Through the Looking-Glass (#2) by Lewis Carroll

08 Feb 2013 Leave a comment

by Amy in 5 Stars, General Tags: , , , ,

Published: June 25th 1998
Goodreads badgePublisher: Oxford University Press
Pages: 133
Format: Book
Genre: Fantasy/Literature
★   ★   ★   ★   ★  – 5 Stars

Nothing is quite what it seems once Alice journeys through the looking-glass, and Dodgson’s wit is infectious as he explores concepts of mirror imagery, time running backward, and strategies of chess-all wrapped up in the exploits of a spirited young girl who parries with the Red Queen, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, and other unlikely characters.

Since we did Wonderland of course we had to do the sequel. I do not really have any preference between the two, there are favourite moments in both. I think the problem is Wonderland is much more well known, and the parts that  have been borrowed from Looking-Glass are mistaken for being in Wonderland which is a shame. This second Alice book is set a few years after the Wonderland adventures; Alice looks older and Dinah has grown and has kittens of her own. Through the Looking-Glass takes Alice into another strange land that begins when she walks through the mirror into Looking-glass House.

Unlike Wonderland there is a lot more structure to the world.
The absurdities and irrationalities remain, but the land is set out like a chess board, and the characters Alice meets are players on the board. When Alice meets the Red Queen she gives Alice and the readers a summary of what is going to happen through the rest of the book. Since the world is divided into squares she tells us that at the Seventh Square Alice will meet the Knight, and Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum at the fourth. You do tend to forget that it is a chess game as you read but the rules of the game are woven throughout. Alice is given the position of the pawn and therefore is only allowed one square at a time. The goal, like chess, is to get to the other side unharmed.

The way Carroll has constructed the Looking-Glass world is amazing and there has been a lot of thought put into this to replicate the game. This book also has one of my all time favourite poems in it: The Walrus and the Carpenter. I first fell in love with this poem from watching Harriet the Spy of all things, and I often wondered how you could have ceiling wax, and what it actually was. That is until I learned about sealing wax that was used in letter writing. It made slightly more sense, but in terms of the poem not a whole lot changed. There is the Jabberwocky poem, but the best has to be the Walrus and the Carpenter. Carroll weaves these poems though the novel, just as he did in Alice in Wonderland, and once again accompanies them with stunning black and white drawings.

This new land does confuse Alice a bit more in certain areas but she recovers well. There are a lot of familiar characters such as the talking flowers, Tweedle Dee and Dum of course, and a few others that are less well known but very funny indeed. The ending is once again instantly devoid of any mystery. I think Carroll likes to demonstrate that imagination of a child rather than give us a wonderful world that could be true or could not be. He does not leave anything unclear. However there is a moment with Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum where they remark whether Alice is within the dream of the sleeping Red King or whether he is in her dream. That is as far as the analysis of the world gets.

I do think if you are going to read Wonderland you have to read this as well. If you came to these book as a fan of a movie – even the Disney one, it will be good because a lot of book two was used in the Disney film and some of one character’s attributes were transferred to other people; you may find your favourite character was not actually who you thought. If not for that reason than simply because it is a strange and peculiar book that somehow manages to make a lot of sense while still being strange but very enjoyable. If you love the absurd than this will be great, but it is not so bad as to cause any confusion, Carroll does restrain himself in that sense.

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

07 Feb 2013 2 Comments

by Amy in 5 Stars, General Tags: ,

★   ★   ★   ★   ★  – 5 Stars

Happy 201st Birthday Mr Dickens! Yes, not as glorious as the 200th but what can we do. I have chosen A Christmas Carol as the token birthday review post because it is a glorious little book. I have read a couple others of his but my opinion of Bleak House is not one wants to read about on such a joyous occasion, and for many years turned me off reading any more I am afraid. We will slowly come back to him because I understand he is wonderful but sometimes you need a long break to recover. Much rather stick with the ones that make me smile for now.

Let me just start by saying I adore this book. Absolutely adore it. Ever since I was a kid I have loved this story, and while I may not have had the real book to begin with, some of the film adaptions are fairly awesome as well, though there are some exceptions. A Christmas Carol is about a man called Ebeneezer Scrooge who hates everyone and loves money. Every one knows this about him and every one dislikes him for it. The focus of the narrative is that one Christmas Eve Scrooge is given the opportunity to change his ways with the help of an old friend, whether he likes it or not. When the clock strikes one is when it all begins.

