Lost in London: Never-Before-Seen Letters From Alyss’ Adventures on Earth
Back in 2007, we collaborated with noted Alyssian historian Agnes MacKenzie to publish Princess Alyss of Wonderland, a stunning collection of letters, journal writings, and art from Her Royal Imaginer Princess Alyss Heart. These breathtaking documents chronicled the incredible childhood of Wonderland’s exiled heir apparent and future hero of The Looking Glass Wars.
Recently, we were astonished to discover a new treasure trove of letters, journal entries, and art from Princess Alyss’ first few years on Earth. This is Alyss’ amazing story in her own words – her harrowing escape through the Pool of Tears, the deep sadness she felt when her imagination began to fade, what it was like to be a princess when everybody thinks you’re just a little girl, her fury at Lewis Carroll for butchering her story, and how she reclaimed her imagination and kept her hope of returning to Wonderland.
These historic artifacts will be presented in installments over the coming weeks and months. Part One encompasses Alyss’ flight from Wonderland and how she survived her first days on the streets of London.
(*As always, I am indebted to the tireless and exhaustive research of the eminent Wonderland historian Agnes MacKenzie. Her dedication has helped keep the true story of Queen Alyss alive!)
HALT!!!!
If you have found my journal and intend to read further, BE WARNED that these pages are meant only for those who wish to know the truth. All others are hereby ordered to immediately stop snooping.
HRI (Her Royal Imaginer) Princess Alyss Heart
My squigberry cake and the Birthday Fairies who appear with every royal cake to sing “Deliriously Happy Birthday to You.” I wish I had been able to slice that cake open and discover what surprise the Royal Bakers baked inside (I had hinted at a singing tiara).
August 5, 1861
I am in this world but not of it. My home is in Wonderland and my name is Princess Alyss Heart. Someday I will return to Wonderland to become Queen. This is the story of how I began to find my way back.
Where to begin? Certainly not at the beginning when all was well, but further into my life, to the afternoon when I discovered the golden kitten in the garden. My best friend Dodge and I had just returned from exploring Wondertropolis, a forbidden excursion outside the gates of the palace when we came across the most peculiar kitten. It was wearing a card that read “Happy Birthday, Alyss.” Since it was my birthday and everyone in the Queendom was giving me gifts, it only made sense that this kitten was for me. Unlike most kittens, who only hiss and purr, this kitten smiled. And that is where all the trouble began.
August 6, 1861
It was I who brought the peculiar kitten inside the palace gate. ME!
And then it ran away and hid somewhere in the palace. I tried to tell Mother and Hatter at my birthday tea about the kitten who smiled, but a horrible LOUD, RUDE crashing sound interrupted, and my Aunt Redd, decks of her card soldiers, and a monstrous CAT exploded into the dining room. The kitten had become The Cat! What happened next was very very fast and seems most shocking and unreal.
Mother and I escaped and I thought that we would stay together, but she sent me away with Royal Bodyguard Hatter Madigan to be kept safe until I was old enough to return to Wonderland as Queen. I begged to stay with her, but she was very firm. I had to leave Wonderland and everyone I ever loved. And I had to leave immediately.
The kitten who smiled turned into a Cat who moved like a soldier and had claws as long as knives.
Agnes MacKenzie
One of our more recent, and more thrilling, discoveries is the bundle of undeliverable letters addressed to Heart Palace in Wonderland and collected by postmistress Annabelle Smith-White of Christchurch, England. The letters were forwarded to the Lewis Carroll estate, but for an unexplained reason they were returned to Miss Smith-White’s district stamped ‘UNACCEPTABLE’. Descendants of the postmistress donated the bundle to this venture with the hope that their great-great aunt’s postal diligence would finally be recognized.
August 10, 1861
When mother ordered Hatter to take me and leave Wonderland, we fled through a looking glass that took us to the Whispering Woods.
Once in the woods Hatter held me tight and ran faster than a spirit-dane. At last, we came to the cliff above the Pool of Tears and looked down into the black water. I had heard that no one ever comes back from the Pool of Tears, but Hatter assured me I would because I would one day return to be Queen. And then we jumped, but not soon enough, as The Cat’s long claws raked out across my birthday gown and tore away a piece. He nearly got me! But before I could scream we hit the water …
(continued)
… I know Hatter held me as tight as he could but a tremendous force tore us apart. Poor Hatter! He had promised my mother to keep me safe and Hatters always keep their promises, especially royal bodyguards. I tried to smile to let him know I would be okay, but the water smooshed my face in all different directions and I shot down very, very fast and then I shot up even faster and found myself in this world called London. Alone.
I vow to discover the secret of puddle travel! There simply must be a way of knowing which puddle is THE PUDDLE!
August 20, 1861
My arrival in this world called London was sudden and frightening. I shot up and out of the puddle and found myself standing in the middle of a crowded avenue. Everything was spinning and I was cold and lost and AFRAID. Where was my mother? And where was my royal bodyguard? There was no one to help me in this gray, frightening place. All I could think was that I must return home NOW! In desperation, I began to jump in puddle after puddle searching for the way home until I could jump no more. Then I saw a boy watching me and he was smiling and I knew I wasn’t alone anymore. I was about to meet the most honorable Quigley.
I didn’t know anyone could look so hungry!
Agnes MacKenzie
From Alyss’ description, it appears she first arrived in London on Whitehorse Street near the intersection of Piccadilly and Half-Moon. I have proposed that a plaque be mounted here to honor the struggles of this honored visitor from another realm.
As thoughtful readers of Dickens will recall, orphans, urchins, and estranged children were an all too common sight on the sooty streets of nineteenth-century London. It seems from Alyss’ journal that she was accepted into a den of street urchins by the boy named Quigley.While Quigley was an open-hearted generous sort, the others were less magnanimous and insisted Princess Alyss pull her own weight in foraging for food and rags. Alyss’ solution was, of course, to use her imagination.
They believed I was a real princess!
September 15, 1861
Quigley, in his patched clothes and cracked boots, brought me to an alley where he and a group of other very ragged, thin children lived. Everyone was curious as to who I was and where I had come from so I told them about Wonderland and what it was like to be Princess Alyss Heart. Quigley and the others loved my stories but unfortunately, they couldn’t eat them. What could I do to help? As I was thinking very hard I noticed a sad little flower in a cracked pot lying in the alley. To amuse myself I began to imagine the flower humming and soon it was singing in a beautiful high pitched voice. Quigley and the others were amazed. And then I knew.
We became street performers. I would imagine the flower singing and Quigley would gather the coins tossed by those who stopped to listen. Our first show was a hit. The next show was even bigger. Each day we made enough coins to feed everyone very very well.
(continued)
And then something extraordinarily horrible happened. My imagination began to weaken. Each day the flower’s voice grew fainter and fainter until it stopped singing and once again there was no food. I could not explain to myself let alone the others how I had failed. My imagination had always been with me. To have it fade was like losing my last connection to Wonderland. To eat, we all had to go back to stealing food from the markets. One day we were caught by a pack of London bobbies. The other kids escaped but I was nabbed and taken to the most frightening place I had ever seen, the Charing Cross Orphanage. I never saw Quigley again, though I still look for him.
*Stay tuned for Part Two, in which Alyss braves the brutal Charing Cross orphanage.
Poor Things: Is Alice in Wonderland at the Oscars?
Seventy-two years ago, Disney’s animated Alice in Wonderland walked away from the twenty-fourth Academy Awards empty-handed after composer Oliver Wallace lost to Johnny Green and Saul Chaplin (An American in Paris) for what was then called Best Scoring of a Musical Picture. In 2011 Tim Burton’s Alice adaptation took home statuettes for Best Art Direction (Robert Stromberg and Karen O’Hara) and Best Costume Design (Colleen Atwood) having also scored a nomination for Best Visual Effects. This Sunday, Alice will again be attending the Oscars. But in true Wonderland fashion, she’ll be in disguise as Emma Stone’s intrepid heroine Bella Baxter from Yorgos Lanthimos’ surreal masterpiece, Poor Things. Widely regarded as one of best films of the years, Poor Thingsis nominated for 11 Academy Awards (Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actress) and has already won five BAFTAs and two Golden Globes amongst a host of other awards. While the film is not an Alice adaptation, nor does it reference Lewis Carroll’s novel, but Lanthimos’ construction of the world of Poor Things and Bella’s character arc are classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, an odyssey of self-discovery through a strange yet beautiful world.
Poor Things begins as Bella Baxter ends (the first time). The eccentric (some might say mad) doctor and scientist Godwin Baxter (the sublime Willem Defoe) saves Bella’s life by transplanting the still-living brain of her unborn fetus after jumping off a bridge. As a result, Bella begins the film with the intellectual and emotional maturity of an infant. She rapidly matures, however, transitioning to a teenage mindset throughout the first act, discovering sexual pleasure and masturbation. Her world continues to broaden when she meets Max McCandles (Ramy Youssef), her father’s assistant. McCandles swiftly falls for Bella and she accepts his marriage proposal. But Bella’s curiosity for the outside world and thirst for sexual exploration leads her to run off with her father’s debauched, scoundrel of lawyer, Duncan Wedderburn (the delightfully outrageous Mark Ruffalo). What follows is a coming-of-age epic equal parts sensual, troubling, and enlightening.
So what does this have to do with Alice in Wonderland? Well, it can (and will) be argued that Bella is an Alice avatar, that Poor Things is an adult version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alice’s journey is one of self-discovery, in which her journey through a strange, seemingly arbitrary world informs how she defines herself. When the Caterpillar asks Alice who she is, Alice replies, “I-I hardly know, Sir, just at present – at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have changed several times since then.”
