Alice in Acidland
by Thomas Fensch
On This Page
Description
If you love Lewis Carroll, or if you remember the hippie days -- the flower power generation -- of the 1960s, you'll love Alice in Acidland. Was Alice's Adventures in Wonderland really a drug trip? Men who cleaned top hats in the days of Charles Dodgson's England used solutions of mercury, which caused brain damage: thus "mad as a hatter." Could the caterpillar really have been smoking something hallucinogenic in his waterpipe? Charles Dodgson may have passed Thomas DeQuincey on the streets show more of London -- after all -- this was generally the same era that DeQuincey wrote Confessions of an English Opium Eater. Originally published in 1970, Alice in Acidland suggests that Alice's experiences - -and the curiouser and curiouser animals that she encounters -- echo the LSD trips of the hippie 1960s - -and could easily have been visualized by Thomas DeQuincey and the mad hatters of Lewis Carroll's time . . . . The author suggests this all with tongue-firmly-in-cheek. We think. show lessTags
Member Reviews
This is a very unusual book. The entire text of Alice in Wonderland is reprinted, interspersed with "learned" asides reinterpreting the story from a druggie perspective. It seems to be parodying scholarly works of literary criticism. I *think* this book is supposed to be humorous satire, but I found it funny for only the first few pages and then the joke wore out. An interesting curiosity for my Alice collection.
Members
- Recently Added By
Lists
Alternative Alices
96 works; 4 members
Author Information
26+ Works 142 Members
Thomas Fensch has been writing for publication since 1967. A native of Ohio, Thomas Fensch has a doctorate in communications from Syracuse University and lives near Houston, Texas
Work Relationships
Is an expanded version of
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1970
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, Fantasy, Literature Studies and Criticism
- DDC/MDS
- 813.5 — Literature & rhetoric American literature in English American fiction in English 1900-1999
- LCC
- PZ4 .F337 — Language and Literature Fiction and juvenile belles lettres Fiction and juvenile belles lettres Fiction in English
Statistics
- Members
- 8
- Popularity
- 2,501,925
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (2.00)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper
- ISBNs
- 3
