Absurd, sometimes ridiculous, but incredibly sweet and wise advice from Lewis Carroll. When Alice in Wonderland was first published in Russian in 1879, many literary critics were horrified by how strange the book was. In their devastating reviews, they called on all parents to pass by this horror and never buy it for their children. Where are those critics now, and where is “Alice”, which has gone through hundreds of reprints, dozens of film adaptations, adored by children and adults.
So many generations have already learned the wisdom and absurdity from both “Alices”. Raise your hands if you're not familiar with the Cheshire Cat's classification of normality. Here you two, go and read the book at least once, it's short. We had no doubt about the rest. But besides the Cheshire cat and the rhyme about “squishy shorties”, there is still a lot of funny and deep things in the book. 
This material contains 40 rules of life for the girl Alice Liddell, which she learned while traveling through Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Learn them too. 
1. If everything in the world is meaningless, what prevents you from inventing some meaning?
2. While you’re thinking about what to say, curtsey! This saves time.
3. If you don't know what to say, speak French! When you walk, put your socks apart! And remember who you are!
4. Before you go somewhere, you need to stock up on a good branch to wave off elephants.
5. Do not lubricate your watch with butter!
6. If you have nothing else to do, come up with something better than unanswerable riddles.
7. You will definitely end up somewhere. You just need to walk long enough.
8. If you hold a red-hot poker in your hands for too long, you will eventually get burned; if you slash your finger deeply with a knife, blood usually comes out of the finger; If you drain a bottle marked “Poison!” at once, sooner or later you will almost certainly feel unwell.
9. If some people didn’t meddle in other people’s affairs, the earth would spin faster!
10. Never think that you are different from what you could be otherwise than by being different in those cases when it is impossible not to be otherwise. 
11. You have no idea how nice it is to dance a sea square dance with lobsters.
12. If the verses make no sense, so much the better. There is no need to try to explain them.
13. If I were not real, I would not cry.
14. You have to run as fast as you can just to stay in place, and to get somewhere, you have to run at least twice as fast!
15. Tomorrow never happens today. Is it possible to wake up in the morning and say: “Well, now, finally, tomorrow”?
16. I wish I could meet someone smart for a change!
17. You can always take more than nothing.
18. You need to know how to get to the cash register, even if you can’t read!
19. What good is a book if there are no pictures or conversations in it?
20. Don't grunt! Express your thoughts in a different way! 
21. If it were so, it would be nothing, and if it were nothing, it would be so, but since it is not so, it is not so! This is the logic of things!
22. One of the most serious losses in battle is losing your head.
23. When you speak, open your mouth a little wider.
24. When you feel bad, always eat splinters. You won't find another tool like this!
25. First, distribute the pie to everyone, and then cut it!
26. Why organize processions if everyone falls on their faces? No one will see anything then...
27. It’s so good to be at home! There you are always the same height!
28. Pepper probably makes them start to contradict everyone. Vinegar makes them bitter, mustard makes them sad, onions make them cunning, wine makes them guilty, and baking makes them kinder. What a pity that no one knows about this... Everything would be so simple. If only you could eat the baked goods, you would become better!
29. As soon as I swallow something, something interesting happens.
30. One blotter, of course, is not very tasty. But if you mix it with something else - with gunpowder, for example, or with sealing wax - then it’s a completely different matter! 
31. Some people are very smart, just like babies!
32. I never dissuade anyone with my hands!
33. When I find something, it is usually a frog or a worm.
34. Girls, you know, eat eggs too.
35. Tell you what, my dear, if you are going to turn into a pig, I won’t know you anymore.
36. It doesn't matter where my body is. My mind works non-stop. The lower my head, the deeper my thoughts!
37. How convenient it is to lose your name! Let's say you return home and no one knows your name. The governess will want to call you to a lesson, shout: “Come here...” and stop, she has forgotten your name. And you, of course, won’t go - after all, it’s unknown who she called!
38. Kill Time! How could he like this? If you hadn’t quarreled with him, you could have asked him for everything you wanted.
39. Ten nights are ten times warmer than one. And ten times colder.
40. Hence the moral: I can’t figure something out. 
Comments
In the article “Alice on Stage,” quoted above, Carroll wrote: “I imagined the Queen of Hearts to be the embodiment of unbridled passion - an absurd and senseless rage.” The fact that the Queen continually orders executions outrages those modern specialists in children's literature who believe that there should be no violence in books for children, especially if it evokes psychoanalytic associations. Even in L. Frank Baum's books about Oz, which are surprisingly free from all sorts of horrors that are found in abundance in the fairy tales of the Grimms and Andersen, heads are often chopped off. As far as I know, no one has tried to empirically find out how children react to such scenes and whether they cause any harm to the child's psyche. I would say that a normal child is amused by all this without causing him any harm. I would still impose one prohibition: books like “Wonderland” or “The Wise Man of Oz” should not be given to adults undergoing psychoanalysis.
In the first version of Alice, the hammers are not flamingos, but ostriches (Carroll also depicted them in his drawings for this text). He devoted a lot of time to inventing new and unusual rules for old and well-known games. His proposed rules for the complex game of Croquet Castle, which he often played with the Liddell sisters, were published in 1863 (see The Lewis Carroll Picture Book). There you can also find a reprint of the rules of the game “Lanrik”, which was played with checkers on a chessboard. His brochure "Round Billiards" was not reprinted. Of the more than two hundred pamphlets published by Carroll, twenty set out the rules of the games he invented.
An old English proverb meaning that there are things that people of low station can do in the presence of superior ones.
www.wonderland-alice.ru
5 important lessons from Alice in Wonderland
Important life lessons from Alice in Wonderland that everyone should learn
“Alice in Wonderland” is a brilliant book by the English writer and mathematics professor Lewis Carroll. Their most important value is that they are interesting at any age. Children like them for their unusual, exciting, fairy-tale plot, and adults see a deep philosophical meaning in it.
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We have a lot to learn from Lewis Carroll, here are some important life lessons from the book "Alice in Wonderland":
1. Decide where you want to go
Please tell me where should I go from here?
Where do you want to go? - answered the Cat.
“I don’t care...” said Alice.
