What was the real life of Alice from Wonderland. "Alice in Wonderland", the history of the creation of the book Encyclopedia of the use of "substances"
Lewis Carroll - who is to blame for the fact that the author of "Alice in Wonderland" is blamed for his love for girls and is called the Ripper - the journalist Anastasia Belousova and the writer Alexei Kurilko figured out.
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"Alice in Wonderland" as a gift
You know, Alexei, it's not just that I suggested talking about Lewis Carroll right now, after the New Year holidays! For me, Alice in Wonderland is not just a book. First of all, these are two discs of an audio performance based on words and songs by Vladimir Vysotsky, which parents put my brother and me under the New Year tree.
In our house we had a big old radio "Symphony" - and for me it was like a huge box ... in a fairy tale. I sat on a chair, opened the front cover of the radio, the light came on inside, put on my favorite "Alice in Wonderland" and watched the needle move.
And although she understood that the sound was coming from the speakers under the ceiling, she was staring at the inside of the radio. It was there for my childhood imagination that all the events took place: falling into a hole, a flood of Alice's tears, the bloodthirstiness of the Queen of Hearts, who orders to paint white roses red and chops off heads even to those who have nothing but their heads.
But, surprisingly, when a friend gave me Carroll's book to read, I ... was disappointed! It seemed to me not as attractive as my favorite record with the voice of Vysotsky and Rumyantseva.
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According to the laws of mathematics
Anastasia, there is nothing surprising here. I, unlike most, do not consider the story of Alice and her adventures to be children's literature at all. I myself did not like this book very much as a child.
From 6 to 14 years old, I tried several times to overcome her, but without much result. Only at the age of 18 I suddenly understood and enjoyed all the charm of the language, jokes, parodies, associations, plot collisions, built by the skillful hand of the master.
Already now, preparing for the release, I read that you can understand the subtle humor and depth of Carroll's fairy tale only if you read it in the original - in English. Allegedly, Lewis Carroll, as a mathematician, even built sentences according to the system of a mathematical paradox, and Lewis Carroll, for a minute, really was a genius of mathematical logic.
If I am not mistaken, those statements that we love so much are written according to this system.
Lewis Carroll and best quotes:“Who knows when Tuesday ends and Wednesday begins?”, “I've seen cats without smiles, but a smile without a cat ...”, “Where can I go from here? - "Where do you want to go?" - "And I do not care, just to get somewhere." “Then it's all the same where to go. You will definitely get somewhere. "
Carroll's books are not only a masterpiece of literature, but also mathematical puzzles, because Charles Dodgson - this is the name of the author of "Alice" - is primarily a mathematician. And he wrote to Alice for the girl of his colleague at the university, named Alice.
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Carroll's sexual implications
My opinion is radically different. I do not accept to see any ciphers or mathematical hidden puzzles and miscalculations in Carroll's tales. Of course, mathematics is the queen of sciences, an exact subject that requires a lot of mental effort.
But I think, taking up the pen, Lewis Carroll just wanted to take a break from math problems, and not plunge into them. The writer has published separate books for them. In general, of course, everyone reads and perceives Carroll's book to the best of their upbringing and intelligence.
Obviously, it is not surprising that psychoanalysts are trying to find some kind of sexual connotations, mathematicians - to build, disassemble the book into mathematical formulas.
Recently I read the work of some astronomer who tried to prove that the whole system of our universe is encrypted in "Alice". Alice is the Earth, the Red Queen is the Sun, etc.
Carroll's biography as a confusion
Remember, Alexey: “Once upon a time there was such a wonderful writer - Lewis Carroll. Stop! The confusion has already begun. Get used to it, my friend! There will be plenty of confusion here. So what's the confusion here? Once upon a time. The fact is that he lived to live, but to be, he did not exist! Because in fact there was a completely different person, whose name was Charles Dodgson. "
I also remembered that now you can read radically opposite information about Carroll's life. One by one, he was reserved, uncommunicative, almost a virgin. According to other sources - on the contrary, "the soul is wide open", a revenge and a rake.
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Lewis Carroll and theater
The more common opinion is that Carroll the scientist, this priest in five minutes, a prim Englishman, buttoned up, avoided communication with adults and fully revealed himself only in the company of children. This is not entirely true.
According to the recollections of relatives and friends, as well as according to his own notes, he made about a dozen visits a day. He visited houses and places of entertainment, including the theater.
Lewis Carroll:"Do not be sad. Sooner or later, everything will become clear, everything will fall into place and line up in a single beautiful pattern, like lace. It will become clear why everything was needed, because everything will be correct "
It was this shameful fact that the great writer was probably trying to keep secret. Even in a letter to his sisters before his death, he asked not to even mention these visits. The Victorian era of the then England was so strict that the theater was considered a fiend of debauchery, a breeding ground for vices and sins.
Such a famous person, and even a believer, Carroll would be very uncomfortable if the press reported that he was a terrible fan of the theater, loved comedy, and even secretly wrote small sketches for his theatrical friends.
Did Dodgson love girls?
And how do you, Alexey, the information that Dodgson was very fond of communicating with girls under 12 years old? And he loved to photograph them, even in the most piquant poses? Allegedly, this secret and these photos were carefully hidden for a long time by Dodgson's relatives ...
"This strange girl just loved to split herself, becoming two girls at the same time."