Alice feeling like she has gone through rapid change mirrors Bella’s arc over the course of Poor Things. Bella rushes through her emotional development, going from an infant to an emotional mature adult in the span of about a year. Just as Alice feels anxious about her sudden changes, Bella also experiences intense shock at certain points throughout her journey. One pivotal experience comes when the cruise ship on which Bella and Duncan are traveling stops at Alexandria, Egypt. Bella disembarks and is horrified to witness the intense suffering of the city’s indigent.
Prior to this experience, Bella had been sheltered. Whether confined to the twisted yet familiar environs of Godwin’s home or ensconced in the variety of sensual pleasures offered by Libson hotels and Mediterranean cruise ships during her galavanting with Duncan, Bella had never experienced, much less seen, true suffering. This revelation is devastating and causes Bella to experience an existential crisis, questioning everything she’d ever been told. Her distress and inexperience with the “real world” leads her to make the impulsive decision to give the ship’s crew Duncan’s money, who falsely promise to use it to support the poor of Alexandria. This has disastrous consequences on Bella and Duncan, leaving them penniless and stranded in Marseille. Yet the experience causes Bella to grow, giving her a more realistic view of people and morality.
One of the common beliefs about Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is that it is a pure nonsense tale in which Alice breezes from one surreal episode to the next until she wakes up back in Oxford, her odyssey in Wonderland ostensibly just a dream. Yet Alice does undergo a change throughout her story. At the Knave of Hearts’ trial, Alice becomes more confident in herself, criticizing the arbitrary nature of the inquest and standing up for herself in front of the Queen of Hearts. Alice’s experiences in Wonderland did change her. Alice needed to be independent and think for herself in order to navigate that wild world and those lessons prepared her to confront the tyrannical Queen at the end of the story.
Similarly, Bella’s experiences with Duncan, in Alexandria, and in her time as a sex worker in Marseille prepared her to confront her ex-husband, the sadistic General Alfie Blessington. Blessington was the reason for Bella’s suicide in her previous life, his cruelty and controlling nature driving her to jump into the Thames rather than let her and her child suffer under his tyranny. But by the end of the film Bella has developed a strong sense of her own independence and competency, leading her to exact revenge on her former tormentor. It is a powerful moment, showing how the lessons imparted struggle can lead to triumph.
The world’s of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Poor Things also perform similar functions in relation to their protagonists. With both stories initially set in Victorian England, their secondary worlds provide a juxtaposition of customs and rules to the protagonists’ primary worlds. Carroll’s Wonderland is a surreal dreamworld characterized by non-existent rules and ever-changing properties. It is designed to confuse and frustrate Alice’s preconceived notions. Lanthimos’ world is not a fictional realm, it is a twisted version of our world, yet operates as Wonderland due to Bella’s unfamiliarity. The fantastical steampunk aesthetic reflects Bella’s point of view as she moves through a world filled with strange customs and confusing behavior. Both Alice and Bella have unreliable guides. Alice’s include the White Rabbit, the Caterpillar, and Cheshire Cat, while Bella must navigate the ulterior motives of Duncan and Madame Swiney in order to extract value from their examples. For both characters, their “Wonderlands” function as teachers, interacting with them so they can grow and change.
While not overtly influenced by Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Poor Things’ narrative and protagonist certainly share Alice-ean functions and characteristics. Bella’s odyssey of self-discovery through Yorgos Lanthimos’ beautifully crafted world thematically mirrors Alice’s own journey through Wonderland, with both experiences inspiring the characters to grow, becoming more self-confident and self-assured than their former selves. Alice may not be on stage this Sunday at the Dolby Theatre nor may she be thanked if Poor Things captures any gold statuettes, but, nevertheless, the film owes a debt to the type of fantastical coming-of-age story that Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland helped popularize.
An itinerant storyteller, John Drain attended the University of Edinburgh before studying film at DePaul University in Chicago and later earned an MFA in Screenwriting from the American Film Institute Conservatory. John focuses on writing mysteries and thrillers featuring characters who are thrown into the deep end of the pool and struggle to just keep their heads above water. His work has been recognized by the Academy Nicholls Fellowship, the Austin Film Festival, ScreenCraft, Cinestory, and the Montreal Independent Film Festival. In a previous life, John created and produced theme park attractions across the globe for a wide variety of audiences. John keeps busy in his spare time with three Dungeons and Dragons campaigns and a seemingly never-ending stack of medieval history books.
ALL THINGS ALICE: INTERVIEW WITH LENNY DE ROOY
As an amateur scholar and die-hard enthusiast of everything to do with Alice in Wonderland, I have launched a podcast that takes on Alice’s everlasting influence on pop culture. As an author who draws on Lewis Carroll’s iconic masterpiece for my Looking Glass Wars universe, I’m well acquainted with the process of dipping into Wonderland for inspiration.
The journey has brought me into contact with a fantastic community of artists and creators from all walks of life—and this podcast will be the platform where we come together to answer the fascinating question: “What is it about Alice?”
For this episode, it was my great pleasure to have Lenny de Rooy join me! Read on to explore our conversation and check out the whole series on your favorite podcasting platform to listen to the full interview.
Frank Beddor Welcome to the show Lenny de Rooy. I am really happy to have you on as I had seen your book, Alice’s Adventures Underwater. I gotta tell you, you are very brave because, with The Looking Glass Wars, I use Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as a jumping-off point. I felt like as long as I got the references correct, I should be okay with real Alice fans. But you decided to write a sequel, and you pulled it off because of all the different puns and all the references. I want to get into that with you as well, but my first question to you is there seems to be two camps in the interpretation of Alice. There is one camp which is the whimsical fantasy dream and the other camp interprets Alice as more of a nightmare. It’s horror. It’s self-sustaining madness. I’m pretty sure I understand, at least in terms of your book, what side of that debate you fall on, but I was curious what your answer would be.
Lenny de Rooy Yes, I’ve never read it as nightmarish, but maybe that’s also because I read it at a later age and not as a child. So I wouldn’t be able to say how it would have impacted me as a child. But to me, there actually is quite a bit of structure in the books, which is what I like. The fun part of the story is that it turns around everything you know, but there is a structure to the madness. So that makes it not nightmarish to me at all.
FB When you say structure, are you talking about the plot or are you talking about the structure of the thematic references that Lewis Carroll is going for?
LDR To us, everything Alice encounters is nonsense. But for the characters in Wonderland and The Looking Glass Wars, it makes perfect sense because things are the other way around. There are puns that actually make sense to us if we look at it differently. So that’s what I mean, there actually is a structure to the world. It’s not completely random at all.
FB One of the things that I found in my reading was that there was a randomness to Alice’s Adventures as she was going along. Things were happening to her and she didn’t have as much agency as the traditional reluctant hero story. But as I’ve reread it, I can find more structure and more agency. It’s just not so traditional in terms of the hero who’s finding themselves and then going on some victorious evolution.
LDR Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is very episodic. That’s because of the way it came into existence. It was told to the real Alice and her sisters in episodes, it grew and grew over time. That’s what you still see in the first book, while with the second book, Through the Looking-Glass, Carroll could think about it for much longer and there’s the chess structure that really guides the story.
FB I agree with that. The second book has a lot more structure. Your website, alice-in-wonderland.net, is one of the deepest sources of Lewis Carroll’s works on the internet. Where did this obsession with Alice in Wonderland come from? I did read that you first fell for the story through the Disney movie. But then what happened?
LDR When I was a child, we watched all these movies that our parents taped for us and the Disney Alice in Wonderland was one of my favorites. Then, in high school, I chose to do Alice for a presentation and then while reading for our exams, I decided to dive into Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland because I thought, “Well, I already know the Disney movie so how hard can it be to pass the exam about the book?” I found all these layers inside it and references to actual people and I found that so interesting. Then I started gathering clippings in the library and then I went to university and I got access to the internet and I saw that there was not as much material as I would have liked. So I decided to start my own website. It was a very basic one, just a front page and animated images. There was a part about me and my hobbies, and then a part about Alice. I got a lot of comments on the Alice section so I decided to focus my whole website on the topic of Alice in Wonderland.
FB So you didn’t realize at the time you were you were putting together your website that Alice is so deeply seated in culture and there’s such a broad range of interested folks until you started to get those comments? Did your fascination grow, through that? The more you discovered, the more it revealed.
LDR Yes, but I’ve always been rather focused because I’m not a collector of books or all things Alice that I can get my hands on. I’m always focused on the background of the books. What are the origins of the story? What are the references to actual people and politics? What’s the meaning behind the jokes? That’s always what interested me. I deliberately focus my website on that, because there’s just too much to tell about Alice in Wonderland. It would get out of hand if I added all that to my website. I always say I don’t collect stuff, I collect information.
FB Your website’s very deep and really fascinating. But let’s talk about Alice’s Adventures Underwater. Lewis Carroll didn’t invent the rabbit hole, of course, but he did invent falling down the rabbit hole for adventure. That has gone on to penetrate pop culture for over 150 years. You, on the other hand, have used two devices. You use “taking the plunge,” which is the title of the first chapter, and also the reflective surface of the water. So when Alice takes the plunge, she finds herself underwater. I thought it was really interesting and effective. What were the origins of using those two devices?
LDR I wanted to make a continuation of the original books. But they’re also still very many references to the originals. So her plunging into a lake resembles falling down the rabbit hole and looking at the reflection of the water resembles the looking glass. It’s a mash-up of both things. When she looks into the water’s reflection, she sees her reflection, what’s behind her, and what’s underneath the water. She sees herself and other things. That’s a bit of a theme.
FB I liked that. The reflection part, the falling, and then holding her breath before realizing that, suddenly, she can breathe.
Can you do a quick comparison of the characters in your book that are reflected by characters in Lewis Carroll’s two books? There are queens in both books so you invented a Queen Bee for yours. Is there, for example, an equivalent of the caterpillars in yours?
