ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND BY LEWISS CAROLL

 “Who in the world am I? Ah, that’s the great puzzle”

No need to say anything about the book. It’s one of the most well-known children’s book in history. I bought solely because of the illustration inside the book. The book is full with colors and this is my first book with color on the edge. I bought it simply for my collection.

Publisher: Classics Reimagined

Cover: Thick paperback

Paper: Coated paper

Price: RM 19.90

Bookstore: BookExcess Cyberjaya

A very excellent book to buy for your bed time story session with your kids. For this kind of book, with full color of illustration and printed on coated papers, the price is a great bargain. The original price was so much expensive $15.99 US.  What to expect from BookExcess. Everything is sold in lower price, something that you will never get elsewhere. I am really really grateful that they exist!

 

Synopsis:

Extracted from https://www.britannica.com/topic/Alices-Adventures-in-Wonderland

“The story centers on Alice, a young girl who falls asleep in a meadow and dreams that she follows the White Rabbit down a rabbit hole. She has many wondrous, often bizarre adventures with thoroughly illogical and very strange creatures”

I remembered I read this story somewhere when I was little. And still remember how I was fascinated with the story, though I couldn’t remember the plot exactly. Now, when I read it again, I can conclude that this is a nonsense, illogical literature that could not fathom out by our complex way of thinking as an adult. Yes indeed, this story was made for the children and the way it is illustrated, only children could understand it. Lewis Caroll knows exactly how children’s mind worked. As for me personally, the story of Alice’s adventures in her dream is a correct representation of how children’s dream looks like. Try to remember any dream that you experienced as a kid. It was nothing but a nonsense. I vaguely remember bit of dream that I had when I was a kid. I remembered one correctly because of that dream, I peed myself in sleep. I was on a boat, playing captain and suddenly a huge wave attacked and I fall. The rest is history. Even as an adult, I do having a nonsense dream once in a while. It was fun and much better rather than having a nightmare about your work or your bosses. LOL. 

Did you know that, originally the story was told by Lewis to three little kids, Lorina, Alice and Edith? Later after that, Alice requested him to write about the story for her and because of that simple request, Lewis produced a story about Alice’s Adventures under Ground in the form of storybook. Someone happened to saw the storybook at Lewis’s home and suggested for it to be published. And thanks to that, ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND was published and become one of the most popular and beloved literary fiction in the world. We should thank Alice for her little wish. And did you know that earlier of its publication it received a lot of critics due to the ridiculous and nonsense storyline and meaningless riddles and poems? However young readers were captivated with the story. Again back to the original purpose, this story was made for children. With their simple and innocent mind, they enjoyed the story better than the adults.

Among all dialogues in the story, I love this one the most:

“Said the Duchess; “ and the moral of that is- ‘be what you would seem to be’- or if you’d like it put more simply-‘never imagine yourself not to be otherwise that what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise that what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.”

It sounds inspirational at first, but ridiculous towards the end as I could not figure out of what exactly meant by the Duchess. And then I realized, she just played with the words.

So my rate this time, is not for the story, it is for the book.  4/5. The book is undoubtedly beautiful but since it is printed on coated papers, the edge can be sharp if you don’t handle it carefully.