I think this is just a modern attempt to tarnish a genius! Because a person's love for children and the ability to communicate with them does not mean that he is a pervert! But why is this necessary?
Of course, I don’t want to quote the famous letter of Alexander Pushkin to Peter Vyazemsky for the seven hundredth time, because this quote has already been overwritten, and, apparently, will have to: “The crowd always eagerly reads confessions, notes, and so on, because in its meanness it rejoices in the humiliation of the tall, the weakness of the mighty, and when it reveals any meanness, it is in admiration. He is small as we are! He is disgusting as we are! They say. You're lying, scoundrels! He is small and vile, but not like you. Otherwise".
Carroll rumors
Actually, this can explain the craving for all kinds of gossip, rumors, denigrating the name of a noble person. Now that Lewis Carroll allegedly felt some kind of unhealthy sexual interest in young girls.
Any adventure has to start somewhere ... corny, but even here it is true ...
Indeed, about 14 photographs have survived, in which small children were taken in different images - sometimes in the image of a tramp, then in the image of an angel, some of them are really half-naked, or even nude.
But right away it is worth remembering the quote from Carroll's own diary, where he clearly and clearly stated that all the pictures were taken in the presence of one of the parents of the child being photographed. These were not secret pictures of a maniac and a pervert, some of the adults were always present.
“If you knew the time as I know it,- said the Hat, - you would not talk about him in a neuter gender. It is not it, but he is the Old Man-Time! "
Judging by the letters, he was not a virgin like Andersen. He was interested in women of different ages. In addition, in England at that time, girls under 12 years old were considered asexual - they did not have signs that could cause some kind of lust in a man.
Wines of relatives
Do you know, Anastasia, that the closest relatives are to blame for the formation of this myth-making, suspicions of pedophilia, who have inherited a very huge handwritten archive of the writer?
Well, it can't be! Why should relatives vilify the writer?
His sisters wanted to publish Carroll's diaries. Let me remind you that during his lifetime, only eight things were published, the most famous of which are "Alice in Wonderland" and "Alice Through the Looking Glass", as well as "Alice Under the Ground" - which, in fact, began the famous fairy tale.
True, four of the 14 notebooks-diaries were lost, but in the surviving archives there are places cut with scissors, and they apparently concerned Carroll's hobby for the theater and even his hobbies for actresses.
- Would you like some cake? - the Hare has kindly offered.
Alice looked around the entire table, but there was nothing but teapots and tea utensils. - What kind of cake? I don’t see him, ”she said.
- He's not here, - confirmed the Hare. - Why offer? It's not very polite! - Alice said resentfully. - Why sit down at the table without an invitation? It's not very polite! - responded like an echo, the Hare.
Apparently, in this way the sisters tried to get rid of some inconvenient revelations. But by cutting out the mention of his friendship with adult women, they thereby did a disservice. All visits - from the theater to brothels - were washed out, cut out, but the friendship with the children remained.
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Carroll's letters
They also say that Carroll's letters to children are simply masterpieces of the epistolary genre, while correspondence with adults is boring and pedantic. On which the researchers built the assumption that his best friends were children ...
The fact is that from the diaries it is known that during his lifetime the writer sent about 10 thousand long letters to various correspondents. Can you imagine this figure? And moreover, only one quarter of what was written was intended for children.
These are mainly letters to friends, girlfriends, acquaintances, relatives, etc. Now, regarding the version that most of his friends were children under 12 years old, it is incorrect. Half of his child friends were over 14 years old. This is where all the confusion begins.
Helping children
It is not true. In fact, Carroll corresponded with the same prototype of Alice - Alice Lindell - until her 28th birthday! And the writer continued to correspond with other children, even when they were already becoming adults.
He helped them and took care of them. One of his closest little girlfriends, Lewis Carroll, paid bills, had a stage career, paid for a dentist, and so on, even when she was over 18 years old.
The confusion game
So yes, those who read and study Carroll's life are, first of all, "playing confusion." And the goal is to unravel the tricky plot (or tricky life), to understand who is who in reality. After all, even Alice herself, once in Wonderland, loses herself and begins to doubt whether she really is?
“Or did my mind diminish and become like Mary Ann?”, “I just don't know who I am now. No, I, of course, roughly know who I was in the morning when I got up, but since then I have always been this and that - in a word, somehow not like that. "
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"Alice" as a chess game
Lewis Carroll was really eccentric. After graduating from college, according to the charter, he was ordained a deacon, which, thank God, gave him the right not only to read sermons in the church, but also to lead a secular life. In particular, start a writing career.
While still in college, he began writing short poems and novels and sent them to magazines under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. His passion for literature played a huge role in his life - more than his passion for photography and chess. By the way, he really did play chess seriously, dreamed of playing with professionals.
Did you know that the plot of "Alice Through the Looking Glass" is completely based on a chess game? The writer thought of it himself, and even Lewis Carroll openly posted a chess diagram in the first edition of the book.
Carroll's letters
Carroll's tales still remind me of a labyrinth in which everyone meets something of their own - someone their own fear, someone lack of self-confidence.
Carroll's symbolism is so unique that everything can be adjusted to fit it - from political subtext to Freudian motives (for example, the image of a rabbit and a hole - if we consider it according to Freud, then such a "confusion" turns out that the hair will stand on end!).