Dickens starts the story already filled with mystery and intrigue and you are instantly drawn into the story. People say that this story is about the true meaning of Christmas and how important it is to love your fellow man and it is, but there is also the simple pleasure and fascination in seeing how a person’s life and actions, and how others around him behave, influences and changes him.

There are supernatural elements to this certainly and it is done in such a good way and so cleverly. In an attempt to change Scrooge’s behaviour, he is forced to visit the past, present and future, each having a particular influence on him. There are classic quotes taken from this book and Dickens has done an excellent job in not making the story seem rushed, unbelievable or too extravagant. It has just the right balance to create realistic characters who are detailed and have depth, but also, as he is great at, creating a world that is so reflective of the era and the true Victorian life. There is a lot more explained in the novel than in the film versions, you get a deeper insight into how Scrooge became who he was. This I think does not necessarily make you pity him, but you understand why he is what he is; though that really offers no excuse to his actions either.

This story has probably been adapted into every television show or movie in some way, shape or form, but for all of its over exposure it really does never get old. I think there is nothing really wrong with going to a book from a film, some instances it could work out well. If you have seen the movie and you go ‘I rather enjoyed that, oh there’s a book is there. Let’s see if it is just as good’, well then that’s great. Because there are so many variants of this film that cover from Mickey Mouse, The Muppets, Mr Magoo, The Simpsons, not to mention included in a range of television shows, you are certainly going to get exposed to this story in some form, and if that directs you to the book than what harm has it done. I know at the end of the Muppet Christmas Carol Mr Dickens himself (aka Gonzo) tells you to read the book if you enjoyed the film.

I make a point of reading the book every December and I could reread this book a million times over and fall in love with it every time. A true classic, and I think despite the setting it is a timeless and wonderful story.

Alice in Wonderland (#1) by Lewis Carroll

06 Feb 2013 1 Comment

by Amy in 5 Stars, General Tags: , , , ,

Published: June 25th 1998
Goodreads badgePublisher: Oxford University Press
Pages: 111
Format: Book
Genre: Fantasy/Literature
★   ★   ★   ★   ★  – 5 Stars

Journey with Alice down the rabbit hole into a world of wonder where oddities, logic and wordplay rule supreme. Encounter characters like the grinning Cheshire Cat who can vanish into thin air, the cryptic Mad Hatter who speaks in riddles and the harrowing Queen of Hearts obsessed with the phrase “Off with their heads!” This is a land where rules have no boundaries, eating mushrooms will make you grow or shrink, croquet is played with flamingos and hedgehogs, and exorbitant trials are held for the theft of tarts. Amidst these absurdities, Alice will have to find her own way home. 

In recognition of Lewis Carroll turning 181 last month I feel a review is in order of the glorious Alice in Wonderland. I know this is a book that has been turned into so many movies and television shows (41 at last count according to Wikipedia), but the only one I see as being even remotely similar (that I have seen) is the Hallmark telemovie Alice in Wonderland starring Tina Majorino as Alice with a host of stars including Gene Wilder, Whoopi Goldberg, Christopher Lloyd and so many more.

When I studied this book at Uni I discovered that Carroll based Alice on someone he knew; much the same way J.M Barrie did for Peter Pan. Alice Liddell was the 10 year old sister of a friend of Carroll’s and he’d became a good friend to the family. He liked her a lot and he told the story of Alice in Wonderland (then Alice’s Adventures Underground) for her and her sisters. I found this website that gives a nice history about the book which is really quite interesting, and I think it would be much better than me telling you because I would become distracted in the fascinating history and not review the actual book. Plus trying to remember a university class almost five years ago may not do it justice. The edition of my book actually has a long introduction that tells the story, but it is not really necessary whatsoever to know.

I always loved this story, and when I read it growing up I liked the absurd nature of it. I am certain I did not understand half of the things I did as I got older, which personally I think is half the fun. There is a quote by Clifton Fadiman that states When you reread a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than there was before. . Whether it is about the book or yourself it doesn’t matter, I think learning something about yourself each time you reread something is just as wonderful. You can see how you have changed since the last time, in one of those small ways that you don’t notice until your attention is brought to it.

Carroll has written this book in the style that a young girl would, she is trying to remember all the proper etiquette she has be taught but she also thinks like a young girl which then reflects in her actions. The story opens with Alice being bored by her circumstance and her sister’s inability to read anything interesting that has pictures and dialogue. What I do remember discovering upon one of my later readings was that there is also a brother, so while I knew there was the older sister no one remembers she had a brother as well. Again, not important but still rather interesting.