LDR There are different levels of references to the original books. There is a queen in my book because Lewis Carroll’s books had queens. There’s also another cook because, in Carroll’s book, there was a cook. But then there’s the jellyfish which resembles the caterpillar because of his many tentacles that he’s folded, which is maybe a bit more of a resemblance to Disney’s version of the caterpillar, when he sits on the mushroom with his legs folded. There are also references for people who know the books very well. For example, the Queen Bee’s husband, a waspfish, wears a very ugly wig. Alice asks, “Why does he wear a wig?” The answer is he wants to stand out because he always feels left out. Most people won’t understand that reference. But in Through the Looking-Glass, there’s actually a missing chapter called “The Wasp and a Wig.” If you know that, then you’ll know that the Queen Bee’s husband feels left out because he was taken out of the original book.
FB That’s exactly what I’m talking about. I did not put that together. I’m sure our listeners would love that. There are lots of those things in your novel, which are really fun to discover.
LDR I even have one character that is based on an actual person within the Lewis Carroll Society community. He might recognize himself.
FB That was something else I was wondering because Lewis Carroll made a lot of references to real people. Did you make any references to any friends? Did you make fun of or tease anybody? Anybody that if they read it, they would see that themselves in the book?
LDR I thought about that but I couldn’t copy Lewis Carroll exactly. He’s so famous that people studied his background and history. I don’t think anyone will do this with me so they won’t know my personal friends. I would be honored if my book became that famous. But I thought I should put in characters and references that most people, or at least some people, would recognize. There is a reference to someone in the Lewis Carroll Society that I hope people will recognize by the description or the illustration. I also added references to Donald Trump, which should be very obvious.
FB Was that positive or negative?
LDR I would say not that positive.
FB There are so many funny political cartoons. I wrote a whole blog about the cartoons out there using Alice in Wonderland to make fun of Trump. So you’re in good company with many people that have found a way of referencing “Off with your head,” or “Down the rabbit hole.”
Back to your book for a second. I really loved the grooming fish. There were a couple of fun lines. “A brush for your hair and a comb for your teeth.” Then the fish goes on to say, “Humans wash with water and walk through air, we swim through water and wash with air.” That made me giggle. Tell me about the grooming fish. You have to be a marine biologist to write this book.
LDR I did have to do some research on fish. My illustrator, Robert Louis Black, helped with that because he had to visualize those fish. He named two things that I overlooked and that I needed to know.
FB The illustrations were terrific. In your book, Alice’s Adventures Underwater, Robert Louis Black did 42 fantastic original illustrations. The style is close to John Tenniel’s work in the original book. What is Robert’s background and how did you find him?
LDR It was a real challenge to find someone who could illustrate my book because 42 Illustrations are not cheap. Eventually, I found Robert online on one of those platforms where artists offer their services. We had a great collaboration because I had several ideas about very specific illustrations and he drew them perfectly. On the other hand, there were also illustrations I didn’t have any specific ideas for and he came up with some great pieces. He even put some jokes into it himself.
FB That’s excellent. I believe that’s how the collaboration between Lewis Carroll and Tenniel went as well. Tenniel had lots of creative ideas to offer Lewis Carroll.
LDR Robert also corrected me because, for example, in my story, there’s a cobbler, which is a type of fish, and also someone who makes shoes. So I had the idea of having him wear two shoes on the points of his tail. Then Robert said a cobbler does not have a tail with two points. It has an ear-like tail. I said, “Thank you. So I guess he’s wearing them on the fins on his sides, then.”
FB That’s where the research comes in and the collaboration comes in. I found collaborating with artists to be deeply, deeply satisfying. It also reminded me of Christmas. Suddenly, in my email, there would be a gift of an image that was previously only living in my mind and now it has been expressed through another human being’s art. When it was working, it was so deeply satisfying, that I became a little bit addicted to the exchange. “Hey, let me write a little description,” or “I need you to interpret this because I have no idea what the card soldiers look like when they fold up.” When that exchange happened, it was such a beautiful, satisfying moment. Did you have the same feeling?
LDR Oh, yes. Robert was very dedicated to getting things exactly right. But he was also able to make my ideas so much better. I can’t draw for the life of me but I sometimes made sketches of the general idea I had, and then looked very crappy. If you compare those to what he drew, he was just the perfect guy for this job. I’m so happy I found him.
FB You and I have that in common, terrible drawings. Which is probably why it’s so satisfying when somebody who’s masterful can deliver on the concept.
LDR That’s another parallel to Lewis Carroll. He drew the illustrations for the manuscripts he wrote for Alice. Then when he went to publish his book, he realized, “Well, I can’t draw that well so I really need professional artists.”
FB But it was not bad. From my viewing of it, his work was pretty impressive. But I found that if I was able to do that my artists would have been way ahead of the game. I thought he did a pretty good job. The way Carroll wrote some of the poems also was quite interesting and I think Tenniel copied some of that.
LDR We can find some parallels between Lewis Carroll’s original drawings and Tenniel’s drawings. It’s unclear how deliberately he worked off of Carroll’s drawings. He always claimed to work from his own imagination. But he must have seen the original manuscripts and could very well have been influenced by them. Carroll also may have asked him to draw something a certain way. Not much of that conversation has been kept, unfortunately.
FB There were a number of letters between them and Tenniel wrote a lot of letters to the publisher and even to Alice, correct?
LDR I don’t know if Tenniel wrote to Alice but yes, several of his letters have been kept. For example, the letter in which he advises Carroll to get rid of the “A Wasp in a Wig” chapter because he couldn’t find his way to a picture. He did have an influence on the story as well, not just the illustrations.
FB That alone is a big influence, cutting a chapter because he couldn’t find his way into the art.
FB Also, the seahorse has a great line. He says, “When you look at me, you see a horse.” Did you have fun coming up with the puns?
LDR I had a lot of fun. Some I had to think about for a long time, but most of them just came so easily. As Lewis Carroll said, some things just came by themselves. I wrote down things when I thought of them and then I thought, “How can I use them in this book?”
FB That’s when you know you’re onto something. How do you enjoy writing poems and prose? Do you find one easier than the other? Because there’s quite a bit of poetry in this book.
LDR It was really hard writing the poetry. I like writing both prose and poetry but I’ve had the most struggles with the poetry because Carroll’s poetry is so good. It’s very hard to live up to. I’m not sure if I succeeded, but I wanted to give it a try. I had many discussions with my proofreader about the metronome because I’m not a native speaker. I had some idea about how to pronounce the words, the right cadence, and where to put the emphasis, but there were slight nuances that I didn’t pick up on and had to change.
However, I do have to say that writing poetry in English is still a bit easier than writing poetry in Dutch. Even though it’s not my native language, I think English has many more rhyming words than Dutch. It’s easier to match them.
FB On that note, I’m going to ask you to read a little bit from your book. In Chapter Five, there’s a very nice poem, feel free to read the setup, if you’d like. The chapter is called “The Well of Fishes.” Would you be comfortable reading a little bit for us?
LDR Yes, I wonder if people will recognize its origins.
“Three times when adding up primes I was distraught, Seven pages homework somehow getting burned, Nine nights of studying all for naught, One error made and not a lesson learned From the school of Laketown where the cod are taught. One Fish to teach them all, One Fish to commend them, One Fish to test them all and in the end suspend them From the school of Laketown where the cod are taught.”
FB Excellent. Would you want to share the origin that you were teasing? All of us novices would love to know. Give us the inside scoop.
LDR The hint is in “one fish to teach them all.” It’s a reference to The Lord of the Rings, “One ring to rule them all.”
FB Clever. Did you have any hesitation in taking on a childhood classic as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland?
LDR Of course, I was hesitant because I wanted it to be done right or not at all. But I’ve had this website for so many years. I know so much about the story and its background. I felt confident about understanding all aspects of the original books. So I did know what to put into it. It needed to have poetry. It needed to have 12 chapters. It needed to have 42 illustrations, and you’d have puns and things like that. I felt confident about that. The challenge was to create a good story that was Carroll-worthy.
I presented it to my proofreader who is also into Alice in Wonderland, and he liked it. I thought that was a good sign. I just went ahead and decided to publish it and I’d see how people receive it.
FB If you were in an elevator and you had to pitch it to somebody, how would you do that? How would you pitch it to people who are not very into Alice?
LDR I would say it’s a sequel. It’s written in the same style as Lewis Carroll’s original stories but with more recent references, jokes, and puns. So people that live in the now will understand it because of Carroll’s books, you really need to know something about Victorian times to understand all the jokes. This is an Alice version for modern readers.
FB So it’s a contemporary version, in terms of some of the puns and the jokes and the references. Do you want to give us an example of something recognizable in your book where we would be in on the joke?
LDR For example, there’s a reference to Brexit. I’ve had parodies in the books that are from poems like “The Raven” by Edgar Allan Poe, but also more modern songs and poems that people will recognize now. Like The Lord of the Rings poem.
FB I think people really love that. I don’t know if you’ve seen the musical Wicked. But people love guessing and trying to figure out what the backstory is and what the references are. There’s so much of that in your book for people to enjoy.
I’m curious. Curiouser and curiouser. Why do you think Alice still matters?
LDR I think it’s one of those stories that everyone can read into it what they want. It’s for children. It’s for adults. You can read it as just a funny tale. You can read it like I do and try to find out what Carroll was referring to. You can read it as something spiritual or something related to drugs. Anything you want, you can find in the story. And that makes it appeal to so many people.
FB This story really captured the collective consciousness because of what you just said. Everybody can take something out of it and interpret things in the way they want. Also, thematically it’s so much about who you are. She asks, “Who am I?” We’re always evolving as people so I do think it’s a beautiful way to reflect all kinds of different cultures and themes that people are dealing with. Because there’s so much Alice out there, how do you hope that your book will add to the Alice canon?
