Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll

Yes, yes, the latest Johnny Depp/ Helena Bonham Carter/ Mia W. version of the classics by Lewis Carroll just recently got released. In light of that I decided to full read both books: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and what she found there and Alice Through the Looking Glass. I read the books, and I listened to the audio book narrated word for word by that dude Christopher Plummer. So what did I find there?

If you ever watched the 1985 Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass, made for TV movie starring Ringo Starr, Beau Bridges, Carol Channing, Red Buttons, Sammy Davis Jr., Anthony Newley, and Jonathan Winters to name a few, you will realize that the movie follows the book pretty closely. There are some songs in it not in the books. I will not review the movie but it helps if you've seen it, or want an accurate non- scary, non-dark version of the book.

The book is a children's book. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who wrote under the nom de plume Lewis Carroll, wrote the story to tell it to 6 year old Alice Liddell. If anything is dark or creepy about this book is that the author, then in his mid 20s, may have "befriended" an 11 year old. If you do your research you will find "Lewis Carroll" did take some weird pictures of the young girl. So scrapping that creepiness, the book is written for children.

One must remember we're dealing with witty 6-7 year-old children who always had a come back. The story of Alice is a smart but curious girl. She talks to her self a lot, and she enters wonderland and later she goes through the looking glass. Here she encounters many characters who play with words so much - ie. The Mockturtle cries, and talks about his teacher who they called Tortoise. So Alice asks why did they call him Tortoise if he was really a turtle. The Mockturtle replies - "we called him Tortoise, because he "Taught us". 

Now that's a very linguistic joke, you have to say it out loud. Thus the magnificent audio version by Plummer is amazing. Then there's the part in Through the Looking Glass, where Alice tells the flowers she's never talked to a talking flower before, and they reply because all the other gardens have soft beds so the flowers are always sleeping! Very witty and fun the book is if read the right way. I always feel very sad when none of these jokes and wit don't come through in movies. This was the genius of the book after all.

Another thing which was something you do not realize while watching any of the movies is that the two worlds are two separate games. Wonderland has the Queen of hearts. It's all cards. Through the looking glass has the red queen, the white queen, the white knight and red knight, the red king and white king - which are Chess pieces. Two different games, two different worlds. Each of these characters are so different from the other. The nicest person in all her journeys is the White Knight, who although strange is the perfect Knight in shinning armor.

Alice's whimsical thoughts and dialogues with the characters and herself is the highlight of the book. It's the mind of a 5-11 year old, although young they still have wit, and intelligence. It's the perfect afternoon snooze book, with iced tea and lemonade. I found myself laughing out loud multiple times while reading it. It was hysterical, and playful.

So why do we keep making kids movies dark and scary is my question? I hated the Jabberwocky, in the book it is a poem, and nothing else. The Jaberwocky never shows up and tries to kill her. No one tries to kill her, in fact she just needs to cross all the squares on the chess board to become a queen. Get it? When your pawn makes it across the chessboard, it becomes a Queen! In the Wonderland since its a card game, you have the Queen of Spades, Diamonds, etc. and Kings, and Knaves, and other cards, and there's a court in session. I think this goes to help a young child understand the justice system through complex grown up games like cards, and chess.

This is a fun book, and not very serious. I recommend it for fun times, for laughs. It's entertaining and has fun characters, the writing is brilliant. It is thought provoking at different levels, so it just depends on how deep you want to go with it.

Plot: 7/10
Entertainment: 10/10
Characters: 10/10
Writing Style: 10/10
Thought Provoking: 7/10
Recommend: 7/10

Audio book version by Christopher Plummer - Can be found on Audible.com - I give that book a 10/10 because he does the voices so well, and his diction is perfect.

