Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Alice in Wonderland

Yes – since childhood. This is one book which fascinates me perpetually; One of my all-time favorite classics. The nerve here is not the fairy tale, but the underlying connotation or denotation or whatever you adults would like to call it. Alice has a timeless appeal, fantastic story and quirky events.


Almost all of us have experienced events right from falling into the strange never ending dark rabbit hole till landing in the Queen’s croquet ground. Ah! I still remember - “Off with their heads!!” In fact the story seems even more surreal nowadays, because we moderns don’t always spot the allusions. For most of us, it can hardly be a story which rambles from incident to incident with very little clear plot. The characters – every page has a new and even more fantastic creature emerging. The humor - the plot is laden with puns. The protagonist – remarkable dreamlike quality. These entire things put together are nothing but a fantasy tale which portrays what kind of life we should be living. The characters – keep making new and even more fantastic friends/relationships. The humor – live with a marvelous slapstick. The protagonist – it is you who can get the story going the way you want it to. Of course, it is a wonderland! :)


For all those who find my posts cryptic or puzzling, I am quoting Humpty Dumpty’s theory of language which he had quoted to Alice – "When I use a word, it means what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less…"