LDR There are many books that are inspired by Lewis Carroll in different ways. Your books have taken inspiration from it and you made this whole new world and did a completely different take on the story. There are a lot of people who are interested in that. I wanted to target another audience, the people who want to read more of the original tales, and who like staying very true to the original story. Or the people who are more interested in the books from a scholarly perspective. I wanted to give them something.
FB I didn’t realize how many collectors there were and how many Alice scholars. I didn’t know about all the Lewis Carroll societies. It’s very rich and very deep. I ask all my guests, if they were a character from Lewis Carroll’s books, who would they be? But because you wrote the sequel, I’m going to throw your book into it as well. You can pick from any of the characters in the trilogy.
LDR Actually, I don’t identify with the characters. I would say I identify more with Lewis Carroll himself, with Charles Dodgson. I’m the writer of a book, but I also am a person with many hobbies and interests like him, and I can relate to him a lot.
FB You are really creative in all sorts of capacities. And Lewis Carroll was very creative with his photography, which was cutting-edge at the time. I understand the reference, being an author and following his footsteps in terms of the ideas behind his book. But there are a lot of misconceptions, like that he was reclusive. I’m assuming you’re not reclusive, but maybe you are.
LDR I’m actually a social person. I like locking myself up in my room for my hobbies but at other times I like meeting people and doing fun things together. As did Lewis Carroll. I think the misconception of a reclusive Lewis Carroll was created because he wanted to differentiate himself from his pen name. He did not like to publicly acknowledge that he was Lewis Carroll. Of course, he had a religious background so maybe that’s why he never married, but he was a social person. He had lots of friends, not only child friends. He also visited many famous people. He was a bit of a lion-hunter from what I understand. He had dinner dates and went out to the beach. I would say he was social as well.
FB Also, people wrote that his books were written just for children, which we clearly know they were not. People think that the stories were about taking drugs. They clearly were not but what’s interesting about that comment is that culturally, Alice is always representing what’s going on. So yes, if you’re reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in the 1960s, you would see it as a psychedelic trip falling down the rabbit hole, but if you’re reading it during this era, it’s a completely different lens that you’re reading the book through.
There was also the whole thing with Alice Liddell and the missing diary page, which picked up a lot of internet buzz, and a lot of conspiracy theories. I used the missing diary pages as a device to say, “Those pages were taken out because he didn’t want to tell the true story of meeting Alyss Heart from my book.” I also used the Lewis Carroll Society as somewhat of a villain, who didn’t want my book to come out.
LDR They were very grateful for that.
FB They were fine. Back to your hobbies, you’re a musician and a seamstress. But interestingly enough, I haven’t seen you do any Alice in Wonderland cosplay promoting your book. You should be at Comic-Cons with your book dressed as Alice. Maybe instead of having a booth, you’d be in a water tank.
LDR That would be interesting. Maybe a bit of a logistic challenge.
FB But you would get a lot of attention and you’d sell a lot of books.
LDR Actually, I do own an Alice costume but I have not worn it for promotional activities.
FB What are you thinking girl? Come on. Let’s make the connection. You should be using your bagpipe to record Alice songs, dressed as Alice, with the book cover everywhere.
LDR I did play in a band called Tweedledum and Tweedledee.
FB I did see that. I thought that was very fun. How often would you perform?
LDR Well, the band doesn’t exist anymore. Unfortunately, my bandmate passed away. I’m in a medieval band and we play mostly during festival season, the end of spring until the beginning of autumn. I’m also in a balfolk band. Balfolk is traditional West European music. It’s mostly performed for dances as live performances and we usually play several times a year.
FB Is this a hobby or something that you’re trying to make into a career? Are you recording music?
LDR I call myself a semi-professional musician, it’s more than a hobby, but I do have a job. Besides the music and the book and sewing and things, I work in the marketing and communications department at a university because I do like some stability when it comes to finances. I do not know if I would like the lifestyle that comes with being a full-time musician. It’s a lot of working nights and weekends.
FB You have some Alice art on your screen. You have a mushroom and the Cheshire cat. Speaking of that, what was your cat called in the book?
LDR In the book it was called Villikens.
FB Tell us about your cat character.
LDR That’s a reference for people who are more knowledgeable about the background of Lewis Carroll’s Alice because the real Alice actually owned cats. In the original books, she has Dinah, which was actually one of her kittens. Another one of their cats was called Villikens. So in my book, Alice tells Villikens, who is a meerkat actually and not a real cat. But Alice tells him about Dinah and now she meets Villikens which is actually the littermate.
FB Tell me about some of the artists that you love that have depicted Lewis Carroll’s books. Are there any favorites?
LDR I am a Tenniel fan. I’m not into collecting books from other illustrators. There are so many to choose from. I like some of the illustrations, but I am not a real fan of someone in particular. The image I have in my Zoom background is one that was done by someone for contests and I just liked this particular image, so I saved it.
FB So you’re a traditionalist?
LDR I guess you can say that. That’s also why I wanted my illustrator to draw in the style of John Tenniel.
FB It was terrific. Can you share a little bit about the website and maybe give us some interesting facts about Lewis Carroll that are more obscure? For instance, the White Rabbit’s obsession with time. It’s my understanding that it was a satire on the British cultural obsession with being very punctual.
LDR There are many theories about the origins of the characters. It is also said that Lewis Carroll modeled the White Rabbit after Alice’s father, the ecclesiastical dean of Christchurch, Oxford because he apparently was often running late. But there’s no real proof of that.
FB That’s just fun information. So you put things like that on your website?
LDR I’m mostly focused on things that have a little more proof or it’s more likely that it’s true. I also focus more on the origins of the story, like how everyone imagines Alice with a blue dress even though the original illustrations are black and white. So what would Carol have had in mind? First, illustrations that were officially published in his books have Alice in a yellow dress, but there was also merchandise showing her in a red dress or a blue dress. So Disney was not the first to depict her in a blue dress, but it made it iconic. So I’m trying to add those things to the website so people will know more about how these things come to pass.
FB That’s really interesting. I knew about the yellow but I didn’t know about a red dress. What is the indication that there was a red dress?
LDR I think it was on the merchandise.
FB Lewis Carroll was selling merchandise back then?
LDR He produced his own stamp case. He was quite commercially talented.
FB He was way ahead of his time. Authors weren’t doing that back then. That’s really interesting.
LDR He was always focused on how to promote the story, how much it should cost, and who should be able to afford it.
FB What are some of your favorite references to Alice in pop culture?
LDR I’m mostly a fan of Disney’s cartoon Alice in Wonderland because that’s my childhood thing and it led me to the books. I’m less of a fan of the Tim Burton movie. That’s too far from the original story. But I am grateful to him that the movie leads more people to the original books. Because every few years something comes out that is popular with the new generation and that really helps to keep them interested in Lewis Carroll’s books.
FB What did you think of Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter?
LDR I actually parodied him in my book.
FB I feel like I’m mining and I’m getting these little gold nuggets. Eventually, I’m going to have all of them by the end of this interview. Tell us about that.
LDR My secret desire is that someone publishes an annotated version about my book, as Martin Gardner did for the Alice books. I’m not going to tell you everything, there should be something to figure out. Also, there’s way too much in there to put into one podcast.
FB As a musician are there songs or musicians who have used Alice that you really like?
LDR I do know some songs related to Alice, but I’m not really into all those pop culture adventures. I’m more about the book’s origins. That’s my focus.
FB So when I say you’re a traditionalist, that is 100% accurate?
LDR I’m not saying that all the other things are not relevant and shouldn’t be there. I really love how people get inspired by the stories. It’s just I have to have a focus or I’ll be all over the place.
FB When did you start your website? It’s so deep.
LDR I started it in December 1997. That’s 25 years ago, even longer.
FB Wow, it’s really expansive. But it’s also a great resource and it does feel like a work of passion. It’s easy to navigate. I didn’t realize I had been utilizing it because when I went on it to do a little bit of research before the podcast, I went, “I’ve been on this website a million times! I’m always looking at this website and now I get to interview the person who created it.”
LDR Famous without knowing it. I like your compliment because my day job is being an online marketer where I really focus on usability. I do want my website to be user-friendly. Also, I do not want it to be very commercial. I want to spread knowledge and I want people to know about the origins and be able to look up everything.
FB It’s a great resource. From everybody out there who’s an Alice fan, thank you for giving us a website that we can navigate down the rabbit hole into Wonderland and find our way home.
LDR That would be something to make you get lost there.
FB Are you planning on writing any more fiction in the Alice universe? And, where can we find your book?
LDR I have been asked whether I will write another sequel but it’s not on my to-do list. This book was on my bucket list. It just had to happen sometime. I’m not saying I will never write another book. I do blog a lot on my personal blog and on my Amazon website. I will focus on that from now on. As to where you can find the book, you can buy it at alice-in-wonderland.net. You can also find it on Amazon and in bookshops. You can just order it from your local bookstore or online bookstores.
FB Before we go, is there a passage from Lewis Carroll’s books that stands out, maybe something that is not often quoted that you would like to share with us?
LDR Yes, it’s a passage from Through the Looking-glass. It’s when Alice encounters a door and she wants to enter. There’s a frog and she has this conversation with the frog that I, for some reason, find immensely funny.
“‘What is it, now?’ the Frog said in a deep hoarse whisper.
Alice turned round, ready to find fault with anybody. ‘Where’s the servant whose business it is to answer the door?’ she began angrily.
‘Which door?’ said the Frog.
Alice almost stamped with irritation at the slow drawl in which he spoke. ‘This door, of course!’
The Frog looked at the door with his large dull eyes for a minute: then he went nearer and rubbed it with his thumb, as if he were trying whether the paint would come off; then he looked at Alice.
‘To answer the door?’ he said. ‘What’s it been asking of?’ He was so hoarse that Alice could scarcely hear him.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said.
‘I talks English, doesn’t I?’ the Frog went on. ‘Or are you deaf? What did it ask you?’
‘Nothing!’ Alice said impatiently. ‘I’ve been knocking at it!’
‘Shouldn’t do that—shouldn’t do that—’ the Frog muttered. ‘Vexes it, you know.’ Then he went up and gave the door a kick with one of his great feet. ‘You let it alone,’ he panted out, as he hobbled back to his tree, ‘and it’ll let you alone, you know.’” – from Chapter 9: “Queen Alice”, Through the Looking-glass by Lewis Carroll.
I liked this door discussion so I’ve put a door discussion in my book as well.
FB Excellent. Thank you very much for being on our show, All Things Alice. If there is a perfect guest, who knows all things Alice, it is you, Lenny. So hats off.
LDR Thank you very much for having me. It was my honor.
5 Pieces of Science Inspired by Alice in Wonderland
We all know Alice in Wonderland is everywhere. Since Lewis Carroll’s tale about a young girl wandering through Wonderland was published over 150 years ago, Alice has been ever-present in pop culture. There have been numerous adaptations in film, television, literature, video games, and board games. Alice’s story has directly and indirectly inspired musicians and storytellers, most recently with Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things. Words and phrases such as a “Cheshire Cat grin” and “down the rabbit hole” are constant parts of everyday speech. But Alice isn’t just ubiquitous in culture, you can also find her in every facet of science. From the cosmos to psychology, Alice has influenced how we understand and define our world.
Here are five places where you can find Wonderland in science:
The Alice Ring
Wonderland is a wild, mind-bending world entirely different from our own. However, a recent creation by Finnish and American scientists shows that our world might have more in common with Wonderland than we previously thought. The Alice Ring is a decayed monopole “that flips the magnetic charge of any other monopole passing through its center, creating an anti-monopole.”
Yes, as someone who never took physics, that was confusing for me too. A monopole is essentially a magnet with just one magnetic pole. The Alice Ring looks like a regular monopole but when you look inside, things get curiouser and curiouser. “Everything seems to be mirrored, as if the ring were a gateway into a world of antimatter instead of matter,” said co-creator Mikko Mottonen of Aalto University in Finland. A realm where everything appears to be the opposite of the norm? It makes sense why they named it after Alice. The prospect that science can quite literally create mirrored realities is both exciting and frightening, similar to Wonderland.
Medicinal Magic Mushrooms
Mushrooms are synonymous with Alice in Wonderland, especially the psychedelic ones. In the novel, Alice eats a mushroom that changes her size, evoking the hallucinogenic effects of psilocybin mushrooms. While there is no evidence psychedelics or any other type of drug, influenced Lewis Carroll, the story’s connection to mind-altering substances is undeniable, especially since the 1960s when the counterculture embraced the connections to drugs found in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
Mushrooms, however, are becoming more and more mainstream. Specifically, their medicinal qualities are being fully explored for the first time. In a recent presentation to the Memphis Rotary Club, Dr. Ronald L. Cowan of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center outlined the exciting possibilities that magic mushrooms have for treating depression. Magic mushrooms showed effects in a few days to two weeks and helped to resolve depression in about two-thirds of patients, both at better rates than traditional antidepressants. Though it is a small sample size, the results are encouraging.
How does Alice play into this? The music, film, literature, and values of the 1960s counterculture that embraced and espoused the psychedelic qualities of Alice in Wonderland have become part of the mainstream, bringing with it more progressive attitudes toward drugs. It is not improbable that Alice’s role in that counterculture, along with its continuing prevalence in our culture, played a role in society being comfortable with exploring the possibly life-changing benefits of psychedelic mushrooms.
Alice in Wonderland Syndrome
Perhaps the most famous, or infamous, example of Alice in science is the mysterious Alice in Wonderland Syndrome. The rare syndrome involves distorted perception and instances of it began cropping up in medical texts around 1900. In a 1952 paper, neurologist Caro Lippman recounted several examples from patients including “a sensation of the neck extending out on one side for a foot or more,” a woman’s “left ear ‘ballooning out 6 inches or more,’” and another patient reporting that if felt like her head grew to “tremendous proportions” and floated up to the ceiling. The litany of other testimonies is very similar to Alice’s experiences in Lewis Carroll’s novel. A common thread amongst Lippman’s patients was that most also suffered from migraine headaches. This gave rise to speculation that Carroll, who also suffered from migraines, may have been directly influenced by his affliction, though no such complaints have been found in his diaries.
The cause of Alice in Wonderland Syndrome is not well understood. Brain inflammation due to the Epstein-Barr virus seems to be the most common cause of symptoms in children while symptomatic adults most often present with migraines. Tumors and schizophrenia are also potential causes. While the syndrome is just as mysterious as the inner workings of Wonderland, scientists are better able to explore the disorder due to neuroimaging technology which can help track the relationship between symptoms and brain activity.
Cheshire Cat Galaxies
The mischievous grin of the Cheshire Cat is an iconic image that has cropped up in a variety of media. The cat’s teasing, enigmatic smile can also be seen in the cosmos. The Cheshire Cat galaxies are a group of distant galaxies that resemble the grin of Lewis Carroll’s feline. The galaxies are an example of gravitational lensing, where the galaxies’ light “has been stretched and bent by the large amounts of mass,” which is usually dark matter. In this case, the mass surrounds the “eyes” and “nose”. The circular “face” is formed by the gravitational lensing of four galaxies far behind the “eye” galaxies.
But these galaxies are not just stagnating in space. Much like Wonderland, they are constantly changing. The two “eye” galaxies, for example, are on a collision course, hurtling towards each other at over 300,000 miles per hour. Astronomers believe that the Cheshire Cat galaxies will eventually become more like a Cyclops group once the two “eye” galaxies collide and merge. But don’t worry, that won’t happen for another billion years.
Borogovia Dinosaur
Lewis Carroll created many fantastical creatures for Wonderland and one of his creations lent its name to a wondrous creature of Earth – a dinosaur. The Borogovia was a small theropod (hollow bones and three toes and claws on each limb) that lived 66-84 million years ago and was first discovered in the 1970s in southern Mongolia. The Borogovia, which belongs to the group of dinosaurs that evolved into birds, reminded paleontologist Halszka Osmolska of another avian creature – Lewis Carroll’s borogoves. Borogoves are mentioned in the poem “Jabberwocky” and Humpty Dumpty describes a borogove as “a thin shabby-looking bird with its feathers sticking out all round—something like a live mop.” The spindly legs of the dinosaur certainly evoke the characteristics of its Wonderland namesake and it’s fitting that fiction became fact and this feathered Wonderlander lives on in an ancestor of birds that once roamed Earth.
Meet The Author
An itinerant storyteller, John Drain attended the University of Edinburgh before studying film at DePaul University in Chicago and later earned an MFA in Screenwriting from the American Film Institute Conservatory. John focuses on writing mysteries and thrillers featuring characters who are thrown into the deep end of the pool and struggle to just keep their heads above water. His work has been recognized by the Academy Nicholls Fellowship, the Austin Film Festival, ScreenCraft, Cinestory, and the Montreal Independent Film Festival. In a previous life, John created and produced theme park attractions across the globe for a wide variety of audiences. John keeps busy in his spare time with three Dungeons and Dragons campaigns and a seemingly never-ending stack of medieval history books.
Battle of the IPs: Alice in Wonderland vs. The Hunger Games
Alright, everybody, we are back with another head-to-head battle. This time I will be pitting our undefeated champion, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland against another popular book and film series, The Hunger Games. A recurring theme in The Hunger Games is going against unbeatable odds, which I find quite fitting in this instance. I mean, this is a blog about Alice in Wonderland after all. But, perhaps, the bow-slinging Katniss Everdeen and cake boy Peter will be able to steal the throne that has been consistently held by Alice. So, The Hunger Games, ready your bows, somehow camouflage yourself because you are good at icing cakes, and may the odds be ever in your favor, because you’re going to need it against the juggernaut that is Alice.
Worldwide Cultural Impact:
In this first round of our showdown, we’ll examine the global impact of these two massive franchises. Both have earned their places in the hearts of audiences worldwide, but in the end, one will come out on top.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: Lewis Carroll could not even comprehend the impact that Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has had on the world. Its influence spans literature, film, art, and fashion. Wonderland’s timeless allure transcends cultural boundaries, making it an enduring component of global literary and artistic culture.
The Hunger Games: Suzanne Collins’ dystopian saga, The Hunger Games, has left an indelible mark on popular culture. Its exploration of political themes, survival, and rebellion resonates with audiences globally, making it a powerful cultural force.
Verdict: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – There is barely any comparison here, Alice is the winner. Don’t believe me? Go outside to a place where there are people, and just watch them. Take a mental tally of how many Alice-related shirts you see compared to Hunger Games shirts. Exactly. If that does not sway you, I don’t know a single song that is about the Hunger Games, whereas with Alice-related songs, there are too many to count.
Critical Appeal:
In this category, let’s compare the critical acclaim of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Hunger Games. I’ve decided we will be focusing on the critical appeal of the books due to the unfair advantage that Alice would have if we were comparing the critical reception of the films. An Academy Award trumps a Teen Choice Award.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: Lewis Carroll’s inventive satire of Victorian high society was critically celebrated for its unique blend of whimsy and philosophical depth, which has earned it a timeless status in the Western literary canon.
The Hunger Games: Suzanne Collins’ trilogy, starting with The Hunger Games, has received critical acclaim for its gripping narrative, social commentary, and complex characters navigating a dystopian world. While praised for its relevance and impact, some critics have raised concerns about its depiction of violence.