Lewis Carroll and Freudianism
Who knew that the twentieth century would be so fucked up. That Freudianism will very soon find some unhealthy motives in Carroll's tales, as the novelist John Priestley warned about.
“Do you think anyone needs a child who doesn't think? Even in a joke there should be some thought, and a child, you must admit it yourself, is not a joke at all! "
According to the memoirs of friends and diaries of Carroll, the death of his father in 1868 (the writer was already 36 years old), became the greatest grief of his life. He suffered no less from the loss of his father than when he lost his mother at the age of 19. But you still grabbed onto the most popular version of the pseudo-debauchery of his personality.
Lewis Carroll is the Ripper?
But there is still a whole book that proves that Lewis Carroll was ... Jack the Ripper!
What kind of fright is this?
The author of the book appeals to the fact that the murders of the Ripper coincide with the time of Carroll's visit to London. And the murders stopped - when he went on a trip to Europe and Russia. So what people do not invent. To blacken the great - than not to give your name weight and shine, even if it is fake.
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"My book teaches nothing"
Alexey, I propose to say something good, after all, our hero is a genius, and we devoted the entire issue to debunking myths. Let’s rather I quote the phrase of the author himself about his books about Alice:
“My book teaches nothing. Those for whom the soul of a child is a closed book, who do not see the divine light in his smile, they will not understand anything in my words. And for someone who has loved at least one real child, no words are needed. He knows the feeling of reverence in the presence of a soul that has just left the hands of God ... ”.
Each generation is looking for something different in "Alice". And what is most surprising - it finds! If you watch Tim Burton's film "Alice in Wonderland", based on Carroll's motives, we will see in the characters a clear search for the main character of herself, the pressure of society over her, and so on. Half of the film's plot is the director's own speculation.
For example, Alice's failed wedding with a duke who has constipation, the dragon Jabberwock, twins, and so on. But, as for me, the speculations are no less brilliant and the author himself would surely like it if he could watch this film.
By the way, my son watches Barton's film with pleasure, but from the Soviet cartoon about Alice he just falls asleep ... Apparently because Vysotsky retold Alice for his generation, and Tim Barton - for our generation and our children ...
Learning to read by Carroll
You can endlessly talk about Carroll's tales. In them, of course, a lot is parodied, but in the 21st century we no longer notice this, just as we do not notice the parody in Eugene Onegin by Pushkin. The generation of readers for whom Pushkin and Lewis Carroll wrote, I am sure, laughed ten times louder than the current generation!
Nevertheless, both "Onegin" and the books about Alice are still alive. In the UK, children learn to read from Alice in Wonderland. I don’t know if this is good or bad. These fairy tales, of course, develop paradoxical thinking in children, but nevertheless, the child is not able to understand all the beauty, all the charm, to see all the complexity of this construction. I think this book is better to read after adulthood, and if a person has intellectually grown up to these works.
On this day in 1852, Alice Pleasance Liddell was born,
the girl for whom Lewis Carroll wrote Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass.
Henry Liddell, dean of Christ Church College, Oxford, had seven children - three sons and four daughters. In early 1856, the mathematics teacher Charles Lutwidge Dodgson met the dean's family (then not so big).
At that time, Dodgson was just interested in photography, and sisters Lorina, Alice and Edith became frequent guests at his house. A friendship arose between them, although the relationship with the girls' parents was not so cordial. Soon they forbade him to meet with the children, but during the holidays, when the parents went on vacation, the governess allowed the girls to spend time with Dodgson.
In 1862, during a boat trip, he told them a fairy tale, the heroine of which was Alice. At the request of Alice, he wrote it down, and three years later it was published as a separate book "Alice in Wonderland".
Dodgson invented a pseudonym for himself, translating into Latin and then reading his two names in English. This is how the writer Lewis Carroll was born. After the memorable walk, their meetings began to occur less and less at the insistence of their mother. They say that at the age of 20 Alice was carried away by the youngest son of Queen Victoria, Prince Leopold, but class prejudices did not allow this feeling to develop. In 1880, she married Reginald Hargreaves, gave birth to three sons (she named the first Leopold, and the prince named his first daughter Alice). After her husband died in 1928, when she needed money, she sold the manuscript at Sotheby's. In her declining years, she published memoirs, the main place in which was given to the person who had once turned her into a fairy-tale heroine.
“What were you, Alice, in the eyes of your adoptive father? How can he describe you? Loving first of all; loving and tender - loving like a dog (forgive the prosaic comparison, but I don't know any other love that would be as pure and beautiful), and tender as a doe; and then courteous - courteous to everyone, whether tall or low, majestic or ridiculous, the King or the Caterpillar, as if she herself were a royal daughter, and her dress was pure gold; and still gullible, ready to accept the most incredible with the conviction that is familiar only to dreamers; and, finally, inquisitive - inquisitive to the extreme, with that taste for Life, which is available only to a happy childhood, when everything is new and good, and Sin and Sadness are just words - empty words that mean nothing! " (L. Carroll. "Alice on the Stage").
Oh, what a bright day!
Boat, sun, shine and shade,
And everywhere lilacs bloomed.
The sisters listen to the story
And the river carries us away.
Wave splash, eyes shine.
Summer day, alas, is far away
The echo fell silent. The light faded.
The winter wind is so cruel.
But from the depths of time
A bright dream arises,
The easy canoe comes out.
