Sentence first, verdict after

Sentence first - verdict after

Strange- you might think? But.Not. In. Wonderland. 

Lewis Carroll wrote a children's story which might be seen as exactly that. Or not. That is Carroll. A mask of storytelling, mixed with poetry, satire and parody Carroll came to celebrate the Victorian morals in his way. Turning them upside down, withdrawing all known logic and making it "curiouser and curiouser".

In no danger of spoiling the best parts of the story, here is a small wrap-up: Alice is a small girl who spends her summer day in the outdoors together with her sister. When she sees a dressed white rabbit her curiosity is on and she follows the rabbit into a hole - into a whole new and strange world, were drinks and food makes her grow tall or shrink to the size of a small mouse. 

She meets a cat with a huge grin able to vanish, a water pipe smoking caterpillar, a mock turtle, and a pack of cards which were soldiers to the queen of hearts.

After her game of croquet with the queen of hearts (sure, the rackets were flamingoes and the balls were hedgehogs) and all her other adventures in Wonderland she woke up next to her sister and walks home to get her tea...

Personally, I loved the story of Alice and the whole expect the unexpected - idea. I love the fact that nothing is impossible (in wonderland). I also loved the teaser in the beginning of the book, which goes like this:

"In THAT direction. the grinning cat said", waving its right paw round, "lives the Hatter: and in THAT direction", waving the other paw, lives the March Hare. Visit either if you like: they're both mad".

"But I don't want to go among mad people", Alice remarked."Oh, you can't help that." said the cat. "We're all made here. I am mad. You are mad.""How do you know I am mad?" said Alice.You must be," said the cat" or you wouldn't have come here"...

I loved this madness-thing which I guess should have been a slight hint towards the ruling classes, narrow-mindedness of society, and general acceptance of the overall madness, without questioning anything. 

Above all, it was also a nice fairy tale story for children, which was also a bit of entertainment for the readers. 

By the way, I coincidentally watched the movie yesterday. It was the 2010 adaption starring Jonny Depp and Anne Hathaway. It was nice to see that they tried to stick to the drawings Carroll had arrange for his book. As I have never seen any other adaption, I can not compare, but I find that Tim Burton has made the movie in a way that Carroll would most probably sit there with a huge grin, maybe not as huge as the one from the Cheshire Cat, but at least close.


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This was my 5th classic to finish from my classics club list. Not too bad, I think at first glance, but if I look at all those began and unfinished books, such as Persuasion and Gone with the wind, I am a bit discouraged, as all those books I finished were short reads, all around 100 pages (although Black Beauty was around 350).... But for sure it got me started and I am still more than convinced of the project and still super enthusiastic to read them all. OK, I might do some replacements on my list as I completely fell for Hermann Hesse and would love to read some more works by him..