Verdict: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – The Hunger Games was close, but of course, Alice is going to win here. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland has endured for over a hundred years. The critics loved it then and they love it now.
Influences on Language:
Now, let’s talk about language. Both franchises have left linguistic marks with unique phrases and terminology.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: “Down the rabbit hole”, “mad as a hatter”, “off with their heads.” These are a few examples of common phrases said today that I can come up with off the top of my head. Of course, I can’t not mention that Carroll’s linguistic creativity has created one of my favorite words, “chortle.” Ignoring my stupid infatuation with the word, Carroll’s inventive use of the English language has become so ingrained in our everyday life that we don’t even think about it.
The Hunger Games: Phrases like “May the odds be ever in your favor” and terms like “tribute” have become part of everyday language, reflecting The Hunger Games’ impact on the contemporary lexicon.
Verdict: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – I’ve done this section in every single comparison and after this one, I will be removing it from the competition. It’s always a “gimmie” for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the true way to measure a book’s impact on language is to see how many words and phrases that were created in the book are used today without even thinking of the reference material. For example, if I were to say, “May the odds be ever in your favor,” people would go, “Haha yeah, Hunger Games.” But if I say, “I didn’t get any sleep last night. I went down a rabbit hole online and ended up learning how to blow glass,” people won’t be thinking, “Rabbit hole, like Alice.” They will be thinking, “Yeah man, you look super tired.” I also decided to ignore the fact that Carroll had invented the word “chortle” to make this comparison more unbiased.
Controversy:
Let’s stir the pot here, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Hunger Games have faced controversies related to their content and themes. Do I agree with the points raised here? No, but I think it’s important to see which IP has “offended” the least amount of people.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: Over time, some critics and readers have engaged in discussions about the surreal and whimsical nature of Wonderland, questioning its appropriateness for certain audiences. The abstract and sometimes nonsensical elements have sparked debates regarding the interpretation and potential impact on readers.
The Hunger Games: Suzanne Collins’ trilogy, particularly The Hunger Games, has stirred controversy due to its portrayal of violence and its themes of survival in a dystopian society. Some critics have raised concerns about the appropriateness of such themes for the intended young adult audience.
Verdict: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Alice is the clear winner here. I mean the criticism that was raised is a Super Weeny Hut Jr. level of complaint. It’s too whimsical? What does that even mean? Whereas concerns about violence in The Hunger Games are to some extent more legitimate.
Books Published:
Numbers never lie, except when they are made up to prove a point, which I did not do here. In fact, I did math here, which is something I thought I would never have to do when I became a writer. But here we are…let’s take a look at book sales.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: Lewis Carroll’s Alices Adventures in Wonderland has sold over 100 million copies around the world with more than 100 different translations. Since its original release, there have been over 300 different editions released.
The Hunger Games: Suzanne Collins’ trilogy has sold over 100 million copies worldwide and has been translated into numerous languages, captivating readers with its dystopian narrative.
Verdict: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – While both books have had immense success, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is the victor here. While they both have sold over 100 million copies, The Hunger Games needed three books to get there. If we divide 100 million by three, we get 33.3 million copies, whereas Alice’s 100 million divided by 1 still is 100 million. Hooray, math!
Box Office Success:
Next, we compare the box office success of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Hunger Games.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: Disney’s adaptations of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland have seen considerable success at the box office, particularly with Tim Burton’s film, which grossed over $1 billion.
The Hunger Games: The Hunger Games film series has grossed over $2.9 billion worldwide, making it one of the most successful film franchises based on a book series.
Verdict: The Hunger Games – While both have achieved success, The Hunger Games’ substantial box office earnings give it the edge in this category. I wanted to find exact box office information for Alice, but inflation and the sheer amount of Alice films that have come out makes it difficult to get proper numbers. So, I decided to compare the most successful of the adaptations. It is no question here.
Theme Park Rides:
Who doesn’t like theme park rides? Okay, probably a few people, but I love them. As a kid when I read a book or watched a movie, I would always imagine parts I liked as rides and wanted to see how they could come to fruition. Fasten your seatbelts and keep your legs and arms inside the blog at all times.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: Various Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland-inspired theme park rides, notably those in Disney parks, allow visitors to explore the whimsical world of Wonderland, encountering familiar characters and scenes.
The Hunger Games: While The Hunger Games doesn’t have dedicated theme park rides, its influence has extended to immersive experiences in various entertainment contexts.
Verdict: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Alice has rides around the world, The Hunger Games has none. The closest thing to a Hunger Games ride is Fortnite, which isn’t a ride. I’ve read The Hunger Games books and can’t even come up with an idea for a ride.
Conclusion:
Alright, I’ve tallied up the score and, oof, okay, Alice in Wonderland got six points and The Hunger Games got only one. I can hear the cannon firing in the distance signaling the defeat of yet another IP. You put up one hell of a fight Hunger Games but when you go against the champ, you have to be prepared to take a few licks. But it was a valiant effort on The Hunger Games’ part and for that, we raise our three fingers in its honor, and let out a whistle, doo dee dee doo… Look, I actually really like The Hunger Games books, so when you decide to write your hate mail for your favorite IP losing against Alice, just remember, you can do that, or you could get a hobby. Perhaps archery or baking.
In the spirit of trying to broker good faith between the fanbases, I will now present some AI image mashups of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Hunger Games.
First off, we have Katniss Everdeen as Alice. And yes, she’s brought her bow to Wonderland.
Next, we have the Mad Hatter as a District 1 socialite, ready for the opening ceremonies.
I hope you all enjoyed this blog, let me know what you think. What IP do you want to see face-off against Alice for the next blog? Do you agree with what I said here? If you didn’t and can remain calm about it, I’d love to hear your thoughts. If you didn’t and can’t remain calm, Frank would love to hear your thoughts.
Meet the Author:
Jared Hoffman graduated from the American Film Institute with a degree in screenwriting. A Los Angeles native, his brand of comedy is satire stemming from the many different personalities and egos he has encountered throughout his life. As a lover of all things comedy, Jared is always working out new material and trying to make those around him laugh. His therapist claims this is a coping mechanism, but what does she know?
Walt Disney and Alice in Wonderland: The Long and Winding Road of Disney’s Passion Project
With CEO mudslinging, sagging box office returns for Marvel, and looming board battles, it can be easy to forget the Walt Disney Company is, at its core, a dream factory. The House of Mouse has produced movies, TV shows, theme park rides, and games that have inspired and entertained, forming core memories for its legions of fans. This assembly line of amusement originally stemmed from the dreams of one man – Walt Disney. And what inspired Disney? Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
“No story in English literature has intrigued me more. It fascinated me the first time I read it as a schoolboy.” Disney was fascinated by Lewis Carroll’s fantasy tale as a child growing up in Missouri and it’s easy to see how the novel influenced his later work. Disney’s films told fantastical stories in magical lands, infused with comedy and whimsy. Micky, Snow White, Pinnochio, and Cinderella captured the world’s imagination, just like Alice, the White Rabbit, the Mad Hatter, and the rest of Wonderland’s denizens did in 1865. But Disney wasn’t just content being inspired by Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, from his first forays into making movies, Disney was intent on bringing Alice to the big screen.
In 1923, Walt Disney was working at the wonderfully named Laugh-O-Gram Studios in Kansas City, Missouri. Laugh-O-Gram was not a runaway success, folding after two years and nine cartoons. But it was with Laugh-O-Gram that Disney made his first Alice film, a 12-minute silent short titled Alice’s Wonderland. The charming live-action/animation hybrid is loosely based on Lewis Carroll’s novel and follows Alice, a young girl who, after being inspired during a visit to an animation studio, dreams of traveling to an animated world filled with anthropomorphic animals. Alice is greeted at the train station and is the guest of honor in a parade around the animal realm. After escaping a pack of hungry lions, Alice leaps off a cliff and wakes up back in her bed, exhilarated by her fantastic dream.
Alice’s Wonderland didn’t save Laugh-O-Gram from bankruptcy but it did serve as the proof of concept for the Alice Comedies, a short series that chronicled the adventures of a live-action girl, Alice, and her animated cat Julius. Running from 1924 to 1927, the Alice Comedies were an important foundational piece for the nascent Walt Disney Corporation. It wasn’t until 1933 that the prospect of an Alice feature at Disney surfaced again, with the “Queen of the Movies” Mary Pickford in talks to face down the Red Queen as Alice. But the emergence of a competing live-action adaptation at Paramount scuppered the project and Disney contented himself with making Thru the Mirror, a short featuring the Mickey Mouse in a Through the Looking-glass parody.
The project that became the 1951 film Alice in Wonderland first started in the late 1930s after the tremendous success of a little film called Snow White. An initial story treatment was completed and Disney hired David Hall to create concept art for the feature. The results were…interesting. The art itself is beautiful, presaging the darker routes that future adaptations of Alice would take. But dark isn’t what Disney wanted for Alice. He was convinced that the film’s success would hinge on highlighting Carroll’s humor in the novel and ultimately rejected Hall’s work.
It was around this time that Disney’s enthusiasm for the project seemed to wane. “I don’t think there would be any harm in letting this thing sit for a while. Everyone is stale now,” he said. The prospect of Alice in Wonderlandgetting the Disneyland treatment became even more unlikely, with the underperformance of Pinnochio and Fantasia and the collapse of the foreign market due to World War II. Bank of America even prohibited the company from producing new feature films until they had fixed their finances.
Yet Disney didn’t give up. Come 1945, he was back in Wonderland, tapping famed Brave New World novelist Aldous Huxley to pen the screenplay for a live-action/animated hybrid production. While Disney found Huxley’s script too literal, he hadn’t lost his enthusiasm for the source material, telling American Weeklyin 1946, “Carroll was revolutionary in the field of literature. He violated the serious Victorian tradition by writing Alice in a vein of fantasy and nonsense. In fact, he was a pace-setter for the motion picture cartoon and the comic strip of today by the style he introduced in his fantasy.”
