dissertation on how to enjoy a book. We might think that Carroll is admonishing us as readers to pay attention. To put ourselves into a book and read what is there rather than skipping ahead for points of particular interest. ... But the Earl goes on to advise "that we should learn to take our pleasures quickly, and our pains slowly", which I found rather contradictory to the sentiments on reading.

The final two chapters of the first part/book (24 & 25) didn't sit all that well with me, I hope that's not a sign of things to come.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by gmw

Also in chapter 19 is a discussion about whether giving (self-sacrifice) is truly good/noble if the gift is only made in the expectation of some later return (as being offered by the church "a thousandfold"). Though this is couched in religious terms in the book, it is a more general philosophical question.

Selfishness and selflessness seems to be a theme overlaying both the contemporary and the Outland settings of the work. There is, by the end of the first book, no sign that selflessness is particularly rewarding, but then that would be consistent with the idea expressed ch19: it wouldn't be selfless if it was rewarding.

There's a version of Christianity in the US that says that God rewards prayers with material prosperity. On the one hand, that seems an extreme example of what Carroll deplores, doing good in the expectation of reward. At the same time, he's careful to put no limitations on God or the efficacy of prayer. However, people of religious bent have to be comfortable with paradox and Carroll is manifestly even more so than most. I thought him unnecessarily hard on Eric, who lives an upright life and even saves Bruno, where the believers were impotent. Clearly Carroll was no fan of secular humanism.

Originally Posted by gmw

There is, for me, no sense that Carroll did not know what he was doing, and by the time we get to chapter 22 we have the narrator with a watch that alters time, and find him saying "I valued my own reputation for sanity too highly to venture on explaining to him what happened". This begins to put a real-world perspective over what, up to now, might otherwise be explained away as dreams or hallucinations ... and we still might, but these explanations demonstrate that Carroll is quite conscious of the effect he has created.

I thought that Carroll signaled that at the very beginning, when the Lord Chancellor seemed to address Mister Sir directly, although Mister Sir immediately became incorporeal subsequently. Or, one thought that was with me, why not assume that others were shifting between worlds as well, so anyone's seemingly irrelevant remark might be addressed to yet another world equally real or unreal. Once you have more than one universe, there's no reason not to infer multitudes.