And again my heart is with her -
Girl of days gone by
By my old joy.
If the world is sublunary itself
Only in a dream did he appear to us
People, how not to believe dreams?
(Note that the first letters of the lines make up the heroine's full name - Alice Plazns Liddell.)
At 80, she was awarded an honorary doctorate in literature from Columbia University. She died on November 15, 1934.
Alice is an ancient Germanic female name. It is an abbreviated form of the name Adelaide (fr. Adelaide), in turn representing the French version of the ancient German name Adalheid (Adelheid, Adelheidis). This compound word includes two roots: adal (noble, noble) and heid (species, genus, image). Thus, the name Adalheid means nothing more than 'noble in kind', 'noble by origin' or simply 'nobility'. The same meaning, with a certain emotional connotation, can be recognized for the name Alice. There are hypotheses about the connection of the name Alice with the Greek female name Callista, or with the Greek word aletheia ('truth').
Several saints are known who bore the name Adelaide, of which at least two are also revered under the name of Alice - St. Adelaide (Alice), abbess of the monastery at Willich (960 - 1015, her memory in the Catholic Church is celebrated on February 5), and St. Alice from Schaerbek (near Brussels), (1215 - 1250, commemorated June 12).
The name Alice gained particular popularity in England in the 19th century - this name was the wife of King William IV, and a little later - Alice Maud Marie (1843-1878), Grand Duchess of Hesse, the second daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
Undoubtedly, the most famous Alice in the world is the heroine of the fairy tales of the writer who published his works under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll - "Alice in Wonderland" and "Alice Through the Looking Glass". The prototype for her was the daughter of Carroll's friend Alice Liddell. Carroll liked the name in general; besides Liddell, he had other friends of Alice's girls. The theme of the name of Alice Carroll plays repeatedly in "Alice Through the Looking Glass":
- What are you muttering there? Humpty asked, looking directly at her for the first time. - Tell me better what your name is and why you came here.
- My name is Alice, and ...
“What a stupid name,” Humpty Dumpty interrupted impatiently. - What does it mean?
- Does the name have to mean something? - said Alice doubtfully.
“Of course it should,” Humpty Dumpty replied, and snorted. “Take my name, for example. It expresses my essence! A wonderful and wonderful essence!
And with a name like yours, you can be anything ... Well, just anything!
Lewis Carroll
Lewis Carroll was a bachelor. In the past, it was believed that he was not friends with persons of the opposite sex, making an exception for the actress Ellen Terry. One of Lewis's fellow mathematicians, Martin Gardner, notes:
“Carroll's greatest joy was the friendship with little girls. “I love children (not boys),” he once wrote. Girls (unlike boys) seemed amazingly beautiful to him without clothes. Sometimes he painted or photographed them naked - of course, with the permission of the mothers. "
Carroll himself considered his friendship with girls completely innocent - there is no reason to doubt that it was so. In addition, in the numerous memories that his little girlfriends later left about him, there is not a hint of any violation of decency.
The history of friendship between the adult Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who at that time was studying at Christ Church, at Oxford, and little Alice began back in 1856, when a new dean appeared at his college - Henry Liddell, along with his wife and five children, including 4-year-old Alice.
Alice Liddell was the fourth child of Henry, a classical philologist and co-author of the famous Greek dictionary "Liddell-Scott". Alice had two older brothers who died of scarlet fever in 1853, an older sister Lorina and six younger brothers and sisters. Charles became a close family friend in the following years.
Alice grew up in the company of two sisters - Lorina was three years older, and Edith was two years younger. On holidays with the whole family, they vacationed on the west coast of North Wales at the Penmorfa country house, now the Gogarth Abbey Hotel.
In the concluding poem of Alice Through the Looking Glass, one of Carroll's finest poems, he recalls a boat trip with the three Liddell girls when he first told Alice in Wonderland. The poem is written in the form of an acrostic: from the first letters of each line a name is formed - Alice Plazns Liddell.
The birth of history
On July 4, 1862, on a boat trip, Alice Liddell asked her friend Charles Dodgson to compose a story for her and her sisters Edith and Lorina. Dodgson, who had previously told Dean Liddell's children fairy tales, inventing events and characters on the fly, readily agreed. This time, he told the sisters about the adventures of a little girl in the Underworld, where she fell, having fallen into the hole of the White Rabbit.
The main character was very reminiscent of Alice (and not only in name), and some minor characters - her sisters Loreena and Edith. Alice Liddell liked the story so much that she asked the narrator to write it down. Dodgson promised, but still had to remind him several times. Finally, he fulfilled Alice's request and presented her with a manuscript called "Alice's Adventures Underground." Later, the author decided to rewrite the book. To do this, in the spring of 1863, he sent it to his friend George MacDonald for review. New details and illustrations by John Tenniel have also been added to the book.
Dodgson presented a new version of the book to his favorite at Christmas 1863. In 1865, Dodgson published Alice's Adventures in Wonderland under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. The second book, Alice Through the Looking Glass, was published six years later, in 1871. Both tales, which are well over 100 years old, are still popular today, and the handwritten copy that Dodgson once gave to Alice Liddell is kept in the British Library.
At the age of eighty, Alice Liddell Hargreaves was awarded a Certificate of Honor from Columbia University for the important role she played in the creation of Mr. Dodgson's famous book.
