‘Twinkle, twinkle, little bat,’ said the Mad Hatter, ‘how I wonder what you’re at?’
Is there anything more delicious to a child than the notion of a tea party where all the usual rules are broken, everybody behaves badly and, if you make a mess, you can simply change places and start again as if nothing has happened? Like most children – and I’m assuming also like a young Alice Liddell, the real-life inspiration for Alice herself – I loved the rule-breaking absurdity of Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland books.
I was introduced to the story in tantalising pieces; sections read at school story times, clips of the gorgeous Disney film shown on TV. I was never taken to see the actual film or given the actual book. It wasn’t until I came across a copy of Martin Gardner’s The Annotated Alice at a boyfriend’s flat in my twenties that I consumed the whole narrative of both Wonderland books, like Alice scoffing a cake labelled ‘Eat Me’. It’s a fabulous feat: both books, with colour versions of John Tenniel’s glorious illustrations, and explanations of references, jokes and even mathematical concepts.
The gorgeous surreality of the imaginary world Charles Dodgson, AKA Lewis Carroll created for his boss’s children on a boat trip in Oxford then opened up properly for me. Carroll was a lecturer at Christ Church, where Alice’s father was Dean. I’d had my own journey down a rabbit hole before I’d known the entirety of the two stories, only to find that one might never grasp them entirely. Since then, they have continued to morph and shift in meaning for me – like fractals; a branch of mathematics Charles Dodgson (a traditional maths scholar) would no doubt have frowned upon.
As a child, it seemed perfectly reasonable that the Mad Hatter should rudely poke the poor Dormouse awake, and that both he and the March Hare should use him as a cushion because he was squashy and nicely fluffy. And, because I already suspected that time was an inconstant thing, the idea that they were all stuck at an eternal tea party by the Queen of Hearts for the Mad Hatter’s crime of singing badly, seemed perfectly reasonable, too. As did the fact that we will never actually find out why a raven is like a writing desk…
As an adult, Alice seems to hover in a place of uneasy, immortal mythology. Alice ceased to be purely Carroll’s invention as her look was brought to life by Tenniel and Disney alike; and the child Alice, whom Carroll entertained with a nonsensical tale on an Oxford river, grew into a society woman who became weary of constantly being associated with the character.
In the darker world we live in today, we are more inclined to question the idea of a grown man having a child muse. We may think on the rift which led Alice’s own mother to demand that social connection between the family and Carroll cease. Although, in fairness, that was probably due to his courting of the family’s governess, or possibly the oldest of the Liddell sisters, rather than Alice herself. In any case, it’s all a little reminiscent of the Mad Hatter’s own troubles with the Queen of Hearts, and a strange case of fiction foreshadowing reality. Curiouser and curiouser!
For me, none of this taints the continued wonderment of the stories. And it seems I’m not alone. Oxford loves to celebrate Alice's Day, which falls on the first Saturday of every July, which this year that happens to be on the 4th of the month – my own birthday, how appropriate.
I’ll leave you with this parting thought. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was first published roughly 161 years ago. 161 is a hexagonal pyramidal number, semi-prime and a Blum integer to boot. Most delightfully of all, it is a palindrome. Confused? Shift along a space and pour a fresh cup of tea.
Various events will be taking place across the city at venues including the Story Museum, the Oxford Botanic Garden, The Weston Library and the Museum of Oxford.
("Alice in Wonderland" illustration №25 by Tenniell)
