If the problems we have never go away and are in some sense insoluble—that is, unforgettable—what moral stories might we tell as consolation? One of the things the adult imagines is, of course, an adulthood that never quite arrived to take the place of Wonderland.

 

 

Tan Lin is a writer, artist, and critic. He is the author of two books of poetry, Lotion Bullwhip Giraffe, and BlipSoak01. He received his Ph.D. from Columbia University and teaches creative writing at New Jersey City University.

NOTES TO THE INTRODUCTION

1 Adam Phillips, The Beast in the Nursery (New York: Basic Books, 1998), pp. 134-135.

2 Mark Haworth-Booth, “The Photographic Moment of Lewis Carroll,” in Morton N. Cohen, ed., Reflections in a Looking-Glass: A Centennial Celebration of Lewis Carroll, Photographer (New York: Aperture, 1998), p. 127.

3 Derek Hudson, Lewis Carroll: An Illustrated Biography (London: Constable, 1976), p. 114.

4 Hudson, p. 114.

5 Hudson, p. 152.

6 Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project, translated by Howard Eiland and Kevin McLaughlin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), p. 105.

7 Adam Phillips, On Kissing, Tickling, and Being Bored (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), p. 78.

8 Adam Phillips, Terrors and Experts (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996), p. 1.

9 Phillips, Terrors and Experts, p. 1.

10 Adam Phillips, Promises Promises (London: Faber, 2000), p. 175.

11 Elizabeth Sewell, “The Balance of Brillig,” in Alice in Wonderland, edited by Donald J. Gray, second edition (New York: Norton, 1992), p. 384.

12 Sewell, p. 384.

13 Gregory Ulmer, “The Puncept in Grammatology,” in On Puns, edited by Jonathan Culler (Oxford: Blackwell, 1988), p. 176.

14 Martin Gardner, The Annotated Alice (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1960), p. 109.

15 Adam Phillips, On Flirtation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994), p. xx.

16 Phillips, On Flirtation, p. xx.

17 Gardner, p. 191.

18 Ian Hacking, The Taming of Chance (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990), p. 14.

19 Hudson, p. 156.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

PREFACE

To The

 

EIGHTY-SIXTH THOUSAND

 

Enquiries have been so often addressed to me, as to whether any answer to the Hatter’s Riddle (see p. 79) can be imagined, that I may as well put on record here what seems to me to be a fairly appropriate answer, viz. “Because it can produce a few notes, though they are very flat; and it is nevar put with the wrong end in front!” This, however, is merely an after-thought: the Riddle, as originally invented, had no answer at all.

All in the golden afternoon
Full leisurely we glide;
For both our oars, with little skill,
By little arms are plied,
While little hands make vain pretence
Our wanderings to guide.

 

Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour,
Beneath such dreamy weather,
To beg a tale of breath too weak
To stir the tiniest feather!
Yet what can one poor voice avail
Against three tongues together?

 

Imperious Prima flashes forth
Her edict “to begin it”:
In gentler tones Secunda hopes
“There will be nonsense in it!”
While Tertia interrupts the tale
Not MORE than once a minute.

 

Anon, to sudden silence won,
In fancy they pursue
The dream-child moving through a land
Of wonders wild and new,
In friendly chat with bird or beast—
And half believe it true.

 

And ever, as the story drained
The wells of fancy dry,
And faintly strove that weary one
To put the subject by,
“The rest next time—” “It IS next time!”
The happy voices cry.

 

Thus grew the tale of Wonderland:
Thus slowly, one by one,
Its quaint events were hammered out—
And now the tale is done,
And home we steer, a merry crew,
Beneath the setting sun.

 

Alice! A childish story take,
And, with a gentle hand,
Lay it where Childhood’s dreams are twined
In Memory’s mystic band,
Like pilgrim’s wither’d wreath of flowers
Pluck’d in a far-off land.

CHRISTMAS-GREETINGS.
[FROM A FAIRY TO A CHILD.]

Lady dear, if Fairies may
For a moment lay aside
Cunning tricks and elfish play,
’T is at happy Christmas-tide.

 

We have heard the children say—
Gentle children, whom we love—
Long ago, on Christmas Day,
Came a message from above.

 

Still, as Christmas-tide comes round,
They remember it again—
Echo still the joyful sound
“Peace on earth, good-will to men!”

 

Yet the hearts must childlike be
Where such heavenly guests abide;
Unto children, in their glee,
All the year is Christmas-tide!

 

Thus, forgetting tricks and play
For a moment, Lady dear,
We would wish you, if we may,
Merry Christmas, glad New Year!

 

Christmas, 1867.

I

Down the Rabbit Hole

Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister on the bank, and of having nothing to do; once or twice she had peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no pictures or conversations in it, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversations?”

So she was considering, in her own mind (as well as she could, for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.

There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself “Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!” (when she thought it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural); but, when the Rabbit actually took a watch out of its waistcoat-pocket, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to take out of it, and, burning with curiosity, she ran across the field after it, and was just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.

In another moment down went Alice after it, never once considering how in the world she was to get out again.

The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way, and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself falling down what seemed to be a very deep well.

Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her, and to wonder what was going to happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything: then she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and bookshelves: here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs.