It is almost impossible to escape all of the advertising for Tim Burton's adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. After seeing yet another trailer on the television I realised that I had never read the actual book. I have only ever watched the Disney version so I dusted off my copy of Lewis Carroll's complete works and entered into the world that Alice discovers.
It is one of the strangest books that I have ever read. After the first couple of chapters I decided that I just needed to relax and stop questioning everything that I was reading. Once I had done this I began to enjoy Carroll's extremely curious tale, however I am still a little concerned about where some of his ideas came from.
I'm sure that most of you know that Alice falls down a rabbit hole after pursuing a large white rabbit who she hears muttering to himself about being very late. She finds herself in a bizarre new world of Mad Hatters, March Hares and Cheshire Cats. The Queen of Hearts provides the danger with her constant orders to chop off people's heads.
Lewis Carroll uses language in a very beautiful and eccentric manner and this is probably what I enjoyed most about the book. I nearly read this on my e-reader but I am so glad that I found my old copy as the intricate illustrations add so much to the story and I would have missed out on those. I am not going to try and analyse the meaning behind the tale, I am simply going to enjoy it for what it is, a wonderful classic.
