Mr. Carroll did a great job with both stories. I greatly enjoy every time I read them. ( )

I decided to read Alice in Wonderland as an attempt to see if Lewis Carroll was high on drugs while he wrote this book. Obviously, he wasn't; that does not, however, devalue the levels of his writing. Carroll's writing is strong, but Alice in Wonderland is just too devoid of substance to be considered literature. ( )

An engaging fantasy that is best read in full because the language is as important as the plot and the poetry. ( )

thoroughly enjoyable, consistently baffling. Carroll relies perhaps too much on the fanciful characters interpreting Alice's idioms literally, but there's lots of genuinely fun stuff here, and almost all the poems work well within the text. I think I liked "Through the Looking Glass" better because it was less random (i.e. themes are consistent thorough, chess and signifiers) and yet more bizarre. ( )

This summer I flew seven hours and twenty-seven minutes across the Atlantic Ocean to Oxford, England. I studied at Pembroke College in Oxford University and saw Alice’s door myself in Christ Church Cathedral. Alice was a popular topic in Oxford. All the tourist shops had Alice shirts, Alice totes, Alice pencils and so I deemed it fitting that I read Alice in Wonderland during my month stay away from home.

To my surprise, I like the Disney movie better than Carroll’s written work. The words just seemed like “mumble-jumble”, as my mother would say, and didn’t make any sense. At one point Alice asks herself, “Would a cat eat a bat? Would a cat eat a bat? Would a bat eat a cat?” while tumbling down the infamous rabbit hole, and throughout the book there were instances like this that seemed a little unnecessary. I found that as I was reading Carroll’s unnecessary flow of drug-induced consciousness, my own mind wandered to what I would do the next day, what meal they were serving in the cafeteria and how much was left on my international calling card. To say the least I was extremely disappointed.

I did enjoy some of the stories, particularly the poem about the walrus and the carpenter (which had always been a favorite of mine during my Disney movie watching days), but there were too many little stories jammed together. Too many characters were fighting for attention and page space in the novel and Alice just had too exciting of a dream, especially during Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Through the Looking Class was calmer when it came to plot and every event tied in to the other. I could definitely relate to Carroll’s analogy of the chess board quads. It was an interesting way at looking at the decorative grass squares on campus that were prominent in the Oxford culture (only the Fellows at Oxford could walk on the grass).

Turning the last page, I didn’t understand why Oxford was so enamored with Alice and her adventures, even if it was inspired by the spires of the college. Carroll does have an inventive imagination, but I think it would have been better if he had expanded on just a few ideas instead of jamming them all together into one story. He could have written an entire series instead of two books and maybe spacing out the incidents would have helped them flow, making it easier for the reader to enjoy. I can understand why the Disney experts decided to only take part of the story to make the children’s movie. If they had included everything, it would have been far, far too much. ( )