Then it doesn’t matter where you go,” said the Cat.
Do you have a goal? If you know exactly what you want to achieve, it will be easier for you to choose the path. If you don't know where to go, you'll end up wandering in circles. First determine the direction, and then start moving. And remember: no one but you can know which path is right for you. Make this choice yourself and start acting.
2. Stop wasting energy
“You know, you have to run as fast as you can just to stay in the same place!”
The Queen is right, sometimes people go to great lengths just to prevent their lives from changing. This happens because we get used to everything too quickly and begin to be afraid to change anything. But think for a minute - do you like everything in your life? Has it ever occurred to you that you are spending too much time and effort in order to stay in a place that is familiar and comfortable to you? Maybe if you change something, your life will become better and much easier?
3. Believe in what seems impossible.
Can't be! - Alice exclaimed. - I can’t believe this!
Can not? - repeated the Queen with pity. - Try again: take a deep breath and close your eyes.
Alice laughed.
- This won't help! - she said. - You can't believe the impossible!
“You just don’t have enough experience,” the Queen noted. - At your age, I devoted half an hour to this every day! On some days, I managed to believe in a dozen impossibilities before breakfast!
Many people believe that some things are impossible just because they have never tried to believe them. “I will never become a writer,” someone thinks, without even trying to write a line. But if Lewis Carroll had thought so, we would never have read such a fascinating, interesting and brilliant book as “Alice in Wonderland.” If you have a dream, you must do everything possible and impossible to achieve it. The main thing is to believe in yourself.
4. Change, but remain yourself
“No, just think! What a strange day today is! And yesterday everything went as usual! Maybe it was me who changed overnight? Let me remember: this morning when I got up, was it me or not me? It seems that I’m not quite me anymore! But if this is so, then who am I in this case? It's so difficult...” Alice.
Who you are? Do you really know who you are? Are you 100% sure about this? Many people cannot decide on the answers to these questions. This happens because every day something changes in our lives. Events, the environment, people, relationships, work, problems change, and with them we ourselves change. There's nothing wrong with that, because change is a sign of progress, and its absence indicates that the personality is not developing. Don't be afraid to wake up one person and go to bed completely different. The main thing is to remain yourself.
5. Watch your words and thoughts
“Then you must say what you mean,” continued the March Hare.
“That’s what I’m saying,” said Alice hastily; - at least I mean what I say - it's the same thing, you know.
Do your words accurately convey what you mean? Surely not always. Communication is a very difficult thing. Sometimes a slightly incorrect intonation, poorly chosen words, or an inappropriately used expression can distort the meaning of what you wanted to say beyond recognition. This is why you should think carefully before you start speaking. Say what you mean, not the opposite. At the same time, it is equally important to mean what you say. Words should fly out of your mouth not just to fly out of there, but in order to convey some kind of your thought. In other words, don't talk in vain.
www.cluber.com.ua
Alice's rules of life
Delightfully wise absurdity from Lewis Carroll, which is worth taking as rules of life.
When Alice in Wonderland was first published in Russian in 1879, many literary critics were horrified by how strange the book was. In their devastating reviews, they called on all parents to pass by this horror and never buy it for their children. Where are those critics now, and where is “Alice”, which has gone through hundreds of reprints, dozens of film adaptations, adored by children and adults.
Editorial Bright Side collected in this material 40 rules of life for the girl Alice Liddell, which she learned while traveling through Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Learn them too.
1. If everything in the world is meaningless, what prevents you from inventing some meaning?
2. While you're thinking about what to say, curtsey! This saves time.
3. If you don't know what to say, speak French! When you walk, put your socks apart! And remember who you are!
4. Before you go somewhere, you need to stock up on a good branch to wave off elephants.
5. Do not lubricate your watch with butter!
6. If you have nothing else to do, come up with something better than unanswerable riddles.
7. You will definitely end up somewhere. You just need to walk long enough.
8. If you hold a red-hot poker in your hands for too long, you will eventually get burned; if you slash your finger deeply with a knife, blood usually comes out of the finger; If you drain a bottle marked “Poison!” at once, sooner or later you will almost certainly feel unwell.
9. If some people didn't meddle in other people's affairs, the earth would spin faster!
10. Never think that you are different from what you could be otherwise than by being different in those cases when it is impossible not to be otherwise.
11. You have no idea how nice it is to dance a sea square dance with lobsters.
12. If the verses make no sense, so much the better. There is no need to try to explain them.
13. If I were not real, I would not cry.
14. You have to run as fast as you can just to stay in place, and to get somewhere, you have to run at least twice as fast!
15. Tomorrow never happens today. Is it possible to wake up in the morning and say: “Well, now, finally, tomorrow”?
16. I wish I could meet someone smart for a change!
17. You can always take more than nothing.
18. You need to know how to get to the cash register, even if you can’t read!
19. What good is a book if there are no pictures or conversations in it?
20. Don't grunt! Express your thoughts in a different way!
21. If it were so, it would be nothing, and if it were nothing, it would be so, but since it is not so, it is not so! This is the logic of things!
22. One of the most serious losses in battle is the loss of a head.
23. When you speak, open your mouth a little wider.
24. When you feel bad, always eat splinters. You won't find another tool like this!
25. First, distribute the pie to everyone, and then cut it!
26. Why organize processions if everyone falls on their faces? No one will see anything then.
27. It’s so good to be at home! There you are always the same height!
28. Pepper probably makes them start to contradict everyone. Vinegar makes them bitter, mustard makes them sad, onions make them cunning, wine makes them feel guilty, and baking makes them kinder. What a shame that no one knows about this. Everything would be so simple. If only you could eat the baked goods, you’ll be fine!
29. As soon as I swallow something, something interesting happens.
30. One blotter, of course, is not very tasty. But if you mix it with something else - with gunpowder, for example, or with sealing wax - then it’s a completely different matter!