Adaptations, games
The most famous cartoon based on Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" belongs to the artists of the Disney studio. Beautiful, bright, light. But neither the girl herself, nor the drawing technique in any way distinguished the cartoon from a number of the same type of Disney fairy tales. Alice, Cinderella, some regular princess ... The cartoon characters were not very different from each other. Artists and director Clyde Geronimi approached the film adaptation as another fairy tale, devoid of individuality and its own, unique charm.
Soviet animators approached the matter with a completely different mood. Released in 1981, exactly thirty years after the Disney premiere, the cartoon "Alice in Wonderland" was fundamentally different from its predecessor. Our artists did not repeat a single smooth, neat stroke of their American colleagues. Instead of a cute children's fairy tale, they made a real Carroll's work - strange, generously scattering riddles, rebellious and wayward.
The Kievnauchfilm studio has started work. Artists - Irina Smirnova and Henrikh Umansky. There are no cartoons brighter and more memorable than "Alice" in their creative baggage. In addition to the three episodes of "Alice Through the Looking Glass" released a year later. But the name of Efrem Pruzhansky is known to a wider circle of fans of Soviet animation. On his account there are fifty cartoons, including several stories about Parasolka and, of course, about the Cossacks who either walked at the wedding, played football, or bought salt.
Alice in Wonderland is by no means a children's cartoon. He seems too gloomy and ambiguous. A blurred watercolor background, heroes through one aggressively antipathetic appearance, no gloss, volume, amazing play of light and shadow ... He is in Carroll's way alarming, exciting and charming. Reminiscent of the psychedelic rock of the 60s and the disorienting neurological syndrome that psychiatrists call Alice in Wonderland Syndrome.
And Alice, and the Hatter, and the White Rabbit, and the Duchess, and the Cheshire Cat are radically different from their overseas counterparts. For example, the main character is by no means a touching child with a pure gaze. Russian Alice is more like a pupil of a closed English school. She has attentive eyes, full-length curiosity, and, what is most gratifying, she is extremely intelligent.
Yes, modern children like the Disney version much more. But there is nothing unexpected and reprehensible in this. Their parents enjoy the Soviet cartoon much more. They do not need to paint his charm and originality.
It is simply impossible to objectively and emotionally evaluate cartoons of that time. Judge for yourself, in that 1981, in addition to "Alice in Wonderland", "Plasticine Crow", and "Mom for a Mammoth", and "Koloboks are Investigating", and "Leopold the Cat" and "Caliph-Stork" appeared on the screens "... Small masterpieces, unique and unrepeatable.
Also, based on Carroll's book, American McGee’s Alice was released in 2000 - a cult computer game in the Action genre, made in the fantasy style. However, unlike Carroll's works, the game draws in front of the player in another Wonderland filled with brutality and violence.
Shortly after Alice's adventures described by Carroll, a fire breaks out in her house. Alice's parents die. She herself escapes, having received serious burns and mental trauma. Soon she finds herself in the Rutland mental hospital, where she spends several years, turning from a girl to a teenager. The treatment provided to her in Rutland does not give an effect - she does not react to anything happening around, being in a kind of coma. Alice's consciousness blocked the feeling of guilt - she considers herself to be the killer of her parents, as she felt the smell of smoke through her sleep, but did not want to wake up, leave Wonderland. Out of last resort, Alice's doctor gives her her toy, a rabbit. This causes an impetus in her consciousness - she again finds herself in Wonderland, but already disfigured by her sick mind.
Cheshire Cat
One of the main characters of the book is the Cheshire Cat - a constantly grinning creature that can gradually dissolve in the air at will, leaving only a smile in goodbye ... Occupying Alice not only with her amusing conversations, but also sometimes overly annoying philosophical fabrications ...
In the original version of Lewis Carroll's book, the Cheshire Cat was absent as such. It appeared only in 1865. In those days, the expression "smiles like a Cheshire cat" was often used. You can interpret this saying in different ways. For example, here are two theories:
In Cheshire, Carroll's birthplace, a hitherto unknown painter painted grinning cats over tavern doors. Historically, these were grinning lions (or leopards), but in Cheshire, few people have seen lions.
The second explanation says that the famous Cheshire cheeses, which have a history of more than nine centuries, were once given the look of smiling cats.
In The Book of Fictional Creatures, under The Cheshire Cat and the Killkenny Cats, Borges writes:
In English there is an expression "grin like a Cheshire cat" (grin sardonically, like a Cheshire cat). Various explanations are offered. One is that cheeses that looked like the head of a smiling cat were sold in Cheshire. Second, that even the cats laughed at the high rank of the small county of Cheshire. Another is that during the reign of Richard III, the forester Katerling lived in Cheshire, who, when he caught poachers, grinned viciously.
When young Dodgson arrived in Oxford, there was just a discussion about the origin of this saying. Dodgson, a native of Cheshire, could not help but be interested in her.
There is also information that when creating the image of the Cat, Carroll allegedly was inspired by carved wooden ornaments in the church of the village of Croft in the north-east of England, where his father served as a pastor.
In Carroll's homeland, in the village of Dersbury in Cheshire, there is also the Church of All Saints. In it, the artist Geoffrey Webb in 1935 created a magnificent stained glass window depicting characters from the beloved book.
