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The Annotated Snark: The Full Text of Lewis Carroll's Great Nonsense Epic, The Hunting of the Snark

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`The Hunting of the Snark' may not only be the greatest nonsense poem ever written, it may be one of the half dozen most famous poems of all time in English, as long as you don't include Shakespeare's dramas written in verse.

This particular edition of this great poem, edited by James Tanis and John Dooley, includes many extras, the most important of which is `The Annotated Snark' by Martin Gardner, the logician / puzzle master who also annotated Lewis Carroll's Alice stories. Since the poem appears in both a facsimile of its original publication and in Gardner's annotated form, the poem actually appears twice.

My first encounter with `The Hunting of the Snark' was on a late Saturday night, as I was surfing the AM radio dial in 1958 or 1959 and I ran across this very odd recitation of verse in this furtively confidential voice. Even at this tender age, I was familiar with the fact that some of the most creative broadcasting is done in commercials, so I passed it by on my way northward. Having found nothing of special interest, I came back south, returning to 710 AM and found the recitation to be still in full swing. This being long before the age of infomercials, I knew something else was afoot, and stayed with this signal (which happened to be the great WOR talk radio station out of New York City and the voice was that of the equally great Jean Shepherd, who did regular readings of `The Hunting of the Snark' on his WOR radio show. So notable is this confluence of work and performer that the editors of this volume even make note of it and add that Shepherd often ended the recitation with the statement that `. and this is NOT Uncle Wiggley'. One upshot of this contact was that I became a lifelong Jean Shepherd fan.

I was certainly familiar with Carroll's Alice stories at this time, although `Alice in Wonderland' was much more familiar than `Alice Through the Looking Glass', as Walt Disney had already done an animated version of the Wonderland tale. While there is certainly a fair amount of absurdity in the Disney version (picture the Mad Hatter and the March Hare careening around the table shouting `No Room, No Room' and you can get a fair taste of Carroll's absurdity in the animation.) But, the cartoon made it just a little too easy to confuse fantasy (J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis' stock in trade) with Carroll's true genre, nonsense.

Having virtually memorized the `Jabberwocky' poem from `Alice's Adventures in Wonderland', I was just initially just a bit disappointed in `...Snark' as there seemed to be less absurdity and word invention per stanza than in `Jabberwocky', but then, `Jabberwocky' is but three stanzas long, while `...Snark' consists of eight `fits', each composed of about 23 stanzas. But I have come to love this poem more than any other piece of verse I can think of, except for `Jabberwocky' and, possibly, the 23rd psalm. Needless to say, I am not a big fan of verse, so I give my attraction to these works even more weight.

One of the most notable discoveries in the notes to the poem in this book is Carroll's use of the number 42. By itself this may not seem remarkable, and Gardner can offer no explanation for this bit of numerology. But, 42 happens to be the answer to the meaning of the universe in Douglas Adams' `Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'. I will bet the farm that Adams borrowed this `answer' from Lewis Carroll, although no commentator in this volume on `...Snark' makes mention of this borrowing.

One very notable aspect of the publication of `The Hunting of the Snark' is the fact that the illustrations were not done by John Tenniel, the illustrator for the Alice books, but by Henry Holiday, a more conventionally `art nouveau' illustrator, who went on to design stained glass windows for many an important church, including one notable house of worship in New York City. The editors' opinion on the drawings is that they are inferior to Tenniel's Alice drawings. I will agree, since they have not become a part of our modern cultural baggage like Tenniel's white rabbit or hookah smoking caterpiller. But they add to the poem nonetheless, and the drafts and the one unused illustration alone may be worth the price of this book.

Should you not be familiar with this poem, but like Carroll's Alice books, I strongly recommend you get a copy of this work in this richly annotated form. If you know and like the poem, but have never read Gardner's annotated version, I also highly recommend this work. I am certain that there are dozens of references and inventions which will simply be hidden from you without this help.

As an annotation, I find no puzzling construction left untouched. There are a few for which Gardner confesses he does not have a definitive resolution, but hints are offered on all puzzles. I have seen other annotated works such as the annotation of Sherlock Holmes stories and `The Hobbit', and this is easily one of the best on that score.

Very highly recommended for fans of Carroll and nonsense fiction.