As the narrator Carroll speaks to the readers on the odd occasion, especially during the rabbit hole sequence. He addresses readers as Alice falls which works well when you are reading to yourself but also lends itself to the fact it was initially an oral story. Everything Carroll describes does not seem as outrageous as it actually is; when he writes about growing larger, rabbits in waistcoats and singing griffins it seems perfectly natural. There is an accepted reality that Wonderland brings that is so absurd around every corner that you don’t question it. If there had been more real world similarities I think the absurd ones would stand out a lot more.

Aside from all the strangeness in this book the most strange is watching as this young girl eats and drinks everything she finds. Though one of my favourite quotes is “if you drink much from a bottle marked ‘poison,’ it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later.” Something in the matter of fact way Alice approaches this world is part of the joy I think. She is very understanding and accepting of her circumstances, she is driven by her curiosities more than anything which explains away a few things, the need to know outweighs thinking about consequences. This comes more from her being such a young child than anything else I think, and perhaps in part who she is a person. She does have faltering moments where she struggles to remember who she was, as she recites the lessons and what she knows Alice attempts to assure herself she is who she thinks she is. So in that respect Wonderland does begin to affect her.

Two of my favourite characters and scenes have to have been the Mock Turtle and the Gryphon. There is nothing in that scene I love more than the other; it is funny, clever, sweet all at the same time. What is great about Carroll, like Dahl, is that there are songs and poems within the story. The songs the Mock Turtle and Gryphon sing are beautiful and a lot of fun. In terms of creating characters Carroll is an expert at creating varied and unique figures that contrast Alice well, and also manage to suit the Wonderland world ideally without making them generic and all the same. He starts us off simply with a rabbit in a waistcoat and then slowly drags us further from the world we know until we reach the Queen of Hearts who is playing croquette with flamingos. In between we get mad tea parties, caucus races and not enough pepper, all of which makes it a joyful and amusing journey.

Each character offers a lot of wisdom to Alice as she passes through Wonderland. The Duchess, the King, the Cheshire Cat are just some of the many who offer strange and seemingly confusing advice that is somehow profound in their own ways. The irony is of course that Alice offers no moral to readers, it is simply a tale of wonder and adventure. The Duchess herself says that ‘Every thing’s got a moral, if only you can find it.’ That is why this book is so great, there is no need for morals, it is what it is and what it is is a strange mix of absurdity and nonsensical actions that make up a bizarre series of events. Why read any deeper meaning into it and spoil the fun?

The ending I know has caused some issues to some people but I don’t really mind it. I think there is nothing wrong with how Carroll has finished the book. There is a sense that it is open to interpretation but I also think that it depends on who you look at: Alice or her sister. Since the sister was not there and has the rational mind of someone who reads books without pictures and dialogue, perhaps she is trying to justify Alice’s story, unable to believe it is true. It is something I think you have to make up your own mind about when you read it for it is the only way you’ll know.

The Woman Who Died A Lot (#7) by Jasper Fforde

05 Feb 2013 Leave a comment

by Amy in 5 Stars, General, Science Fiction, Thursday Next Series Tags: , , , , ,

Published: January 31st 2013
Goodreads badgePublisher: Hodder and Stoughton
Pages: 380
Format: Book
Genre: Science Fiction/Fantasy
★   ★   ★   ★   ★  – 5 Stars

The Bookworld’s leading enforcement officer Thursday Next is four months into an enforced semi-retirement following a near fatal assassination attempt. She returns home to Swindon for what you’d expect to be a time of recuperation and rest. If only life were that simple. Thursday is faced with an array of family problems – her son Friday’s lack of focus since his career in the Chronoguard was relegated to a might-have-been, daughter Tuesday’s difficulty perfecting the Anti-Smote shield needed in time to thwart an angry Deity’s promise to wipe Swindon off the face of the earth, and Jenny, who doesn’t exist except as a confusing memory. And that’s not all. With Goliath attempting to replace Thursday at every opportunity with synthetic Thursdays, the prediction that Friday’s Destiny-Aware colleagues will die in mysterious circumstances, and a looming meteorite that could destroy all human life on earth, Thursday’s retirement is going to be anything but easy. If you thought dealing with the Bookworld could be hard, wait until you see what it takes to be a mother.

I wanted to read this book so badly that I drove an hour round trip this morning to get my hands on it. That is the result of the previous book and the fact I was so engrossed in this series once again I couldn’t bear leaving it any longer to read the latest book. I finished it by early evening too, because that is what Jasper does. You can force yourself to stop in between books (if you must) but once you start, you cannot put it down.