The image of "Alice in Wonderland" is reflected even in the modern art of trendy magazines. A special photo session of Russian supermodel Natalia Vodianova for Vogue magazine strikes with the similarity to the intended image - Alice Liddell, combined with the style and grace of clothes from world famous fashion designers.
Read the book "Alice in Wonderland"
Imitation of the character of Alice, photo for the magazine "Vogue"
On July 4, 1865, Macmillan & Co published a fairy tale entitled Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Its author was listed as a certain Lewis Carroll.
This story happened on one sunny summer day. On a boat up the Thames, a mathematics professor, poet, writer, photographer, linguist and great inventor named Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, his friend Robertson Duckworth and three young daughters of the dean of Oxford University Henry Liddell (their names were Lorina Charlotte Liddell, Alice Pleasant Liddell and Edith Mary Liddell). During the walk, the bored children demanded to entertain them with some fairy tale, and Dodgson, collecting his thoughts, started a story about a girl chasing a white rabbit in a waistcoat. Falling down the rabbit hole, the girl found herself in a magical land, where she attended a crazy tea party, played royal croquet and swam in a sea of her own tears. And exactly three years later, this tale, rewritten and modified, was published under the title "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." And its author was signed by Lewis Carroll - this is exactly the pseudonym Dodgson chose for himself, having received it by translating his name from English into Latin and vice versa.
For a century and a half (and in July 2015, "Alice" celebrated its 150th anniversary), the book by Lewis Carroll was and remains one of the most interesting books not only for children, but also for adults. Philologists, linguists, mathematicians, psychologists and even physicists write scientific works, articles and essays on it; performances are staged and films are made based on the fairy tale; several sequels and parodies have been written to "Alice"; and, of course, she inspires artists to create fantastic new designs.
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is one of the most illustrated books in the world., yielding only to the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault and Hans Christian Andersen. Carroll's story, phantasmagoric, full of unusual characters and absurd events, challenges the imagination of artists, and many talented illustrators accept it. It is difficult to list everyone who has ever created drawings for Alice - there are many dozens of them.
The first person to illustrate "Alice" was, of course, himself Lewis Carroll, who made 38 drawings for his handwritten book Alice's Adventures Underground. He gave the book to Alice Liddell for Christmas, accompanied by her dedication: "to a dear girl in memory of a summer day."
The subsequent history of this manuscript is quite interesting: after the death of her husband, Alice Liddell was forced to sell Carroll's gift. The manuscript was valued at £ 15,400 at Sotheby's and was bought by the American collector A. S. Rosenbach. In 1946, the book was again auctioned, and two years later, through the efforts of a group of American benefactors, it was donated to the British Library, where it is kept to this day.
Touching and naive, Carroll's drawings were not very skillful. Therefore, when it came to publishing, the writer chose to collaborate with a professional. On the advice of the publisher, Carroll turned to John Tenniel, a cartoonist who worked for the satirical magazine Punch.
The collaboration between Carroll and Tenniel has been very fruitful, though not always smooth. So, for example, to the proposal to use one of his acquaintances as a model, the writer received a rather harsh answer, which he later wrote in his diary: “ Mr. Tenniel, the only artist who illustrated my books, flatly refused to draw from life, saying that he did not need it as much as I did for solving a mathematical problem -multiplication table!»
Despite the fact that Carroll demanded that the artist fully adhere to his plan, Tenniel eventually became a full-fledged author in the concept of book design and changed a lot. Alice Liddell, the prototype of the book heroine, a short-haired brunette, turned into a long-haired blonde under Tenniel's feather. The artist's drawings show multiple historical allusions, and his work as a cartoonist was reflected in some of the characters (for example, two symbols of Britain, a lion and a unicorn, were depicted with the faces of political figures of that era - Disraeli and Gladstone). Tenniel created 42 drawings for "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and later illustrated the continuation of the tale - "Alice Through the Looking Glass". His prints, executed with amazing skill and great talent, are now considered canonical and are the most recognizable and sought-after illustrations for "Alice".
In 1907, when Carroll lost the copyright for the book, several publishing houses undertook to print the popular story. Alice was produced with drawings by various artists, including Peter Newell, Amy Sowerby, Charles Robinson, Arthur Rackham.
Arthur Rackham, a British artist who illustrated a huge number of children's (and not only) books: among his works were Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "Ondine", "The Wind in the Willows", "Peter Pan" and the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. He could not pass by the magical story of Carroll, having created 20 illustrations - these were the first drawings for Alice, made in color. Graceful and whimsical, they are full of meticulously crafted small details and flowing lines that distinguished the Art Nouveau style, which was then in vogue. Rackham's Alice is not a nice little girl, but almost a teenager, blonde and femininely soft; and her wonderland is a little melancholic and looks incredibly alive, voluminous, thanks to the artist's attention to the depiction of nature. Unsurprisingly, Rackham's illustrations are nearly as popular as Tennie's classic prints, just a tiny bit behind them.
An absurd tale could not but be illustrated by the greatest of the surrealists, the Spanish artist Salvador Dali... In 1969, an edition was published in New York, supplemented by 13 drawings of the famous graphic artist. None of them has a portrait of the main character - only a thin black figure holding a rope in her hands, as if frozen in an instant. But Dali's illustrations could not have done without his favorite artistic symbols: on them you can see melting clocks and butterflies flying to the sides. Despite the fact that the drawings for "Songs of Maldoror" are considered the most successful illustrations in Dali's career, his "Alice" is no less amazing. The artist managed to express in his manner the essence of Carroll's fairy tale: a dream that once dreamed of a little girl dozing on the bank of a river.