Disney decided to make the film fully animated and directed that the script focus more on the humor, joy, and whimsy of the novel. Mary Blair’s concept art introduced a modernist bent and her use of vivid colors and warped perspective captured the tone Disney desired. He also commissioned talented songwriters such as Sammy Fain and Bob Hilliard to compose music and songs for the film. The train was now truly on the tracks and Disney’s clarity of vision and eye for artistic talent came to the fore as Alice in Wonderland coalesced into a bright adventure with catchy songs and contagious comedy.
The production was massive by the standards of the time. The production of Alice in Wonderlandtook five years and the budget ran to $3 million (over $47 million in 2023), requiring Disney to ultimately utilize some of the profits from Cinderella to ensure the film reached his lofty standards. A full live-action feature was shot for reference during animation, a process that produced over 350,000 drawings and paintings by 750 artists. A 50-piece orchestra directed by Oliver Wallace (later nominated for an Oscar in recognition of his work) completed the score. And above it all, was the Missouri schoolboy who was finally about to turn his childhood dream into reality.
Alice’s road to becoming a revered classic, however, was to prove to be just as winding as her adventure in Wonderland. Reviews were not favorable upon the film’s release in 1951, with critics citing the divergence from the source material and a lack of heart and warmth. Audiences were similarly underwhelmed, resulting in a $600,000 shortfall at the box office. But, like Carroll’s book, Disney’s film proved to have considerable legs. Several re-releases encountered more receptive audiences, especially in the early 1970s when the studio connected the film to the recent prominence of psychedelia. Subsequent generations reevaluated Disney’s passion project and the film is now considered one of his company’s best. In the film, Alice remarks that “Curiosity often leads to trouble.” And while Walt Disney’s childhood curiosity regarding Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland did result in some stressful times, it also led to an indisputable animated classic.
Meet the Author
An itinerant storyteller, John Drain attended the University of Edinburgh before studying film at DePaul University in Chicago and later earned an MFA in Screenwriting from the American Film Institute Conservatory. John focuses on writing mysteries and thrillers featuring characters who are thrown into the deep end of the pool and struggle to just keep their heads above water. His work has been recognized by the Academy Nicholls Fellowship, the Austin Film Festival, ScreenCraft, Cinestory, and the Montreal Independent Film Festival. In a previous life, John created and produced theme park attractions across the globe for a wide variety of audiences. John keeps busy in his spare time with three Dungeons and Dragons campaigns and a seemingly never-ending stack of medieval history books.
Battle of the IPs: Alice In Wonderland VS. The Lord of the Rings
Hey everyone, I’m back again with another Alice Versus blog. Tonight’s title card fight is a real heavyweight match. In the red corner, we have our reigning champion, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. In the blue corner, weighing in at a respectable whatever three books weigh, we have The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Tolkien vs. Carroll, high fantasy vs. absurdist satire, the Balrog vs. the Jabberwock. Two may enter but only one can be victorious. Let’s get right into it with our first section.
Global Cultural Impact:
In this first round of our showdown, we’re going to find out who’s had the most impact around the globe.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll): When Lewis Carroll’s whimsical and surreal world of Wonderland was first introduced to the world, it was unlike anything people had ever read before. Its influence spans literature, film, art, and fashion. Wonderland’s timeless appeal transcends cultural boundaries, making it a cherished part of literary and artistic culture worldwide.
The Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkien): J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic high-fantasy masterpiece has garnered a global following that spans generations. Its influence extends to literature, film, and even the formation of entire subcultures. Tolkien’s world-building and rich mythology have left an indelible mark on the fantasy genre.
Winner: Both? – Here’s the thing, these books are both massive in terms of cultural impact. Both books are leaders in their respective genres, Alice in absurdism and LOTR in high fantasy. Trying to measure their impact is like trying to count sand, and I don’t want to count sand. So… It’s a tie.
Critical Acclaim – The Literary Realm:
In this category, we’ll explore the critical reception of the original works, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll and The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien. After last round’s stalemate, I’m sure one of the two will take the lead here.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll): Lewis Carroll’s surreal and satirical masterpiece has earned immense critical acclaim. Literary critics and scholars have celebrated it as a timeless work of imaginative storytelling and a profound exploration of Victorian society. It is widely recognized as a classic of children’s literature and has left an enduring mark on the literary world.
The Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkien): The trilogy has received unparalleled acclaim in the fantasy genre and beyond. Critics and scholars have hailed it for its intricate world-building, rich character development, and thematic depth. The work is often cited as a seminal piece of literature with enduring significance.
Winner: Both – Really? Another tie? I guess so, I mean, both books were critical successes in their own right so it’s hard to compare. I know it’s my job to compare them and I even tried to sway it in Alice’s favor but seriously this feels like another tie.
Linguistic Influence:
Now, let’s delve into the linguistic impact of these fantastical worlds, including phrases and expressions they’ve introduced. I really need a winner here, ties don’t look good, that’s why soccer isn’t big in America.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll): Lewis Carroll’s work introduced phrases like “down the rabbit hole” and “mad as a hatter” into common usage, adding whimsy and eccentricity to everyday language. Carroll’s linguistic creativity has even inspired new words, such as “chortle.”
The Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkien): J.R.R. Tolkien’s extensive language creation, including Elvish languages like Quenya and Sindarin, has captivated linguists and language enthusiasts worldwide. Phrases like “One Ring to rule them all” and “My precious” have become iconic.
Winner: Both – NO! Another tie? Aw man if this was a pay-per-view fight people would be pissed. Carroll’s work is still undefeated in the sense that it has become such a part of our everyday language that people don’t even think of the source material. Tolkien created TWO languages and even invented a few words outside of those languages, such as “Ent.” As much as I don’t want it to be, in my mind and my heart, I know this is a tie.
Books Sold:
Next, let’s examine the number of books sold for each work. I swear if this is a tie, I’m going to stop writing this.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll): Lewis Carroll’s literary masterpiece has sold over 100 million copies worldwide, has been translated into more than 100 languages, and is available in over 300 editions.
The Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkien): J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic trilogy has sold over 150 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling book series in history. It has been translated into numerous languages, captivating readers around the world.
Winner: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Thank God. Okay, we finally have a winner here. In the category of books sold, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland secures its victory. 100 million for one book beats 50 million per book.
Box Office Success:
Okay, now that we have a leader in this bout, I feel better about writing this. In this round, we compare the box office success of film adaptations of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Lord of the Rings.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Film Adaptations): Many film adaptations of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland have been successful at the box office, especially Tim Burton’s $1 billion behemoth, captivating audiences with their imaginative interpretations.
The Lord of the Rings (Film Adaptations): Peter Jackson’s film adaptations of The Lord of the Rings trilogy have grossed over $2.9 billion at the global box office, receiving critical acclaim and 17 Academy Awards, and becoming one of the most beloved and successful film series in cinematic history.
Winner: The Lord of the Rings – Aaaaaand we’re tied back up again… Damn. The Lord of the Rings film adaptations secure their victory, both in terms of earnings and critical acclaim. Back to square one…
Influence on Music:
Okay, it’s all tied up. This one is for all the marble. If it’s another tie I will never write again. No, no, don’t cry. It will be okay. I’m sure Frank’s other blog writers, if they work hard enough, one day, will display a similar (but slightly less than) amount of charm, wit, and attractiveness. I know you will all miss me but I just can’t have another tie here. Okay, with my preemptive goodbye, let’s explore how Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Lord of the Rings have influenced the world of music.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll): Lewis Carroll’s whimsical and surreal world has inspired numerous songs, ranging from psychedelic rock to alternative music. Bands and artists have drawn inspiration from Wonderland’s fantastical elements and nonsensical whimsy, incorporating them into their lyrics and compositions.
The Lord of the Rings (J.R.R. Tolkien): J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic saga has had a profound impact on the realm of music. From progressive rock to folk metal, musicians have crafted songs and entire albums inspired by Middle-earth. Tolkien’s rich mythology and themes of heroism and adventure resonate deeply with musicians and their audiences.
Winner: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – I actually have my eyes closed in anticipation. I can’t look. Who’s the winner here? NO WAY! WE HAVE A WINNER. In the category of influence in music, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland emerges as the winner. While both works have inspired classic musical creations, the whimsical and surreal nature of Wonderland has been a particularly fertile ground for artistic expression in music.
Conclusion:
In this captivating duel between Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and The Lord of the Rings, both works have demonstrated their profound impact on literature and popular culture. But as we all know there can be only one winner, unless it’s soccer, but thankfully this isn’t. The winner here, in a narrow victory, is Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland!
Wow, okay, normally, at the end of these Alice Versus blogs, I usually throw the losers a bone by giving their fans cool mashup images for them to take home with as a consolation prize. But, in this instance, since they were so evenly matched, I’ve decided that the mashups will be given out not as a consolation prize but as a symbol of joint friendship between two literary juggernauts.
First off, Gandalf went a tad mad and became a hatter…
Next, Frodo and friends visit Wonderland and enjoy the Valley of Mushrooms. I wonder if they brought any Longbottom Leaf?
Last, we have Hatter Madigan if he came to aid of Gondor for the Battle of Pelennor Fields. I wonder how he would’ve done against the Nazgul?
Alright, that was fun, let me know if you have any other mashups you want to see here. Hopefully, you enjoyed this blog. Let me know what you think below.
Meet the Author:
Jared Hoffman graduated from the American Film Institute with a degree in screenwriting. A Los Angeles native, his brand of comedy is satire stemming from the many different personalities and egos he has encountered throughout his life. As a lover of all things comedy, Jared is always working out new material and trying to make those around him laugh. His therapist claims this is a coping mechanism, but what does she know?