31. Some people are very smart, just like babies!
Psychologist Tallinn
Psychological assistance and development
I really love the works of Lewis Carroll. Carroll is well adapted to the Russian readership, and his works can be found in several translations. They are somewhat different from each other, but when they say that beauty cannot be spoiled by anything, then this very accurately applies to Carroll’s works. If someday his works are introduced into the school curriculum, then the person who initiates this should curtsy deeply, or, at the very least, a slight curtsey. And Carroll's work is truly brilliant. And I would like to say that it would be good for both children and adults to be familiar with them.
When I am sometimes asked what the work of a psychologist is, the simplest thing I can answer is to divide and multiply. Share difficulties and multiply joys. I suggest multiplying... These are some extracts from Alice in Wonderland, which I think are worth at least reading, and some can be turned into life rules. I really hope that they will cheer someone up and be useful to someone else.
When you walk, put your socks apart! And remember who you are!
Before you go anywhere, you need to stock up on a good branch to wave off elephants.
Do not lubricate your watch with butter, even if it is fresh!
You will definitely end up somewhere. You just need to walk long enough.
If some people didn't meddle in other people's affairs, the earth would spin faster!
Never think that you are different from what you could be otherwise than by being different in those cases where it is impossible not to be otherwise.
You have no idea how nice it is to dance a sea square dance with lobsters.
If the poems don't make any sense, so much the better. There is no need to try to explain them.
Tomorrow never happens today. Is it possible to wake up in the morning and say: “Well, now, finally, tomorrow”?
I'd like to meet someone smart for a change!
She'll be furious if I'm late! That's exactly where she'll come!
Don't grunt! Express your thoughts in a different way!
If it were so, it would be nothing, and if it were nothing, it would be so, but since it is not so, it is not so! This is the logic of things!
One of the most serious losses in battle is the loss of a head.
My situation is hopeless, but at least I can kick!
I fell like that, I fell like that...
One blotter, of course, is not very tasty. But if you mix it with something else - with gunpowder, for example, or with sealing wax - then it’s a completely different matter!
Some people are very smart, just like babies!
I never dissuade anyone with my hands!
When I find something, it's usually a frog or a worm.
That's it, my dear, if you're going to turn into a pig, I won't know you anymore.
Kill Time! How could he like this? If you hadn’t quarreled with him, you could have asked him for everything you wanted.
The book is simply packed full of meaning. "nonsense." It not only lifts your spirits, but also gives you an understanding of certain actions and things. Perhaps many will experience a new fashionable feeling called CATHARIS. The fact that this absurdity from Lewis Carroll will add positivity to these hectic pre-holiday days is for sure!
“There’s nothing you can do,” the Cat objected. “We’re all out of our minds here, both me and you, otherwise you wouldn’t have gotten here.”
How to read Alice in Wonderland
What people, events and expressions can be discerned in the books about Alice and who Lewis Carroll was
The Alice tales are among the most famous books written in English: in terms of citations, they are second only to the Bible and Shakespeare's plays. Time passes, the era described by Carroll goes deeper and deeper into the past, but interest in “Alice” does not decrease, but, on the contrary, grows. What is "Alice in Wonderland"? A fairy tale for children, a collection of logical paradoxes for adults, an allegory of English history or theological debate? The more time passes, the more incredible interpretations these texts acquire.
Who is Lewis Carroll
Carroll's writing life is the story of a man who got into literature by accident. Charles Dodgson (that was the real name of the author of Alice) grew up among numerous sisters and brothers: he was the third of 11 children. The younger ones had to be kept busy, and Charles had a natural gift for inventing a wide variety of games. The puppet theater he made at the age of 11 has survived, and in the family papers one can find stories, fairy tales and poetic parodies that he composed at the age of 12 and 13. As a youth, Dodgson loved inventing words and word games; years later he would write a weekly games column for Vanity Fair. Words galumph According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the verb to galumph was previously interpreted as “to move in erratic leaps”, and in modern language it has come to mean noisy and clumsy movement. And chortle To chortle - “to laugh loudly and joyfully.” , invented by him for the poem “Jabberwocky”, are included in English dictionaries.
Dodgson was a paradoxical and mysterious person. On the one hand, a shy, pedantic, stuttering mathematics teacher at Oxford's Christ Church College and a researcher of Euclidean geometry and symbolic logic, a prim gentleman and clergyman, Dodgson accepted the rank of deacon, but did not dare to become a priest, as was expected of members of the college. ; on the other hand, a man who kept company with all the famous writers, poets and artists of his time, an author of romantic poems, a lover of theater and society - including children's. He could tell stories to children; its many child-friends Carroll's definition of the children with whom he befriended and corresponded. they recalled that he was always ready to unfold before them some plot that was stored in his memory, providing it with new details and changing the action. The fact that one of these stories (an improvisational tale told on July 4, 1862), unlike many others, was written down and then published is an amazing coincidence.
How did the fairy tale about Alice come about?
In the summer of 1862, Charles Dodgson told the daughters of Rector Liddell that Henry Liddell is known not only as Alice’s father: together with Robert Scott, he compiled the famous dictionary of the ancient Greek language - the so-called “Liddell-Scott”. Classical philologists around the world still use it today. fairy tale-improvisation. The girls persistently asked to record it. The following winter, Dodgson completed a manuscript entitled Alice's Adventures Underground and gave it to one of the Liddell sisters, Alice. Other readers of the Adventures included the children of the writer George MacDonald, whom Dodgson met while being treated for a stutter. Macdonald convinced him to think about publishing, Dodgson seriously revised the text, and in December 1865 the Publisher dated the edition to 1866. "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" was published, signed under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. "Alice" unexpectedly received incredible success, and in 1867 its author began work on a sequel. In December 1871, the book Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Seeed There was published.
In 1928, Alice Hargreaves, née Liddell, finding herself strapped for cash after the death of her husband, put the manuscript up for auction at Sotheby’s and sold it for an incredible £15,400 at the time. After 20 years, the manuscript again went to auction, where for 100 thousand dollars, on the initiative of the head of the US Library of Congress, a group of American philanthropists bought it to donate it to the British Museum - “as a sign of gratitude to the valiant people who for a long time fought Hitler almost alone.” Later, the manuscript was transferred to the British Library, on whose website anyone can now look through it.