Among the illustrators of "Alice" were those whom we know more as writers, not artists. There are at least two of them: Tove Janson and Mervyn Peak.
The Scandinavian storyteller, the beloved mother of the Moomins, for the 1966 edition, published in Finland, created 56 drawings of "Alice", among which there were color and black-and-white pictures, Jansson's melancholic, with typical big-eyed fantastic characters for her, many of which resemble the inhabitants of another magical land - the Moomin Valley. Briton Mervyn Peak, known for his series of books called "Gormenghast" - a story about a huge dark castle full of intrigue and secrets - was not only an outstanding writer, but also an excellent artist. His black and white drawings for "Alice" were created with great talent and love. At first glance, they seem a little gloomy, but if you look closely, you can see how friendly his Hatter is and how carefully the arrogant Duchess is drawn. Peak's drawings resemble Tenniel's prints, however, not constrained by the harsh Victorian canons of book illustration - when each drawing had to accurately reflect the events in the text - the artist shows more freedom and imagination. Which is undoubtedly only for the best.
In Russia, the history of the publication of "Alice" dates back to 1879. "Sonya in the Kingdom of Diva" was the name of a small book printed at the printing house of A. I. Mamontov in Moscow. The name of the author, as well as the name of the translator, was not indicated, but the publication came with original Tennie's illustrations. Before the revolution, several more translations were made, and all of them were published with drawings by foreign artists - mainly Tenniel and Robinson. And especially for the Russian edition, illustrations appeared only in 1923, when the Gamayun publishing house published a book in a free translation by a certain V. Sirin. Under a sonorous pseudonym, Vladimir Nabokov, a big fan of Carroll, was hiding, and he made illustrations for the publication Sergey Zalshupin(in exile he bore the name Serge Shubin).
In the USSR, "Alice" was illustrated by many eminent artists, among whom were Vladimir Alfeevsky, Gennady Kalinovsky and Viktor Chizhikov.
Gennady Kalinovsky, the winner of a large number of prestigious awards in the field of illustration, made several series of drawings for Carroll's story. The first of them was published in 1974 and supplemented the retelling of Boris Zakhoder - it was these black and white illustrations, original and masterly performed, that brought Kalinovsky wide popularity. Later he made drawings for various editions of Carroll's books (in 1977 and in 1979), and when republished in 1988, he made illustrations in color. Well-known and beloved illustrator Victor Chizhikov, familiar to us from his drawings for the books of Nosov, Zakhoder and Uspensky, treated Carroll's story with special trepidation. His black-and-white illustrations for "Alice" were published in 1971-1972 in the magazine "Pioneer", and later, almost 40 years later, were reprinted in color. Chizhikov himself said about the 2012 edition: “As every actor dreams of playing the role of Hamlet, so every artist dreams of making drawings for the book by Lewis Carroll“ Alice in Wonderland ”... I would really like the fate of this publication to be happy. I played my own Hamlet, but whether I succeeded in this role is up to you to judge. " The illustrations, however, were successful: bright, vivid, he turned Carroll's fairy tale into a funny story, which children listen with special eagerness, looking at funny pictures.
Nowadays, artists' interest in the fairy tale about a girl who fell into a rabbit hole does not subside at all. Unconventional artists give free rein to their imaginations, creating fantastic new illustrations.
Among them, an adherent of classical drawing, an Australian artist, stands out. Robert Ingpen, illustrated many children's books: "Treasure Island", "A Christmas Carol", "Peter Pan", "Mysterious Garden" and, of course, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."
His muted in color, slightly washed out drawings seem to be inspired by a sunny autumn, rather than a hot summer afternoon, and resemble a dream more than reality. Rodney Matthews, a British artist known for his music album covers, also did the illustrations for Alice. His drawings are amazing. The artist chose bright, rich colors, unusual, distorted perspective and created truly futuristic landscapes. If Wonderland was somewhere on Mars, then, undoubtedly, it would look like this. Illustrations create a completely different impression. Rebecca Dothremer... The talent of the French artist is undeniable: her drawings are made with great attention to detail and color, and her Alice - a dark-haired girl who looks like a young Audrey Tautou - travels through the amazingly beautiful, surreal Wonderland, in which there is not a drop of the spirit of Victorian England, but France is visible years that way in the 80s.
You can talk endlessly about the drawings for "Alice", and, having undertaken to list the names of the artists, you risk never stopping. Not only because for 150 years Carroll's fairy tale has been illustrated by a huge number of people, but also because every year publishers discover new names. Perhaps Russia will never release "Alice" with drawings by Kim Min Ji or Eric Kinkade, just as in Japan or Israel they are unlikely to publish a book with illustrations by Yerko. But knowing how huge the galaxy of artists is, in love with the fairy tale about a girl who fell down a rabbit hole, it is difficult to imagine what amazing illustrations the publishers will one day delight us with.
Along the river, drenched in the sun,
In a light boat, we slide.
The golden noon shimmers
A trembling haze through.
And reflected by the depth
The green smoke of the hills is frozen.