The Woman Who Died A Lot effectively is showing the effect and consequences of the events in First Among Sequels, and also the aftermath of One of Our Thursdays is Missing. The events of One of Our Thursdays Is Missing act as a buffer between the two, still important, but in an abstract kind of way.

As usual in the Thursday world there are six things going on at once that you must keep track of. The wrath is due Friday, the library is armed to the teeth, there are cross-dressing nuns, and forgetting why you walked into a room suddenly makes so much more sense. There is the word foible, the ongoing issue of the Stupidity Surplus, and someone is finally getting angry about making Enid Blyton politically correct. There is something in this for everyone.

The tone and writing takes a little while to feel natural this time around, I don’t know why exactly but the recapping that Jasper has always been good at seems a bit out of place. It reads ever so slightly as if directed at a reader who has not read the series before. While the other books offered a simple reminder about what had happened within the story itself, The Woman Who Died A Lot tends to describe things as if we did not know them already. This is only for the early section of the book mind you and the fluidity returns soon enough, but it did have me worried for awhile that the magic had vanished.

There is no point pretending this book is not different. As much as you wish and fondly remember the Thursday adventures from the earlier books you have to accept that realistically it was almost twenty years previous, and things change. The large jump into the future throws you slightly because we haven’t had the time to get used to the aging Thursday. There was a gradual change in some respects but we are also suddenly presented with the middle aged woman who is struggling to be as she was; granted it was due to the events of the previous book so you can’t be too harsh, but it does make you remember how she once was. I think if she had recovered instantly it would have been worse, so I am happy to take the person she is now because you can see the Thursday that once was within her still.

This is just as a character of course, story wise there is mystery and chaos as before, perhaps in a different style but chaos nonetheless. Things from past books are brought up and ongoing issues still present themselves but that is part of the familiar joy. The content lends itself to all manner of strangeness so asking for any sense of normalcy is out of the question. What Jasper does is he likes to drop bombs on you and then keep moving as if nothing has happened. All the while you are jumping up and down three pages behind demanding answers you know full well he isn’t going to give you. The worst part is that even when you think you have an inkling about what is going on, Jasper won’t give you anything to confirm or deny this. He lets you make up theories and explanations of your own and teases you with tantalising clues that make you impatient but over excited at the same time. It is his devilish way.

The RealWorld of the past is different as the years have passed but there are still some familiar faces. Circumstances change and people adapt, there is not a lot you can do about it. But no matter what happens, don’t ever start to worry about Jasper and his books, even if you get doubtful of where things are going and worry that he’s losing his touch, you just need to get to the end because by then your view would have completely changed and you will be out of your mind with excitement and amazement and joy that you can hardly sit still and will complain when dinner is called and you have 13 pages to go. Trust in Jasper, there is a reason he does what he does and you just have to follow him where he leads you; which is now into a state of impatience while I wait for him to write the next book!

One of Our Thursdays Is Missing (#6) by Jasper Fforde

04 Feb 2013 Leave a comment

by Amy in 5 Stars, General, Science Fiction, Thursday Next Series Tags: , , , , ,

Published: 10 November 2011
Goodreads badgePublisher: Hodder and Stoughton
Pages: 385
Format: Book
Genre: Science Fiction/Fantasy
★   ★   ★   ★   ★  – 5 Stars

Only the diplomatic skills of ace literary detective Thursday Next can avert a devastating genre war. But a week before the peace talks, Thursday vanishes. Has she simply returned home to the RealWorld or is this something more sinister?

All is not yet lost. Living at the quiet end of the speculative fiction is the written Thursday Next, eager to prove herself worthy of her illustrious namesake.

The fictional Thursday is soon hot on the trail of her factual alter-ego, and quickly stumbles upon a plot so fiendish that it threatens the very BookWorld itself.

Let’s start by saying this: who knew reading could be so complex?

From the beginning chapters, and really the title and spoiler blurb on the back of the book, we find out that Thursday Next is missing. However due to the books she’s written there is a Thursday who can take her place until she is found. This instantly changes the tone of the book as the new Thursday takes over as narrative voice. Despite looking like the Real Thursday, her written counterpart has a much different personality, and this is reflected in the narrative voice. As I started reading, I had a constant feeling of discomfort as I read because I felt like something was off. It wasn’t until much later that I realised it was because it was a different Thursday altogether. I think if Jasper had tried to write using the Thursday style I had grown accustomed to in the past five books it would not be believable. Of course the tone would be different, because the narrator was a different person, despite looking exactly the same. I am not saying this is a bad thing at all, it was a little bit like going through the Looking Glass, it is very familiar, but it wasn’t at the same time. Actually, pretty much the entire novel felt like that.