Humanities Book 1: The Monsters - Hoobler

The Monsters by Dorothy Hoobler and Thomas Hoobler was the first book we had to read for Prof. John Panza's Humanities class - The Individual in Society. It was the first of four books. The other being Dr. Haggard's Disease, Dr. Faustus, and The Sheltering Sky. Once again these are books I would never known I'd enjoy because I would have never picked them up. The impact of these books, and the class was empowering and I will say helped me find who I am.

In this review I will talk about the book, the branches of the book that one might be interested in, and the class and how the class embraced these books (See posts titled Humanities Book). I will discuss (wow just the memory of the class makes me mighty emotional and it has been a month since the last class. One would think it was a love affair rather than just a class), how the books slowly transformed my view on romantic/Gothic literature over the course of the four blogs.

The Book: Everything you know about Frankenstein, is wrong. That is, if you have not read the 1818 version. If you have not read either of the publication your idea of Frankenstein is still very wrong. This book explores in great detail how "Frankenstein" came to be, not just the book, but this legendary idea of horror that has yielded so many horror, science fiction books throughout the ages. It is from this one idea, her "child", that we have other monsters today.

The book opens with Mary Wollstonecraft, and her story. Some of you may know her as the first feminist writer ever. When I read about her in this book, many ideas matched my own. A lady living in 1700s England and France had the ideas for the modern woman today. Mary Wollestonecraft was independent, well read, educated, and very liberal. She moved to France and saw the French revolution first hand. In fact the ideas and writings of Voltaire etc. was what moved her to move. She may have been a feminist but she was romantic in the notion she knew what this revolution meant to the people. Until it got violent. She then moved. She eventually met her husband William Godwin, who as revolutionary as he was had a very strange and different background than Mary. They eventually married because Mary W. got pregnant, in those days these things were not looked upon well in high society, and that is the only reason they wed. Otherwise both of them were against marriage. Mary W. gave birth to her daughter but died 11 days after due to an infection. This daughter would later be known as Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein. After his wife dies, Godwin is filled with grief for he deeply loved Mary W. Either way he eventually re marries, and Mary Shelley is not treated as well by her step-mom.

We follow their stories very closely as all these people kept intricate and intimate journals. All their thoughts, feelings, actions are documented. Except for some missing pages which are thought to have been ripped out by Mary Shelley herself to clean up her image, for she feared the conservativeness of the Victorian era would tarnish her family name, although she grew up during the more "liberal" Romantic era.

We learn in this book exactly what Romantic means, and what it meant then to be a romantic. It is quite different from what and how it is depicted these days. They were the original Punks, and they were Kurt Cobain, they were the Rock Stars of the era. They crashed and burned, and burned deep. It was not just about love, but about death, and sex, and sex on a grave stone. (Read the book). Mary S. (she never wanted to take her father's name, she rather used Mary Wollstonecraft-Godwin, like her mother, later Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley), met her boyfriend who was at the time married to someone else. They ran away with each other to France, with her step-sister in tow. Her step sister was Clair Clairmont. We get to read about the juicy drama between them, and her bf. Mary Shelley's BF - Percy Bysshe Shelley, eventually gets a divorce and marries Mary. However, Mary gets it in her head that if he was married and cheating on his last wife, he might be doing that now too. There ends up being friction there.

The threesome travel France, and Italy and France. They end up meeting Lord Byron, who is womanizer. He sparks love and idealism in many a girl, but some smart girls (like Mary) stay away from him. He might have been bisexual and shortly after him, the term bisexual was coined. He lived the life though loving women physically but men even more - intellectually and physically. Lord Byron was an all rounder, he was the first super star in England. He was a poet, but people sought to be around him.