Alice Hargreaves (Liddell). New York, 1932 The Granger Collection / Libertad Digital
To date, more than a hundred English editions of “Alice” have been published, it has been translated into 174 languages, and dozens of film adaptations and thousands of theatrical productions have been created based on the fairy tales.
What is "Alice in Wonderland"
To truly understand Alice in Wonderland, it is important to keep in mind that this book was born by accident. The author moved where his imagination led him, without wanting to tell the reader anything and without implying any clues. Perhaps this is why the text has become an ideal field for searching for meaning. This is not a complete list of interpretations of books about Alice proposed by readers and researchers.
History of England
The baby duke turning into a pig is Richard III, whose coat of arms featured a white boar, and the Queen's demand to repaint the white roses red is, of course, a reference to the confrontation between the Scarlet and White Roses - Lancasters and Yorks. According to another version, the book depicts the court of Queen Victoria: according to legend, the queen herself wrote “Alice”, and then asked an unknown Oxford professor to sign the fairy tales with her name.
History of the Oxford Movement Oxford movement- a movement to bring Anglican worship and dogma closer to the Catholic tradition, which developed in Oxford in the 1830s and 40s.
The high and low doors that Alice, changing her height, is trying to enter are the High and Low Churches (gravitating, respectively, to the Catholic and Protestant traditions) and the believer oscillating between these movements. Dinah the cat and the Scotch terrier, the mention of which the Mouse (a simple parishioner) is so afraid of, are Catholicism and Presbyterianism, the White and Black Queens are Cardinals Newman and Manning, and the Jabberwocky is the papacy.
Chess problem
To solve it, you need to use, unlike ordinary problems, not only chess technique, but also “chess morality,” which leads the reader to broad moral and ethical generalizations.
Encyclopedia of psychosis and sexuality
In the 1920s–50s, psychoanalytic interpretations of “Alice” became especially popular, and attempts were made to present Carroll’s friendship with children as evidence of his unnatural inclinations.
Encyclopedia of "substance" use
In the 1960s, in the wake of interest in various ways of “expanding consciousness,” in fairy tales about Alice, who is constantly changing, drinking from bottles and biting off mushrooms, and having philosophical conversations with the Caterpillar, smoking a huge pipe, they began to see an encyclopedia of the use of “ substances." A manifesto of this tradition is the 1967 song “White Rabbit” by Jefferson Airplane:
One pill makes you larger
And one pill makes you small
And the ones that mother gives you
Don’t do anything at all “One pill - and you grow, // Another - and you shrink.” // And the ones your mother gives you // Are of no use.” .
Where did it come from?
Carroll's fantasy is surprising in that there is nothing fictitious in “Wonderland” and “Through the Looking Glass.” Carroll's method resembles an applique: elements of real life are intricately mixed together, so in the heroes of the fairy tale, its first listeners easily guessed themselves, the narrator, mutual acquaintances, familiar places and situations.
July 4, 1862
“Golden July Afternoon” from the poetic dedication that precedes the text of the book is a very specific Friday, July 4, 1862. According to W. Hugh Auden, the day is “as memorable in the history of literature as in the history of the American state.” It was on the 4th of July that Charles Dodgson, as well as his friend, a teacher at Trinity College and later a tutor to Prince Leopold and a canon of Westminster Abbey. Robinson Duckworth and the rector's three daughters - 13-year-old Lorina Charlotte, 10-year-old Alice Pleasence and eight-year-old Edith Mary - went on a boat trip on the Isis (the name of the Thames that flows through Oxford).
A page from Lewis Carroll's diary dated July 4, 1862 (right) with an addition dated February 10, 1863 (left)“Atkinson brought his friends, Mrs. and Miss Peters, to me. I took pictures of them, and then they looked at my album and stayed for breakfast. They then went to the museum, and Duckworth and I, taking the three Liddell girls with us, went for a walk up the river to Godstow; drank tea on the shore and returned to Christ Church only at a quarter to eight. They came to me to show the girls my collection of photographs, and delivered them home at about nine o’clock” (translated by Nina Demurova). Addition: “On this occasion I told them the fairy tale “Alice’s Adventures Underground,” which I began to write down for Alice and which is now completed (as far as the text is concerned), although the drawings are not yet even partially finished.” The British Library
Strictly speaking, this was already the second attempt to go on a summer river walk. On the seventeenth of June the same company, as well as Dodgson's two sisters and aunt, boarded a boat, but soon it began to rain, and the walkers had to change their plans. This episode formed the basis of the chapters “Sea of Tears” and “Running in a Circle.” . But on the 4th of July the weather was fine, and the company had a picnic at Godstow, near the ruins of the ancient abbey. It was there that Dodgson told the Liddell girls the first version of the Alice tale. It was impromptu: to a friend’s perplexed questions about where he heard this fairy tale, the author replied that he was “making it up on the fly.” The walks continued until mid-August, and the girls asked to talk further and further.
Alice, Dodo, Ed the Eaglet, Black Queen and others
The prototype of the main character was the middle sister, Alice, Dodgson's favorite. Lorina became the prototype of Laurie the parrot, and Edith became the prototype of Ed the Eaglet. There is also a reference to the Liddell sisters in the chapter “Mad Tea Party”: the “jelly young ladies” from Sonya’s story are called Elsie, Lacey and Tilly. “Elsie” is a reproduction of the initials of Lorina Charlotte (L.C., that is, Lorina Charlotte); "Tilly" is short for Matilda, Edith's pet name, and "Lacie" is an anagram of Alice. Dodgson himself is a Dodo. When introducing himself, he pronounced his last name with a characteristic stutter: “Do-do-dodgson.” Duckworth was depicted as the Drake (Robin Goose, translated by Nina Demurova), and Miss Prickett, the Liddell sisters' governess (they called her Pricks), became the prototype for the Mouse and the Black Queen.
A door, a garden of amazing beauty and a crazy tea party
Looking through the door, Alice sees a “garden of amazing beauty” - this is the door leading from the garden of the rector’s house to the garden at the cathedral (children were forbidden to enter the church garden, and they could only see it through the gate). Here Dodgson and the girls played croquet, and cats sat on a spreading tree growing in the garden. The current residents of the rector's house believe that the Cheshire Cat was among them.