With the main protagonist missing, we are taken away from the official and policing part of BookWorld, and instead we are given a civilian point of view. I do think having anything too much like the past books would have felt very out of place in this unfamiliar world. Even when written Thursday meets people from real Thursday’s world you can feel the difference. You really get the sense she is a different person trying to be someone else, and outsider looking in the window, yet still somehow participating.

I did find myself missing the old Book World, despite us never really getting an expansive description of it before. A lot of the previous books consisted of jumping from one to the other with few stable points of reference like the Great Library. There was nothing wrong with the new BookWorld certainly. it just took a little getting used to. I understand why it had to be done though; story wise I can see that the old set up probably would not have been possible considering the plot, and certainly not make half the things in the narrative possible. So in that regard I am fine with the changes, but a small part of me missed it. I think the other part is I just missed the Real Thursday, familiar characters, the Jurisfiction and official side of BookWorld. As much as I loved seeing the Book World from the civilian and written characters perspective, after five books focusing on one side, it was an adjustment seeing the flip side.

Don’t get me wrong, it was brilliant all the same. Once you take the story as it is you began to see the immense effort Jasper had gone to. The detail in this book is astounding. It is not even always relevant, but the descriptions and the minute things like street names or conversations and logic that you tend to just brush over, yet have probably needed just as much thought as the narrative itself. I can’t even begin to list the detail Jasper has put into the BookWorld and the novel itself this time around. Something that I thought was truly beautiful was the way the RealWorld is described through Jasper’s BookWorld descriptions. His descriptions of everyday life and activities are rather poetic, which considering how poetry is viewed in these books, shouldn’t be taken as an insult. The wriggling in your seat excitement returns, not entirely through the whole book, but enough and in the right places to make you grin like the Cheshire Cat filled with warm bubbles.

The fact that this book is similar yet very different to the others works well for the BookWorld’s advantage. As readers we are given a full layout and story in this world from the point of view of the characters that live in it. They are the fictional counterparts of all the books, and while there is the mystery to be solved, the reality is we are given a complete breakdown and introduction to the Book World we have only seen glimpses of in the past, and all in the name of solving the mystery. This is something Jasper is very good at, telling us what we need to know but without interrupting the story’s flow. A lot is revealed from past books that you didn’t even realise needed to be solved, but there is also a few unanswered things as well.  There were some unrelated revelations though. We have finally discovered an explanation of how there, their and they’re problems arise in the RealWorld, discover how important syntax is, and how Malapropism is funny, but also makes conversation a little trying. We get to see the dangers of comedy, realise that yes, clowns are an offset of the Horror genre, that humans in a crowd are very much like starling and fish, and the awkward back and forth shuffle between two people on the street is not as simple as it makes out to be.

I really do not want to give any more away for fear of spoilers, but in all truthfulness there is also no time. There is just so much beautiful description, so much detail, imagination, forethought, genius, humour, absurdity, and amazement in this book that you wouldn’t even know where to begin telling you about it all. Even if I did explain them all and gush over their awesomeness, it’d take the joy away from discovering them yourselves and admiring Jasper in your own way. Not all of them even ruin plot, it’s just simple pleasures in the BookWorld life and the story itself that is being told.

A lot of the story seems rather normal for the most part, but then you come to a point where you start to doubt everything you had accepted as true. I entered into this story blindly and accepted what Jasper told me as per usual, when he starts to mess with you there is nothing else to do except try and solve the puzzle or just accept defeat and just read on in confused acceptance until he wants you to know anything. You still have no real idea about what is going on through this book, but where confusion sat most of the time in past books, now instead becomes an air of mystery to a certain degree.

Since I have given nothing out about what actually happens in this book, I suggest you rush out and read it right away. Aside from the plot there is so much more to love about this book, and so many new things that after you reset what you know about these books you will find them a rather intriguing change. A refreshing change is what I think we’ll call this, but I look forward to getting back into the writing and point of view I know and love. What this book does well is give a great insight into how reading is actually done, and received, which changes how you read yourself. Don’t resist it, just accept it and enter this world blissfully; and by the time you finish you will feel as suspicious and guilty for getting sleepy when reading a book as I do now.

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