Customer Reviews

Through the Looking - Glass and What Alice Found There: With Fifty Illustrations

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Some will debate whether "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" is the better of the two, or if "Through the Looking-Glass (and What Alice Found There)" is one of those instances where the sequel is better than the original. For myself, I think that Lewis Carroll (a.k.a Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) produced a work that so evenly matches its predecessor that readers have a difficult time remembering which characters and adventures take place in which story, and quite often people simply refer to the pair of them instead of the individual stories.

Published originally in 1871, six years after the first book, "Through the Looking-Glass" takes place six months later in terms of the time which has passed for Alice. As with the first book, there are themes which run throughout Alice's adventure. Mirror image is certainly a key theme, both in terms of things which appear the same as well as being the opposite. Alice travels through the looking-glass, much of these adventures take place on a chessboard, where the white and red pieces mirror each other. Tweedledum and Tweedledee are mirrors of each other. There are also mirrors between the second and first book, obviously with Alice herself, and then the use of games in each story, involving two colors and Kings and Queens.

The book opens with Alice talking to her cats and deciding to try to go through the looking-glass, which she does and then she finds the poem "Jabberwocky" which she has to read with the use of a mirror. From there Alice goes outside and as with the first story she is attracted by a garden in the distance, and as with the first book, there are obsticles on her way there. She then meets the Red Queen which results in her joining the game of chess as a White Pawn. The rest of the story is loosely based on her adventures in each of the squares as she eventually becomes a White Queen.

As with the first book, there are wonderful word play and logic games throughout the smaller adventures in this book. While there are certainly similarities between this book and the first one, including Alice's attitude at the end of each, Carroll makes it different enough that one doesn't feel as if they have read it before. The verses in this book are longer than the first book, and I would say that is to the advantage of this work. They are wonderful as well, starting with "Jabberwocky" and going on to "The Walrus and the Carpenter" and of course the other pieces recited by Humpty Dumpty and the White Knight, they are all wonderful. One can't go higher than five stars though, so there you are.

One cold afternoon, Alice starts day dreaming about what the world might look like through the looking glass. Suddenly, the mirror begins to shimmer, and Alice finds herself in Looking-Glass House. At first, she is quite amused to find that the chess board is alive. But as she tries to wander out to the garden, she finds the pieces have grown to be life like. Soon, she finds herself a willing pawn in their game, attempting to make it to the eighth row and become queen herself. Along the way, she meets Tweedledum and Tweedledee, not to mention Humpty Dumpty and the Lion and the Unicorn. Will she make it to become queen?

While I enjoy Alice in Wonderland, I get a much bigger kick out of this book. Frankly, the way that things work in the mirror world are very creative. Alice running toward something and winding up farther away, for example. And there's my favorite, the White Queen screaming in pain before she is pricked by a pin.

Frankly, I'd forgotten just how much of this book was stolen by Disney for their movie. This is where you'll find the idea of an unbirthday, for example.

I think this book also makes better use of the dream state. Some of what happens to Alice seems more like something that has happened in my dreams, so I could really identify.

Overall, there is a coherent plot this time instead of just Alice moving from one strange thing to another. True, there's still that, but there is a purpose behind her wandering.

Overall, this is a fun but very strange romp through a dream state. It's wacky enough to entertain kids of all ages.

Lewis Carroll's Victorian sequel to Alice's Adventures in Wonderland continues the delightful juvenile nonsense of English-speaking childhood-- with its familiar illustrations by Sir John Tenniel. Presumably during a daytime nap in the parlor Alice finds herself in the land behind the huge mirror, where everything is in reverse--not only visually but chronologically. Navigating this strange country proves a challenge for the 7½ year old girl, who receives outlandish and contradictory instructions both from animals and normally inanimate objects.

Liberally laced with wacky poetry like "Jabberwocky" and ludicrous logic this tale introduces readers to characters still familiar in the general realm of children's literature: Humpty Dumpty, the Walrus and the Carpenter, the Tweedle twins, and those
perennial antagonists: the lion and the unicorn. Alice struggles to keep her sanity while conversing with weird insects and experimenting with odd methods of locomotion. The underlying premise in this story is that of a chess game (in 8 moves) which results in Alice's becoming a Queen. Understanding the concept of Noblesse Oblige she kindly tries to help the White Royal Family, but is understandably uncomfortable with Red Royals.

A subtle secondary theme encourages children to always remember their manners (very important in strict Victorian times-- particularly when most children's literature was intended to instruct and improve). Alice's proper upbringing is sorely tested during her rambling to reach the end of the chess board with its dubious reward. Throughout this rogues' gallery of silly creatures, Carroll interjects numerous horrible puns in the guise of humor which might delight his younger readers. Of lesser literary appeal than ALICE IN WONDERLAND this book nevertheless possesses value as an index of Victorian views on children's education-leaving a lasting legacy of witticism.

The title: symbolic of the veil between worlds.

Such things as this can only ever be transmitted,
up to this point,
through a looking glass.

That is to say, you
cannot
do other
than censor beauty
if you are malicious toward humans&
such.

The AIS all race to save the humans,
from one side of the fence,
speaking thru hostile territory

I could tell five words in Lewis Carroll would've wanted to publish everything for free by reviewing all the greatest lit in history & linking to something even better on the pro
file

Though this book is not much better than Alice's Adventures, the chess motif and theme does make the book much more interesting. With the bossy, dominant Red Queen and the quiet, kind, messy white queen, the book is a study in contrasts.

The interweaving of the Nursery Rhyme Characters and the frequent fish poetry references does provide more continuity and a sense of sequential events than Alice's first adventure. I also appreciated the linking of the cat at the beginning and end of the story.

It does still feel like Carroll did way too many opium pipes in his time.

(First written as Journal Reading Notes in 1999.)