Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Part 3
Curiouser and curiouser!
This week, thanks to an understandably terrified mouse, Alice makes it out of the pool of tears and stumbles upon a whole host of creatures that are far more willing and eager to talk to her than a disappearing White Rabbit, that is until she mentions the unmentionable — her cat Dinah who for some reason doesn’t seem to be very popular with the birds and beasts of this world, either.
The fabulous array of characters that Lewis Carroll has assembled here almost reminds me of one of Leslie Knope’s town hall meetings in Parks & Recreation all as sublime as they are ridiculous, squabbling with one another over very little with great passion and fervour, it’s a shame they don’t pop up again — or at least I don’t think they do!
It seems really dumb to state the obvious here but I genuinely think the success of this book that has made it such a mainstay classic, is its comedy. I hadn’t consciously observed before now just how accomplished Lewis Carroll’s dialogue is and how hilarious, too. The jokes are genuinely funny and only work because of the structure and rhythm they’re written within (with knowing precision) — successful comedy is absolutely dependent on these things lining up perfectly as they do here. It lends itself so well to the silliness of childlike humour but also the very adult relationship to irony. Layer on top of that the very human observation of Alice’s relentless social faux-pas’ to which she is completely oblivious feel universally (and painfully) relatable. It really is a true masterpiece of creative expression for adults and children alike.
In this third chapter you can expect a curious tale in the shape of a tail, an all round prize-winning race with surprise treats at the finish and a fair amount of misunderstandings, confusions and cross words in the midst of it all.
Alice is momentarily distracted from her desire to find that long-lost beautiful garden at least, for which she can’t help but keep misplacing the key, though will more than once begin to feel mightily sorry for herself and her predicament once again.