I remember my first time ever reading Alice in Wonderland when I was very little. I was scared shitless. I thought the characters were mean and just so full of hatred, and I was glad Alice woke up in the end. Only years later did I find out that Wonderland was merely a depiction of the real world, where people are actually mean and the air is thick with hatred. It’s even worse here, because at least in Wonderland there are Mock Turtle, Gryphon, and a pack of living cards who get to go to Mad Hatter tea parties and say things like: “Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise”.
Credit:
The first ever film version of Alice in Wonderland (1903) directed by Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow, and was based on Sir John Tenniel’s original illustrations. Restored by the BFI National Archive.
Carroll’s poem Jabberwocky still rocks!
http://tinyurl.com/wockyjabber