It was after meeting Lord Byron at Villa Diodatti on Lake Geneva that Percy became kind of obsessed with Byron and vice-versa. They were enamored by each other's intellect, their minds fascinated each other and often spent many hours on the lake and at the mansion talking. Sometimes Mary would be allowed to be there to listen. It was during the storm of 1816 due to the Mt. Tambora in Indonesia erupting, that Byron challenged each of the party to write a horror story wore than the horror stories they had been reading- Fantasmagoriana. There was Claire, Mary, Percy and Byron's buddy/doctor Polidori and Byron himself. They each went to their rooms, and wrote. This was the inspiration of Frankenstein and also their travels through Chamonix and Mont Blanc during a snow storm mixed with her emotions for Percy and jealousy towards her sister and her interest in the up and coming subject called "science". This tempest within Mary S. resulted in the very dark but loving "child", as she called it, The Modern Prometheus. It was only Polidori's work The Vampyre and Mary's Frankenstein -or The Modern Prometheus that ever made it. The Vampire and Frankenstien's Monster are characters that live on today. The rest is history.

But wait! There's more... more drama, more juicy gossip, and deaths. It is all very "romantic" and intellectual and I won't ruin it. However the book explains why the 1818 publication of Frankenstein is so important. The later publication is but a censored and watered down version of the 1818 version. To experience true Gothic Romance one must read the 1818 version.

So other books and writers this book will Inspire you to read:

Mary Wollstonecraft-
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)
A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790)
Thoughts on the education of daughters: with reflections on female conduct, in the more important duties of life (1787)
Maria; or The Wrongs of a Woman (1798)
An Historical and Moral View of the French Revolution; and the Effect It Has produced in Europe (1794)
Letters - Posthumously published by Godwin.

William Godwin -
An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793)
The Adventures of Caleb Williams (1793)

Percy Bysshe Shelley -
Poems
The Cenci
Queen Mab
Ozymandias
To a Skylark
The Revolt of Islam
Alastor
Prometheus Unbound
Adonais
The Triumph of Life
Mont Blanc
(interesting to read about this not well known poet who has inspired so many through the ages).

Lord Byron -
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
She Walks in Beauty
The Corsair
The Giaour
Don Juan (the poem)
(His life, affairs, his looks, his legacy are much to be read about in this book).

John William Polidori-
The Diary of Dr. John William Polidori (1816)
The Vampyre: A Tale (1819)

Lady Caroline Lamb -
Glenarvon (1816)

Samuel Taylor Coleridge -
Kubla Khan
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Biographia Literaria
(He was a good friend of Godwin, and Mary grew up listening to him from behind the sofa).

William Wordsworth -
The Prelude
Lyrical Ballads
Other Poems

John Milton -
Paradise Lost (1667)

Voltaire -
The Age of Louis XIV (1751)
Essay on the Customs and the Spirit of the Nations (1756)
Henriade
The Maid of Orleans
Candide

Rousseau -
General Will

William Blake -
Illuminated Books
Tiriel
The French Revolution
A song of Liberty

Johann Wolfgang (von) Goethe -
The Sorrows of Young Werther
Faust

Mary Shelley -
The Modern Prometheus: Frankenstein (1818)
Frankenstein (1831)
Mathilda (1820)
Collections of Mary Shelley's papers are housed in Lord Abinger's Shelley Collection on deposit at the Bodleian Library, the New York Public Library (particularly The Carl H. Pforzheimer Collection of Shelley and His Circle), the Huntington Library, the British Library, and in the John Murray Collection. (Source Wikipedia).

Alfred Lord Tennyson-
Poems

Prosper Mérimée-
Carmen
Poems

Edward John Trelawny -
Recollections of the Last Days of Shelley and Byron (1858)
Adventures of a younger son (1831)

Thomas Medwin-
The Shelley Papers; Memoirs of Percy Bysshe Shelley
The Life of Percy Bysshe Shelley

Immanuel Kant -
works

Sir Humphry Davy -
Elements of Chemical Philosophy

The books The Monsters ties all the above works in very well. Yes all these amazing writers from the past hung out, gossiped, and had immense drama with each other. This book was so inspiring that a fellow classmate and I were and still are inspired to write a play about it. As a dark as all of this was we, as a class discussed it with light, and realized a lot of things in our lives, in society now (vs. then), and how we can improve our own relationships. One thing I loved about this book is how all these people who until this book you did not realize were connected, hung out like palls - kind of like how Kevin Love has all the Cavs over for dinner (Cleveland Basketball team reference FYI).

