newnoise1 on Alice through the looking glass

'The time has come,' the Walrus said

Okay, no more shirking on my promised Alice through the looking glass review. What put me off from starting was that a number of literary reviews refer to the book as literary nonsense. Well, well or 'curiouser and curiouser', I should cry. So the one book that's quoted in everything from finance to economy and psychology books and newnoise1 reviews is literary nonsense? Now I'll admit that I don't understand what the term literary nonsense means. For all I know it means very clever nonsense.

Nonsense aside

Alice through the looking glass is filled with a hundred warnings, for instance, the warning against the abuse of power. Can I quote someone else when writing a review on Alice? All power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely said by one John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton, first Baron Acton (1834–1902).

Compare Alice through the looking glass with Alice in Wonderland. In both books Alice is confronted by authority figures. The King and Queen chess pieces in Alice through the looking glass and the Queen in the pack of cards in Alice in Wonderland. These authority figures are either giving her seriously debatable advice or threatening to chop off someone's head.

The warning against the follow the leader mentality is supported by the Walrus and the Carpenter who are leaders with thousands of followers. Remember the oysters that followed them to such a sad end?

'Their coats were brushed, their faces washed,
Their shoes were clean and neat -
And this was odd, because, you know,
They hadn't any feet.

Well of course it's nonsense! Very clever nonsense. Alice through the looking glass is a warning to children and adults to be weary of the advice the world has to offer and to think for themselves. Here is Humpty Dumpty's point of view:

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornfull tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean neither more nor less.'

Do not be fooled by the innocence of Alice the little girl. From Tweedledum to Tweedledee she is learning about the world and how to face it. She has to think on her feet, here is her reply to Humpty Dumpty's comments on words:

'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'

If I didn't know better I would think George Orwell had a hand in Lewis Carroll's view on the use of words.

Both Alice books are political and social commentaries disguised as literary nonsense. These comments are universally true and relevant in all societies. Of course to write from the point of view of an innocent little girl gives you license to write what you want without getting into too much trouble. Those who should understand what you are saying will understand.

I prefer Alice through the looking glass to Alice in Wonderland but both are brilliant. When I don't find newnoise in the Alice books I am not concentrating!

newnoise1 quotes writers on writing

Writers on writing

I've done some surfing and listed the following insights on writing from 5 of the authors I selected for my 100 favorite books list.

George Orwell - 1984

"It was a bright day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." First line from 1984

'A scrupulous writer, in every sentence that he writes, will ask himself at least four questions, thus: What am I trying to say? What words will express it? What image or idiom will make it clearer? Is this image fresh enough to have an effect? And he will probably ask himself two more: Could I put it more shortly? Have I said anything that is avoidably ugly?'

George Orwell - Politics and the English Language

http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit


Helene Hanff - 84, Charing Cross road

'Pride goeth.' First line from Apple of my eye

I’m working late in what’s left of the Guild offices when the phone rings and it’s Mrs. Helburn in New Haven. We had just mimeographed BY HAND 10,000 fliers with Away We Go. And Terry says to me, Helene, we’ve changed the title. You’ll have to rewrite the flier. The new title is…OKLAHOMA. Big deal! Back then it was the name of a state! Would you name a musical Maine or New Jersey? But we redo the fliers and hand crank out 10,000 new ones. Phone rings again…You’ll have to redo the fliers again. They want an exclamation point at the end. OKLAHOMA!

Helen Hanff - Underfoot in Show Business

http://www.wosu.org/blogs/classical/?tag=helene-hanff

Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse 5

'All this happened, more or less.' First line from Slaughterhouse 5

'My teachers wished me to write accurately, always selecting the most effective words, and relating the words to one another unambiguously, rigidly, like parts of a machine. The teachers did not want to turn me into an Englishman after all. They hoped that I would become understandable - and therefore understood. And there went my dream of doing with words what Pablo Picasso did with paint or what any number of jazz idols did with music. If I broke all the rules of punctuation, had words mean whatever I wanted them to mean, and strung them together higgledy-piggledy, I would simply not be understood.'

http://peterstekel.com/PDFHTML/Kurt%20Vonnegut%20advice%20to%20writers.htm

Kurt Vonnegut - How to Write With Style

Albert Camus - The Outsider

'Mother died today.' First line from The Outsider

'By the same token, the writer's role is not free from difficult duties. By definition he cannot put himself today in the service of those who make history; he is at the service of those who suffer it. Otherwise, he will be alone and deprived of his art. Not all the armies of tyranny with their millions of men will free him from his isolation, even and particularly if he falls into step with them. But the silence of an unknown prisoner, abandoned to humiliations at the other end of the world, is enough to draw the writer out of his exile, at least whenever, in the midst of the privileges of freedom, he manages not to forget that silence, and to transmit It in order to make it resound by means of his art.'

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1957/camus-speech-e.html

Albert Camus - Speech at the Nobel Banquet at the City Hall in Stockholm, December 10, 1957

Mark Twain - Huckleberry Finn

'The personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others.'

http://www.mamohanraj.com/Writing/twain.html

Twain's Rules of Writing

Know your wallpaper and find your writing voice

Wallpaper is what forms the background to what you are actually busy with. It could be the television that's on while you're doing the dishes. This wallpaper is light green with a dark green paisley motive.

Wallpaper can be a death in the family that you are thinking about at work. This kind is in your face, you can't think of anything else. Actually, the death is not the wallpaper the work becomes the wallpaper. The work as wallpaper is a watery yellow color with no pictures.

I'm thinking of the book A day in the life of Ivan Ilych, his wallpaper was his own authentic voice that he ignored. His life was based on what others wanted of him at home and at work.

I can make a list of things that make excellent, colorful wallpaper. So real is this wallpaper you could think it's more real than death and confuse it with stuff that's real:

Celebrities
Soap operas
Fashion
Hype
Advertising
Things that distract you from your goals
Things that scream louder than your own authenticity
Hype

T.S Eliot was very good at describing wallpaper. He described it as measuring out his days in coffee spoons and cigarette buts.

My point is, find out what is your wallpaper and what is real. Of course everything is real and part of reality. As George Orwell would put it: some things are more real than others.

Don't be so blinded by the unreal that you miss out on the reality of your life.

Find your writing voice!