Even the mad tea party, for whose participants it is always six o'clock and time to drink tea, has a real prototype: whenever the Liddell sisters came to Dodgson, he always had tea ready for them. The “molasses well” from the fairy tale that Sonya tells during tea party turns into “jelly”, and the sisters living at the bottom become “jelly ladies”. This is a healing spring in the town of Binzi, which was located on the road from Oxford to Godstow.
The first version of “Alice in Wonderland” was precisely a collection of such references, while nonsense and word games of the well-known “Alice” appeared only when the fairy tale was revised for publication.
Chess, talking flowers and Through the Looking Glass
Alice Through the Looking Glass also contains a huge number of references to real people and situations. Dodgson loved to play chess with the Liddell sisters - hence the chess basis of the tale. Snowflake was the name of the kitten of Mary MacDonald, daughter of George MacDonald, and Dodgson bred his eldest daughter Lily as a white pawn. Rose and violet from the chapter “The Garden Where the Flowers Spoke” - Liddell's younger sisters Rhoda and Violet Violet (English) - violet. . The garden itself and the subsequent running in place were apparently inspired by the author's walk with Alice and Miss Prickett on April 4, 1863. Carroll came to visit the children who were staying with their grandparents in Charlton Kings (in their house there was the very mirror through which Alice passes). The episode with the train journey (chapter "Through the Looking-Glass Insects") is an echo of the journey back to Oxford on April 16, 1863. It was perhaps during this trip that Dodgson came up with the topography of Through the Looking Glass: the railway line between Gloucester and Didcot crosses six streams - very similar to the six horizontal streams that pawn Alice crosses in Through the Looking Glass to become queen.
What does the book consist of?
Words, proverbs, folk poems and songs
The elements of reality that make up the surreal world of Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass are not limited to people, places and situations. To a much greater extent, this world is created from elements of language. However, these layers are closely intertwined. For example, for the role of the prototype of the Hatter. In Demurova's translation - Hatter. at least two real people claim: the Oxford inventor and businessman Theophilus Carter. It is believed that John Tenniel, who illustrated Alice, specially came to Oxford to make sketches from it. and Roger Crab, a hatmaker who lived in the 17th century. But first of all, this character owes its origin to language. The Hatter is a visualization of the English proverb “Mad as a hatter.” In 19th-century England, mercury was used in the production of felt, which was used to make hats. Hatters inhaled its fumes, and symptoms of mercury poisoning include slurred speech, memory loss, tics, and distorted vision.
A character created from a linguistic image is a very characteristic technique for Carroll. The March Hare is also from the saying: “Mad as a March hare” translated means “Mad as a March hare”: in England it is believed that hares go crazy during the breeding season, that is, from February to September.
The Cheshire Cat comes from the expression “To grin like a Cheshire cat.” . The origin of this phrase is not entirely clear. Perhaps it arose because there were many dairy farms in Cheshire and cats felt especially at ease there, or because on these farms they made cheese in the shape of cats with smiling faces (and they were supposed to be eaten from the tail, so the latter is what what was left of them was a muzzle without a body). Or because a local artist painted lions with gaping mouths over the entrances to pubs, but what he ended up with was smiling cats. Alice’s remark “Cats are not forbidden to look at kings” in response to the King’s dissatisfaction with the gaze of the Cheshire Cat is also a reference to the old proverb “A cat may look at a king,” meaning that even those at the very bottom of the hierarchical ladder have rights.
But this technique is best seen in the example of the Quasi Turtle, whom Alice meets in the ninth chapter. In the original, her name is Mock Turtle. And in response to Alice’s perplexed question about what she is, the Queen tells her: “It’s the thing Mock Turtle Soup is made from” - that is, what “like turtle soup” is made from. Mock turtle soup is an imitation of the traditional gourmet green turtle soup made from veal. That is why in Tenniel's illustration the Mock Turtle is a creature with a calf's head, hind hooves and a calf's tail. . This creation of characters from a play on words is very typical of Carroll. In the original edition of Nina Demurova’s translation, Mock Turtle is called Pod-Kotik, that is, a creature from whose skin fur coats “like a cat” are made. .
Carroll's language also controls the development of the plot. So, the Jack of Diamonds steals pretzels, for which he is tried in the 11th and 12th chapters of Wonderland. This is a “dramatization” of the English folk song “The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts...” (“King of Hearts, wishing for pretzels...”). Episodes about Humpty Dumpty, the Lion and the Unicorn also grew from folk songs.
Tennyson, Shakespeare and English folk poetry
Carroll's books contain many references to literary works. The most obvious are outright parodies, primarily alterations of well-known poems, mainly moralizing ones (“Papa William,” “Little Crocodile,” “Evening Food,” and so on). Parodies are not limited to poetry: Carroll ironically plays on passages from textbooks (in the chapter “Running in a Circle”) and even poems by poets for whom he had great respect (the episode at the beginning of the chapter “The Garden Where the Flowers Spoke” plays on lines from Tennyson’s poem “Maud "). Fairy tales about Alice are so filled with literary reminiscences, quotes and semi-quotes that just listing them would fill weighty volumes. Among the authors cited by Carroll are Virgil, Dante, Milton, Gray, Coleridge, Scott, Keats, Dickens, MacDonald and many others. Shakespeare is quoted especially often in Alice: for example, the line “Off with his (her) head,” which the Queen constantly repeats, is a direct quote from “Richard III.”
How logic and mathematics influenced Alice
Charles Dodgson's specialties were Euclidean geometry, calculus and mathematical logic. In addition, he was interested in photography, the invention of logic and mathematical games and puzzles. This logician and mathematician becomes one of the creators of nonsense literature, in which the absurd is a strict system.
An example of nonsense is the Hatter's watch, which shows not the hour, but the number. This seems strange to Alice - after all, there is no point in a clock that does not show time. But they have no meaning in her coordinate system, whereas in the Hatter’s world, in which it is always six o’clock and it’s time to drink tea, the meaning of the clock is precisely to indicate the day. Within each of the worlds, the logic is not broken - it goes astray when they meet. In the same way, the idea of lubricating a watch with butter is not nonsense, but an understandable failure of logic: both the mechanism and the bread are supposed to be lubricated with something, the main thing is not to confuse what exactly.