River peace, and calm, and heat,
And the breath of the breeze,
And the shore in the shade carved
Full of charm.
And next to my companions -
Three young creatures.
All three are asking for it soon
Tell them a fairy tale.
One is funnier
the other is scarier
And the third made a grimace -
She needs a strange tale.
Which paint to choose?
And the story begins
Where transformations await us.
Not without embellishment
My story, without a doubt.
Wonderland meets us
Land of Imagination.
Wonder creatures live there,
Cardboard soldiers.
The very head
Flies there somewhere
And the words are tumbling
Like acrobats in a circus.
But the tale is drawing to a close
And the sun goes down
And a shadow slid across my face
Silently and winged
And the glare of the sun's pollen
River rifts crush.
Alice, dear Alice,
Remember this bright day.
Like a theater curtain
Over the years, he fades into the shadows,
But he will always be close to us,
Leading us into a fabulous canopy.
Somersault behind the rabbit
Alice was bored sitting on the bank of the river without any business. And then my sister buried herself in a boring book. “Well, these books without pictures are boring! Alice thought lazily. The heat confused my thoughts, my eyelids stuck together. - Weave, or what, a wreath? But for this you need to get up. Go. Pick up. Dandelions ".
Suddenly! .. Before her eyes! (Or in the eyes?) A white rabbit flashed by. With pink eyes.
Well, let it ... Sleepy Alice was not at all surprised. She didn’t move even when she heard the rabbit’s voice:
- Ay-y-yay! Too late!
Then Alice wondered how she wasn’t surprised, but the amazing day had just begun, and there’s nothing surprising that Alice hadn’t started to be surprised yet.
But here the Rabbit is necessary! - took out a pocket watch from his vest pocket. Alice was alert. And when Rabbit, glancing at his vest pocket watch, ran with might and main across the clearing, Alice jumped off and waved after him.
The rabbit ducked into a round rabbit hole under the bushes. Alice, without hesitation, dived after.
At first, the rabbit hole ran straight like a tunnel. And suddenly it ended abruptly! Alice, not having time to gasp, plunged down into the well. And even upside down!
Either the well was infinitely deep, or Alice was falling too slowly. But she finally began to be surprised, and the most amazing thing is that she managed not only to be surprised, but also to look around. First of all, she looked down, trying to see what was waiting for her, but it was too dark to see anything. Then Alice began to stare at the sides, or rather, at the walls of the well. And I noticed that they were all hung with crockery and bookshelves, maps and pictures.
From one shelf Alice managed to grab a large can on the fly. The bank was called ORANGE JAM. But there was no jam in it. In annoyance, Alice almost threw the can down. But she caught herself in time: you could slap someone down there. And she contrived, flying past the next shelf, to poke an empty can at it.
- Here's got the knack so got the hang of it! - Alice was delighted. - Had me now to slide down the stairs, or even better - to fall off the roof, I won't be late!
Truth be told, it's tricky to linger when you're already falling.
So she fell
and fell
and fell ...
How long will this continue?
- I wish I knew where I flew. Where am I? Really in the very center of the Earth? How much before him? Some thousands of kilometers. In my opinion, to the very point. Now just determine this point, at what latitude and longitude it is.
To tell the truth, Alice had no idea what LATITUDE was, much less LONG. But the fact that the rabbit hole is wide enough, and it has a long way, she understood.
And she flew on. At first, without any thoughts, and then I thought: “There will be a thing if I go through the entire Earth! It will be funny to meet people who live below us. They are probably called that - ANTI-UNDER-US. "
However, Alice was not quite sure of this and therefore did not utter such a strange word out loud, but continued to think to herself: “What is the name of the country where they live then? Have to ask? Forgive me, dear antipodes ... no, anti-ladies, where did I end up? Australia or New Zealand? "
And Alice tried to bow politely, squatting. Try to sit down on the fly, and you will understand what she did.
“No, perhaps it’s not worth asking,” Alice continued to think, “what good, they will be offended. I'd better guess myself. By the signs. "
And she kept on falling
and fall,
and fall ...
And she had no choice but to think,
and think
and think.
“Dina, my kitty, I can imagine how you will miss me in the evening. Who will pour you milk in a saucer? My only Dina! How I miss you here. We would fly together. How would she catch mice on the fly? Bats are likely to be found here. A flying cat could well catch bats. What does it matter to her? Or do cats look at it differently? "
Alice flew so long that she was already seasick and began to fall asleep. And already half asleep she muttered: “Bats are mice. Are they mice, are they clouds ... "And she asked herself:" Are the clouds of cats flying? Do cats eat clouds? "
What difference does it make what to ask if there is no one to ask?
She flew and fell asleep
fell asleep,
fell asleep ...
And I already dreamed that she was walking with a cat under her arm. Or with a mouse under a cat? And she says: "Tell me, Dina, have you ever eaten a mouse fly? .."
How suddenly - bang-bang! - Alice buried herself headlong into dry leaves and brushwood. Arrived! But she didn't hurt herself in the least. In the blink of an eye, she jumped up and began to peer into the impenetrable darkness. A long tunnel began directly in front of her. And there in the distance the White Rabbit flashed!
At the same second Alice jumped off her place and rushed, like the wind, after. The rabbit disappeared around the bend, and from there she heard:
- Oh, I'm late! My head will be blown off! Eh, disappear my little head!