If you are interested in Gothic or romantic era novels, this is a great place to start. I also suggest a trip to the local art museum with or during reading this book. It takes you back and helps you get into that appreciative mood for art, poetry, and heavy literature (lots to think about not all light and fun). BTW I promise to write some fun/ light reading reviews soon.

Plot: 9/10
Entertainment: 9/10
Characters: 10/10
Writing Style: 7/10
Thought Provoking: 8/10
Recommend: 10/10

Humanities Book 2: Doctor Haggard's Disease - Patrick McGrath

McGrath's style is exquisite. This book is a must read for all bibliophiles. It is a contemporary gothic novel. According to my friend Wikipedia "His fiction is principally characterised by the first person unreliable narrator, and recurring subject matter in his work includes mental illness, repressed homosexuality and adulterous relationships".  That sums it up really well.

The book is set in WWII era, and is set in England. McGrath very well describes the setting, the culture, the life then. If you were watching Downton Abbey, it could be a darker follow up as to where they left off. The society, in England, is the same although changing quickly, and going to war yet again.

The main character or narrator is definitely unreliable, but it is a fascinating look into a diseased man's mind and processes. The other characters are all from this unsound narrator's perspective, so it would be unwise to jump to conclusions about them, they are very interesting nonetheless.

A summary: The plot follows the narration of one Dr. Haggard, who describes his love affair with his first love. His only love. The heart break that follows and how her love haunts him. He later meets her son, long after her death. The son is a spitfire pilot and he knows time is not on his side, as Hitler's blitzkrieg was progressing to England rapidly. He needed to find out about his mother's affair with Dr. Haggard, he pursues, so the story goes.

I recommend this book for a nice read in isolation, with coffee or a whiskey. Probably a whiskey because there's some crazy stuff that goes down. It's a short read and can be done in a week, however it is heavy stuff. The plot is convoluted, and the end is shocking as I've been told by many of the other students. The characters especially Dr. Haggard are gripping. I had a hard time putting down this book because the desire to want to know what happens next is so nagging. The language is lovely and I can not wait to read other of McGrath's works.

Plot: 9/10
Entertainment: 9/10
Characters: 10/10
Writing Style: 10/10
Thought Provoking: 10/10
Recommend: 10/10

NEVER judge a book by its cover.

The Magicians - Lev Grossman

I've been dying to review this book but I have had to wait till my feelings about it matured. So as a novice reader would find they tend to like books where they can see themselves as the main character, or where the character has no flaws - ie. Harry Potter, Twilight series, or Superman. The Magicians is about a a boy Quentin, who is obsessed with a magical world similar to Narnia. He's in high school and soon gets an invitation to a secret magical school not unlike Hogwarts. He passes the multiple entrance exams and he's suddenly a student. They quickly dispense of how he was able to ditch his mother and father and real life circumstances to be able to join the school.

The school is a small part of the larger plot but if I remember correctly it takes up most of the first book. The other characters in the book are Alice, his soon to be secretive but very intelligent (like Hermione) girlfriend. Eliot and Janet who are his house leaders for lack of better term, and his friends from old real life times, who he has now ditched. Oh and the strange character Penny who becomes important in later books.

Quentin himself is an interesting character because he is introverted, a perpetual grumpkin, and might suffer from Major Depressive disorder as described in the DSM IV. This is a strange combination, however not rare, for the protagonist. People hate this book because he is hard to identify with (I've read a lot of the reviews), others enjoy his character because he is real. I slowly began to enjoy his character after reading The Monsters (by the Hooblers) and Doctor Haggard's Disease (McGrath), where the character's flaws were the pivotal part of the story. Quentin's flaws add that overall feel to the book. Also it probably addresses mental illness and depression in a very real way.