Inversion is another feature of Carroll's writing method. In the graphical multiplication method he invented, the multiplier was written backwards and above the multiplicand. According to Dodgson, “The Hunting of the Snark” was written backwards: first the last line, then the last stanza, and then everything else. The game “Duplets” he invented consisted of rearranging the letters in a word. His pseudonym Lewis Carroll is also an inversion: first he translated his full name - Charles Lutwidge - into Latin, it turned out Carolus Ludovicus. And then back to English - the names were swapped.
Library of Congress
Inversion in “Alice” occurs at a variety of levels - from the plot (at the trial of the Knave, the Queen demands first to pass a verdict and then establish the guilt of the defendant) to structural (meeting Alice, the Unicorn says that he has always considered children to be fairy-tale creatures). The principle of mirror reflection, to which the logic of the existence of the Looking Glass is subordinated, is also a type of inversion (and the “reflected” arrangement of the pieces on the chessboard makes the chess game an ideal continuation of the theme of the card game from the first book). To quench your thirst, here you need to try dry cookies; to stand still, you need to run; The finger first bleeds, and only then is it pricked with a pin.
Who created the first illustrations for Alice?
One of the most important components of the fairy tales about Alice is the illustrations with which the first readers saw it and which are not in most reprints. We are talking about the illustrations of John Tenniel (1820–1914), which are no less important than the real prototypes of the characters and situations described in the book.
At first, Carroll intended to publish a book with his own illustrations and even transferred some of the drawings onto boxwood tablets used by printers to make engravings. But friends from the Pre-Raphaelite circle convinced him to invite a professional illustrator. Carroll chose the most famous and sought-after: Tenniel was then the chief illustrator of the influential satirical magazine Punch and one of the busiest artists.
Work on the illustrations under Carroll’s meticulous and often intrusive control (70% of the illustrations are based on the author’s drawings) delayed the release of the book for a long time. Tenniel was dissatisfied with the quality of the edition, so Carroll demanded that the publishers withdraw it from sale. Interestingly, it is now the one that is most valued by collectors. and print a new one. And yet, in preparation for the publication of Alice Through the Looking Glass, Carroll again invited Tenniel. At first he flatly refused (working with Carroll required too much effort and time), but the author was persistent and eventually persuaded the artist to take up the work.
Illustration by John Tenniel for “Alice Through the Looking Glass.” Chicago, 1900 Library of Congress
Tenniel's illustrations are not an addition to the text, but its full partner, and that is why Carroll was so demanding of them. Even at the plot level, much can be understood only thanks to illustrations - for example, that the Royal Messenger from the fifth and seventh chapters of Through the Looking Glass is the Hatter from Wonderland. Some Oxford realities began to be associated with “Alice” due to the fact that they served as prototypes not for Carroll, but for Tenniel: for example, the drawing from the chapter “Water and Knitting” depicts a “sheep” shop at 83 St. Aldates. Today it is a gift shop dedicated to the books of Lewis Carroll.
Illustration by John Tenniel for “Alice Through the Looking Glass.” Chicago, 1900 Library of Congress
Where is the moral
One of the reasons for the success of “Alice” is the lack of moralizing, which was usual for children’s books of that time. Edifying children's stories were the mainstream of children's literature at the time (they were published in huge quantities in publications like Aunt Judy's Magazine). Fairy tales about Alice stand out from this series: their heroine behaves naturally, like a living child, and not a model of virtue. She gets confused with dates and words, and has trouble remembering textbook verses and historical examples. And Carroll’s very parodic approach, which makes textbook poems the subject of frivolous play, is not very conducive to moralizing. Moreover, moralizing and edification in “Alice” are a direct object of ridicule: just remember the absurd remarks of the Duchess (“And the morality from here is this…”) and the bloodthirstiness of the Black Queen, whose image Carroll himself called “the quintessence of all governesses.” The success of "Alice" showed that it was precisely this kind of children's literature that was most lacking, both for children and adults.
Illustration by John Tenniel for Alice in Wonderland. London, 1867 Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library
Carroll's further literary fate confirmed the uniqueness of "Alice" as the result of an incredible coincidence of circumstances. Few people know that, in addition to Alice in Wonderland, he wrote Sylvia and Bruno, an edifying novel about a magical land that consciously (but completely unsuccessfully) develops the themes present in Alice. In total, Carroll worked on this novel for 20 years and considered it his life's work.
How to translate "Alice"
The main character of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Alice Through the Looking Glass" is language, which makes the translation of these books incredibly difficult, and sometimes impossible. Here is just one of the many examples of the untranslatability of “Alice”: the jam, which, according to the “firm rule” of the Queen, the maid receives only “for tomorrow”, in the Russian translation is nothing more than another case of strange looking-glass logic “I would take you [as a maid] with pleasure , - responded the Queen. - Two
a penny a week and jam for tomorrow!
Alice laughed.
“No, I won’t become a maid,” she said. - Besides, I don’t like jam!
“The jam is excellent,” insisted the Queen.
- Thank you, but today I really don’t feel like it!
“You still wouldn’t get it today, even if you really wanted it,” answered the Queen. - My rule is firm: jam for tomorrow! And only for tomorrow!
- But tomorrow will someday be today!
- No never! Tomorrow never happens today! Is it really possible to wake up in the morning and say: “Well, now, finally, tomorrow?”” (translated by Nina Demurova). . But in the original, the phrase “The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday - but never jam to-day” is not just strange. As is usually the case with Carroll, this strangeness has a system that is built from elements of reality. The word jam, which in English means “jam,” is used in Latin to convey the meaning of “now,” “now,” but only in the past and future tenses. In the present tense, the word nunc is used for this. The phrase Carroll put into the Queen’s mouth was used in Latin lessons as a mnemonic rule. Thus, “jam for tomorrow” is not only a through-the-looking-glass oddity, but also an elegant game of language and another example of Carroll’s play on the school routine.
"Alice in Wonderland" cannot be translated, but it can be recreated using material from another language. It is precisely these translations of Carroll that turn out to be successful. This happened with the Russian translation made by Nina Mikhailovna Demurova. The edition of “Alice” prepared by Demurova in the “Literary Monuments” series (1979) is an example of book publishing, combining the talent and deepest competence of the editor-translator with the best traditions of Soviet academic science. In addition to the translation, the publication includes Martin Gardner's classic commentary from his "Annotated Alice" (in turn, annotated for the Russian reader), articles on Carroll by Gilbert Chesterton, Virginia Woolf, Walter de la Mare and other materials - and, of course, reproduces Tenniel's illustrations .
Lewis Carroll. "Alice in Wonderland. Alice in the Wonderland". Moscow, 1978 litpamyatniki.ru
Demurova not only translated Alice, but performed a miracle by making this book a property of Russian-speaking culture. There is quite a lot of evidence of this; one of the most eloquent is the musical performance made by Oleg Gerasimov based on this translation, which was released on records from the Melodiya studio in 1976. The songs for the play were written by Vladimir Vysotsky - and the release of the records became his first official publication in the USSR as a poet and composer. The performance turned out to be so lively that listeners found political overtones in it (“There is a lot of unknown in a strange country”, “No, no, the people do not have a difficult role: // Falling to your knees - what’s the problem?”), and the artistic council even tried to ban the performance records. But the records were still released and reissued until the 1990s in millions of copies.
"Alice in Wonderland" LP sleeve. Recording company "Melody", 1976 izbrannoe.com
Once upon a time, the wonderful writer Lewis Carroll wrote his delightful work “Alice in Wonderland”. When this work was translated into Russian in 1879, literary critics were horrified by the strange unusualness of this book and strictly recommended that children should not buy this book under any circumstances. But nevertheless, the book gained its popularity and many people drew from this work the wisdom that Lewis Carroll hid behind sweet absurdity. We present to you 40 rules for the life of a girl from Wonderland named Alice Liddell.
1. If everything in the world is meaningless, what prevents you from inventing some meaning?
2. While you’re thinking about what to say, curtsey! This saves time.
3. If you don't know what to say, speak French! When you walk, put your socks apart! And remember who you are!
4. Before you go somewhere, you need to stock up on a good branch to wave off elephants.
5. Do not lubricate your watch with butter!
6. If you have nothing else to do, come up with something better than unanswerable riddles.
7. You will definitely end up somewhere. You just need to walk long enough.
8. If you hold a red-hot poker in your hands for too long, you will eventually get burned; if you slash your finger deeply with a knife, blood usually comes out of the finger; If you drain a bottle marked “Poison!” at once, sooner or later you will almost certainly feel unwell.
9. If some people didn’t meddle in other people’s affairs, the earth would spin faster!
10. Never think that you are different from what you could be otherwise than by being different in those cases when it is impossible not to be otherwise.
11. You have no idea how nice it is to dance a sea square dance with lobsters.
12. If the verses make no sense, so much the better. There is no need to try to explain them.
13. If I were not real, I would not cry.
14. You have to run as fast as you can just to stay in place, and to get somewhere, you have to run at least twice as fast!
15. Tomorrow never happens today. Is it possible to wake up in the morning and say: “Well, now, finally, tomorrow”?
16. I wish I could meet someone smart for a change!
17. You can always take more than nothing.
18. You need to know how to get to the cash register, even if you can’t read!
19. What good is a book if there are no pictures or conversations in it?
20. Don't grunt! Express your thoughts in a different way!
21. If it were so, it would be nothing, and if it were nothing, it would be so, but since it is not so, it is not so! This is the logic of things!
22. One of the most serious losses in battle is losing your head.
23. When you speak, open your mouth a little wider.
24. When you feel bad, always eat splinters. You won't find another tool like this!
25. First, distribute the pie to everyone, and then cut it!
26. Why organize processions if everyone falls on their faces? No one will see anything then...
27. It’s so good to be at home! There you are always the same height!
28. Pepper probably makes them start to contradict everyone. Vinegar makes them bitter, mustard makes them sad, onions make them cunning, wine makes them guilty, and baking makes them kinder. What a pity that no one knows about this... Everything would be so simple. If only you could eat the baked goods, you would become better!
29. As soon as I swallow something, something interesting happens.
30. One blotter, of course, is not very tasty. But if you mix it with something else - with gunpowder, for example, or with sealing wax - then it’s a completely different matter!
31. Some people are very smart, just like babies!
32. I never dissuade anyone with my hands!
33. When I find something, it is usually a frog or a worm.
34. Girls, you know, eat eggs too.
35. Tell you what, my dear, if you are going to turn into a pig, I won’t know you anymore.
36. It doesn't matter where my body is. My mind works non-stop. The lower my head, the deeper my thoughts!
37. How convenient it is to lose your name! Let's say you return home and no one knows your name. The governess will want to call you to a lesson, shout: “Come here...” and stop, she has forgotten your name. And you, of course, won’t go - after all, it’s unknown who she called!
1. If everything in the world is meaningless, what prevents you from inventing some meaning?
2. While you’re thinking about what to say, curtsey! This saves time.
3. If you don't know what to say, speak French! When you walk, put your socks apart! And remember who you are!
4. Before you go somewhere, you need to stock up on a good branch to wave off elephants.
5. Do not lubricate your watch with butter!
6. If you have nothing else to do, come up with something better than unanswerable riddles.
7. You will definitely end up somewhere. You just need to walk long enough.
8. If you hold a red-hot poker in your hands for too long, you will eventually get burned; if you slash your finger deeply with a knife, blood usually comes out of the finger; If you drain a bottle marked “Poison!” at once, sooner or later you will almost certainly feel unwell.
9. If some people didn’t meddle in other people’s affairs, the earth would spin faster!
10. Never think that you are different from what you could be otherwise than by being different in those cases when it is impossible not to be otherwise.
11. You have no idea how nice it is to dance a sea square dance with lobsters.
12. If the verses make no sense, so much the better. There is no need to try to explain them.
13. If I were not real, I would not cry.
14. You have to run as fast as you can just to stay in place, and to get somewhere, you have to run at least twice as fast!