The book gets time to get into, however after reading all three books one realizes that together they form a pretty good series. The series is now a show on the syfy channel, and they are of course, putting their own twist on it, but it makes it all the more interesting.

If you ever enjoyed the Narnia series, then this book is for you but for adults due to the sexual content, drugs and lots of drinking. Yes a Harry potter for adults. A Narnia-Harry Potter series for adults, however I would like to see this series someday stand on its own. to me Fillory is slowly becoming a very different imaginary world from Narnia.

I fell in love with the series after reading it, letting the adventure of the experience of reading it sink in, and watching the tv series where they change a lot. I think I will review the other books in the series in comparison to the actual tv show series in the future.

I'm giving it a bunch of eights though because it may be a tv show, but it is not a masterpiece, just fun for grown ups and drinking games.

Plot: 8/10
Entertainment: 8/10
Characters: 8/10
Writing Style: 6/10
Thought Provoking: 6/10
Recommend: 8/10

Redeployment - Phil Kay

I'm not one to read war stories, or biographies for that matter. I really am not enthusiastic about or enjoy anything related to war, so this book would never have been something I would have picked up on my own. We were looking for a new book for the common read program and so I picked the most unlikely book to me so that I could broaden my range (also the other books did not seem that exciting). Trying something new, something unfamiliar is not something we often chose to do willingly. This was extra motivation. I had about a week and a half to read it. Deadlines.

I have so much to say about this book, but it is hard to do so without giving it all up. A few things about the book: it is a bunch of "short stories", it is full of military talk/ jargon, and lastly the language used by soldiers is often colorful, so do expect the "F-bomb" often. Last but not least this is a very adult book, graphic, raw, brutal, honest. Not for the weak of heart. On the other hand it is great because there is a lot we can learn from it through discussion.

The first chapter is about marines who shot dogs on purpose. There is one chapter dedicated to courtesans if you get my meaning. There was a chapter dedicated to how money was used to manage the chaos of what was Iraq, the War in Iraq, the politics behind it all. There was a chapter on how it felt to come back and how women in your life and out of your life, perceived you. There was a chapter on going back to school as a veteran (vet), and how various people reacted, how vets viewed people...

There is so much to discuss here, as I mentioned earlier so it is a great book for reintegration of vets into school etc. This book also addresses the reality behind war, so its great for people who want to join the army but are not sure.  This book addresses the complexities of war, great for discussions on those who have made up their minds on which side of the fence they stand (anti-war or pro-war etc.). Lastly the casualties of war, which are the so called "war heroes" themselves and how it impacts everyone. It is something we all need to address and discuss as a society after Vietnam war, WWII etc. We needed to adjust to the heroes coming back, the victims, the refugees back then and we need to face the realities now. We must face it eventually, or we are denying a huge truth. Even when we did not support the war we are some way a part of it. I think this ties in with studies in Geography and existentialism in someway: although we think imaginary lines in the ground divide us, we are all connected.

This book leads to a lot of deep realizations. This was another book I read while working out,  and lead me to be choking up tears or gasping while running at full speed. This is a book for quiet time, to reflect, to digest the horrors. This is a book in which you are willing to hear the truth, and to take it in and know these things happen. A book that will way heavy, on the conscience and make you want to do something about it. But what? Where do we start?

This book is not entertaining, there is no plot, the characters are all different yet all the same. Yes I am going deep here. Thought provoking - hell yeah. Writing style - fuck yeah. Recommend... well its up to you.

Plot: 7/10
Entertainment: 5/10
Characters: 9/10
Writing Style: 9/10
Thought Provoking: 9/10
Recommend: 8/10

Lines I loved:

"She's been Muslim for like three days".
"My father thinks Islam is the religion of poor blacks."
"Where the Army was going to kill all those people you've been mistaken for. And you get to watch."
"For me the hardest thing is taking off the wedding rings."
"...he shot the kid..."