15. Tomorrow never happens today. Is it possible to wake up in the morning and say: “Well, now, finally, tomorrow”?
16. I wish I could meet someone smart for a change!
17. You can always take more than nothing.
18. You need to know how to get to the cash register, even if you can’t read!
19. What good is a book if there are no pictures or conversations in it?
20. Don't grunt! Express your thoughts in a different way!
21. If it were so, it would be nothing, and if it were nothing, it would be so, but since it is not so, it is not so! This is the logic of things!
22. One of the most serious losses in battle is losing your head.
23. When you speak, open your mouth a little wider.
24. When you feel bad, always eat splinters. You won't find another tool like this!
25. First, distribute the pie to everyone, and then cut it!
26. Why organize processions if everyone falls on their faces? No one will see anything then...
27. It’s so good to be at home! There you are always the same height!
28. Pepper probably makes them start to contradict everyone. Vinegar makes them bitter, mustard makes them sad, onions make them cunning, wine makes them guilty, and baking makes them kinder. What a pity that no one knows about this... Everything would be so simple. If only you could eat the baked goods, you would become better!
29. As soon as I swallow something, something interesting happens.
30. One blotter, of course, is not very tasty. But if you mix it with something else - with gunpowder, for example, or with sealing wax - then it’s a completely different matter!
31. Some people are very smart, just like babies!
32. I never dissuade anyone with my hands!
33. When I find something, it is usually a frog or a worm.
34. Girls, you know, eat eggs too.
35. Tell you what, my dear, if you are going to turn into a pig, I won’t know you anymore.
36. It doesn't matter where my body is. My mind works non-stop. The lower my head, the deeper my thoughts!
37. How convenient it is to lose your name! Let's say you return home and no one knows your name. The governess will want to call you to a lesson, shout: “Come here...” and stop, she has forgotten your name. And you, of course, won’t go - after all, it’s unknown who she called!
38. Kill Time! How could he like this? If you hadn’t quarreled with him, you could have asked him for everything you wanted.
39. Ten nights are ten times warmer than one. And ten times colder.
40. Hence the moral: I can’t figure something out.
Absurd, sometimes ridiculous, but incredibly sweet and wise advice from Lewis Carroll. When Alice in Wonderland was first published in Russian in 1879, many literary critics were horrified by how strange the book was. In their devastating reviews, they called on all parents to pass by this horror and never buy it for their children. Where are those critics now, and where is “Alice”, which has gone through hundreds of reprints, dozens of film adaptations, adored by children and adults.
So many generations have already learned the wisdom and absurdity from both “Alices”. Raise your hands if you're not familiar with the Cheshire Cat's classification of normality. Here you two, go and read the book at least once, it's short. We had no doubt about the rest. But besides the Cheshire cat and the rhyme about “squishy shorties”, there is still a lot of funny and deep things in the book. This material contains 40 rules of life for the girl Alice Liddell, which she learned while traveling through Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. Learn them too. 1. If everything in the world is meaningless, what prevents you from inventing some meaning?
2. While you’re thinking about what to say, curtsey! This saves time.
3. If you don't know what to say, speak French! When you walk, put your socks apart! And remember who you are!
4. Before you go somewhere, you need to stock up on a good branch to wave off elephants.
5. Do not lubricate your watch with butter!
6. If you have nothing else to do, come up with something better than unanswerable riddles.
7. You will definitely end up somewhere. You just need to walk long enough.
8. If you hold a red-hot poker in your hands for too long, you will eventually get burned; if you slash your finger deeply with a knife, blood usually comes out of the finger; If you drain a bottle marked “Poison!” at once, sooner or later you will almost certainly feel unwell.
9. If some people didn’t meddle in other people’s affairs, the earth would spin faster!
10. Never think that you are different from what you could be otherwise than by being different in those cases when it is impossible not to be otherwise. 11. You have no idea how nice it is to dance a sea square dance with lobsters.
12. If the verses make no sense, so much the better. There is no need to try to explain them.
13. If I were not real, I would not cry.
14. You have to run as fast as you can just to stay in place, and to get somewhere, you have to run at least twice as fast!
15. Tomorrow never happens today. Is it possible to wake up in the morning and say: “Well, now, finally, tomorrow”?
16. I wish I could meet someone smart for a change!
17. You can always take more than nothing.
18. You need to know how to get to the cash register, even if you can’t read!
19. What good is a book if there are no pictures or conversations in it?
20. Don't grunt! Express your thoughts in a different way! 21. If it were so, it would be nothing, and if it were nothing, it would be so, but since it is not so, it is not so! This is the logic of things!
22. One of the most serious losses in battle is losing your head.
23. When you speak, open your mouth a little wider.
24. When you feel bad, always eat splinters. You won't find another tool like this!
25. First, distribute the pie to everyone, and then cut it!
26. Why organize processions if everyone falls on their faces? No one will see anything then...
27. It’s so good to be at home! There you are always the same height!
28. Pepper probably makes them start to contradict everyone. Vinegar makes them bitter, mustard makes them sad, onions make them cunning, wine makes them guilty, and baking makes them kinder. What a pity that no one knows about this... Everything would be so simple. If only you could eat the baked goods, you would become better!
29. As soon as I swallow something, something interesting happens.
30. One blotter, of course, is not very tasty. But if you mix it with something else - with gunpowder, for example, or with sealing wax - then it’s a completely different matter! 31. Some people are very smart, just like babies!
32. I never dissuade anyone with my hands!
33. When I find something, it is usually a frog or a worm.
34. Girls, you know, eat eggs too.
35. Tell you what, my dear, if you are going to turn into a pig, I won’t know you anymore.
36. It doesn't matter where my body is. My mind works non-stop. The lower my head, the deeper my thoughts!
37. How convenient it is to lose your name! Let's say you return home and no one knows your name. The governess will want to call you to a lesson, shout: “Come here...” and stop, she has forgotten your name. And you, of course, won’t go - after all, it’s unknown who she called!
38. Kill Time! How could he like this? If you hadn’t quarreled with him, you could have asked him for everything you wanted.
39. Ten nights are ten times warmer than one. And ten times colder.
40. Hence the moral: I can’t figure something out.