More great lines in this book. I suggest if you want to know more, read it. Yes a lot of these are rather instigatory if not politically incorrect at some level. Like I said it is not entertaining but educational, eye opening, and something we need to talk about to make this a better world for the future.

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

The renowned Plath, at last. This book was a beast I did not know was coming. So if you are looking for a very cerebral exploration of a woman in the 1950's mind, and how it all worked, and works even today, Plath was deeply insightful.

This book is about Esther Greenwood, she's intelligent, attractive, and successful in the way you could be in the 1950s as a woman. However, something goes wrong and everything spirals out of control for her. What is real and what is fake becomes a blur, and one begins to question society's sanity, and Esther's sanity.

As I read this I was drawn into and could identify with Esther's character to the T, other than fashion choices of course. It was deep and disturbing at some points. If you are looking for a classic, an experience of a life time you will not easily forget, good writing, this is the book for you. It is also very artsy and emo, and now I know what all the cool English kids were raving about. Just so you know this is a heavy read, maybe not as much as Finnegan's Wake, Whitman, or Joseph Conrad.

Plath's life itself is intriguing, and interesting to read about after this book, or before this book in order to better understand where it stems from. I have not been able to understand the poetry aspect of Plath yet, perhaps some day.

Here are some quotes from the book I enjoyed:
"There is nothing like puking with somebody to make you into old friends."
"I collected men with interesting names."
"...was a real fanatic about virginity for both men and women."
"...I had never been really happy again."
"...the trouble was I hated the idea of serving men in anyway..."
"I couldn't stand the idea of a woman having to have a single pure life and a man being able to have a double life, one pure and one not."
"I had never met a woman-hater before."
"...my mind slipped from the noose of the thought and swung, like a bird, in the center of empty air."

Plot: 8/10
Entertainment: 8/10
Characters: 8/10
Writing Style: 10/10
Thought Provoking: 9/10
Recommend: 8/10

The Postmortal - Drew Magary

The Postmortal was a book picked for our school's college wide  Common reading program. This meant there were going to be many activities college wide based on this book, including but not limited to Drew Margary visiting our campus. (Sadly I was unable to go to this event but I heard good reports).

This book was truly fresh and ground breaking. As the back cover reads "Imagine a near future where a cure for aging is discovered and - after much political and moral debate- made available to people worldwide. Immortality, however, comes with its own unique problems - including evil green people, government euthanasia programs, a disturbing new religious cult, and other horrors."

You can not imagine what this book holds, from introspection of a person who has taken the cure, to world wide politics, this book hits it all from the small to the big picture of immortality. We begin to wonder, what happens to people who are already old? Do they get the cure? What happens to marriage, would you really want to be married "till death do us part"? At what age do we administer the cure - is it cruel to keep a baby as a baby forever? Is it worth keeping a 90 year old 90 forever? What about resources? What about armies?

What would you do? As the book unfolds the life of the narrator and his choices are revealed. The ride the book takes you through makes you wonder what decisions you would make. Definitely entertaining, interesting story line and the character shows growth throughout the book. The language is not heavy like Dickens or Whitman, but it tells the story clearly and easy for even millennials to comprehend.

Some excerpts I loved in this book:
"Immortality will kill us all".
"You got me, I'm terrified of death."
"Death be proud".
"There are no golden years I have a stockpile for..."
"You said you'd love me forever".
"...how we're going to quantify success from this day forward... the cure forcing us to redefine the notion of excellence... if your career- nay, your entire life- has no definitive story arc?"
"The church of man is a nondenominational faith that promotes the worship of man and woman on earth."

I will leave you with that. Read it! (the cover is not much, but never judge a book by its cover).
For a nice visual guide loosely following this book watch The Immortalists on Netflix.


Plot: 10/10
Entertainment: 10/10
Characters: 8/10
Writing Style: 6/10
Thought Provoking: 9/10
Recommend: 8/10