All Things Alice: Interview with Craig Hanks
As an amateur scholar and die-hard enthusiast of everything to do with Alice in Wonderland, I have launched a podcast that takes on Alice’s everlasting influence on pop culture. As an author who draws on Lewis Carroll’s iconic masterpiece for my Looking Glass Wars universe, I’m well acquainted with the process of dipping into Wonderland for inspiration.
The journey has brought me into contact with a fantastic community of artists and creators from all walks of life—and this podcast will be the platform where we come together to answer the fascinating question: “What is it about Alice?”
For this episode, it was my great pleasure to have Craig Hanks join me as my guest on this episode! Read on to explore our conversation and check out the whole series on your favorite podcasting platform to listen to the full interview.
Frank Beddor I’m impressed with your podcast, The Legendarium, and I had a great time on the show. The theme we talked about was why stories last. You guys take such a deep dive into amazing novels and works of literature. You do podcasts about authors, whether it’s CS Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, or Robert Jordan. Then you have the Author’s Shelf series where authors come on and talk about the books that influence them. I’m interested in the imaginative moment where this all came together and you launched a podcast.
Craig Hanks I’ve been going at this for a long time. I first started podcasting back in 2009 when I was working at the campus radio station where I went to school. I was one of those weirdo kids who, instead of turning on the TV, would turn on the oldies or the classic rock station because I loved the DJs. The music was amazing too but I loved hearing the DJs and fantasizing about being the guy with the microphone. Then I finally got a job in radio and went, “Oh, okay, there’s no money in this. What else could I do?” So I started podcasting on the side while I was still in school but nothing really took off for a few years. It wasn’t until we started The Legendarium back in 2014, that that thing started to crystallize. I had moved back to my hometown and rekindled my friendship with my best friend from elementary school.
We were brainstorming ideas and I said “I’d love to do something about fantasy and science fiction. A kind of a book club type of thing. Maybe we’d start with The Lord of the Rings.” He goes, “I’ve never read it.” Well, that settled that. So we did a deep dive, 17 episodes, on The Lord of the Rings. It’s the expert guy walking the first-timer through it. So we had an interesting dynamic there and then we started branching out. We read Brandon Sanderson and Robert Jordan and started getting into classic sci-fi, like Starship Troopers.
CH It’s all self-taught. When I was 15, I went and saw The Fellowship of the Ring with my family. I’d never seen it before. I’ve never read the books or anything. It was, as C.S. Lewis calls Lord of the Rings, a bolt from the blue from the clear sky. This was one of the few times in my life where, at that actual moment, I could feel that everything about my life had just changed. The screen goes black and Cate Blanchett says, “The world has changed.” I’m like, “Alright, that’s it. I’m done. My life as I knew it was over. This is the greatest thing I’ve ever experienced.” From there, I bought the books and I did the teenage fan thing for a while, “How dare the movies make this change?”
FB Even though you saw the movie first and you went back and read the books, then you started to critique the movie? Only a teenager can do that.
CH Some people, unfortunately, never seem to grow out of it. But I was 16 or 17 when my mom bought me a copy of The Silmarillion. Anybody who’s read The Silmarillion knows that is the true refiner’s fire for Tolkien fans. But again, I got to the last page and said, “My life will never be the same.” Then I started reading secondary stuff like Tom Shippey, the scholarly essays and works about The Lord of the Rings. I’ve been doing that for, gosh, 20 years now.
FB I want to go back to between 2009 and 2014. I even noticed with the 20 episodes I’ve done, that I needed to refine this. I need to think about this more critically. I’m curious, from 2009 to 2014, before you landed on The Legendarium, what were some of the ideas that didn’t work?
CH The first show I ever did was actually with my wife. We were still in college and I was still at the radio station, where I was working as a producer. I was constructing episodes for this host to do something similar to what we’re doing now. I would do all this research, feed him questions, and make him sound smart. It was a great job. I loved it. So I took it home, and asked my wife, “Hey, do you want to do a podcast with me? I don’t know about me just talking into a mic. That sounds a little bit, you know, crazy.” It was a weekly podcast called The Weeklings. We had several recurring segments throughout the show. We had the story of the week, the Wiki of the week where we’d pull a random Wikipedia article. We did 15 or so episodes before she couldn’t take it anymore. She did not like the back-and-forth confrontations and arguments that we’d have about this, and it stressed her out.
I’m pretty sure we had like 25 listeners and most of those were family. When I had the idea to start podcasting, I went to the campus library and, I kid you not, I picked up a copy of Podcasting for Dummies. It was beautiful. It walked me through the entire thing. Now there are a million resources online that’ll take you through all the same kind of stuff. But it was perfect back in 2009 to get me set up, buy the equipment, and get on there.
FB I’m really impressed with that. Because in 2009, it was way ahead of the curve. I went to a John Mulaney show recently at the Hollywood Bowl and at one point he looked out at all these people and said, “Oh, no, I know you all have a podcast. I’m not gonna listen to it.” I went, “Oh, man, I just started. I just had my second day and John Mulaney is making a joke about it.”
CH Having a podcast used to be something people found interesting. When we started The Legendarium in 2014 the reaction was, “Oh, you have a podcast? Tell me more.” And now it’s like, “Oh, you have a podcast.” I didn’t know this until recently but somebody told me that on dating apps, if you say that you have a podcast, it’s a huge red flag.
FB How did you guys break out and establish yourself? One of the ways is by doing other people’s podcasts, but there probably weren’t that many podcasts when you started.
CH Exactly. I don’t think I guested it on a podcast until three or four years later. It was a while. When we started it was mostly little rinky dink operations like us or NPR putting out huge shows. When we moved on from our Tolkien series we had a couple hundred listeners. It was still pretty small. But when we moved on to Brandon Sanderson, we reached a whole new audience.
I’d been reading him for a long time so we started doing podcast episodes on his work. And I said, “You know what, nobody’s listening to this because nobody knows it exists.” So I did the shameless self-promotion thing and got on Reddit, and told all the Brandon Sanderson fans. That is what blew it up. People were starved for content like this. They loved it. They loved having discussions on Reddit but now you could have somebody’s voice in your ear, or several people talking about the things you loved. We had four people on the panel and it gives you that feeling of sitting in the living room with your buddies and they’re talking about your favorite book.
FB Were you always focused on such deep dives? The other thing that’s unique in terms of what you guys talk about is the rereading of these books. Sometimes you guys reread these books four or five times, which seems insane to me. How do you have the time?
CH Frank, we’re dorks, okay? We’re dorks. We’ve accepted it and it’s time for you to accept it too.
FB In terms of when you’re breaking down a story or a series or an author, were you getting feedback from listeners that let you expand your understanding of what was working with your podcast?
CH It’s a great question and something that I stumbled into early on in those Reddit threads. It’s a little tacky to go on and just say, “Here’s a podcast, listen to it.” Even at the time, that was a little too self-promotional. So what I would do is say, “Hey, we’re going to record a podcast about x book. What are your observations? Questions? What do you want us to talk about as we have this discussion?” So people would get engaged before the show came out. Then we put it out and they get to hear us ask their question. They get a thrill from that. And we still carry this through today but I think that was one of the things that helped build that core audience. When you do it right it’s not a gimmick. We weren’t doing it for self-promotion. It makes for much better conversations and much better episodes when you’re engaging with the audience.
That would help us with individual episodes but also it got people used to the idea that these are guys who will actually respond and so listeners would suggest books for us. For the most part, it wasn’t a popularity contest. We weren’t tallying up votes for certain books or authors. It was more, “I’ve heard that name come up so many times that I think we need to put it on our list and we’ll get to it at some point.” We’ve never chased the next big thing. Going back to your earlier question about rereading, generally speaking, there are two different types of readers – those who love to read widely and those who love to read deeply. I’ve always been a deeper reader. In fact, 450 episodes and dozens of authors are way too wide. For me, I would much rather just stick with one or two authors and really get into it for 500 episodes. That’s my wheelhouse. But everybody has their own flavor of how they consume.
FB Did Brandon Sanderson come on your show eventually?
CH I’ve gotten to know Brandon Sanderson a little bit. I’m a beta reader for him now, which is a lot of fun. But anyway, he was our first Author’s Shelf episode. That’s where an author pulls something off their shelf that’s not theirs. I got this idea because I was at a signing of his and I was asking for his help doing a little audio hit. I just wanted him to say into an audio recorder like, “Hi, this is Brandon Sanderson. Welcome to The Legendarium.” That’s all I wanted.
So, I asked his assistant, “Can I get him to do this?” And the assistant said, “Yeah, he’ll do it. But you have to wait till the end of the signing.” So as I stood there waiting, I was listening to the conversations he was having and I noticed that he had maybe 10-12 individual questions the whole time. He just got them dozens of times each. He was such a pro and he answered everybody with the same level of enthusiasm but I also had the thought, “If I ever had him on my show, I don’t think I’d have anything interesting to ask him.” He’s heard it all. He’s had these questions 1,000 times.
So when I finally got him in front of the recorder and got the little audio hit, I said, “Hey, Brandon, we’d love to have you on the show.” And he got that look on his face, “Oh, no. How do I say no? I don’t want to do some chump’s podcast.” But I said, “I’d love to have you on the show but I want to have you on to talk about something that’s not your work.” And he goes, “Oh, tell me more.” I knew he was a Terry Pratchett fan and I said that we’d love to have him talk Pratchett. So that’s where the Author’s Shelf started. I was just trying to find a different way to talk to authors and get to know them. We’ve all read the books and we all know their biographies. But how do they think about other books?
FB What was the first book that your parents gave you that inspired you? I have two young kids and we went to a comic book shop one time and my son was engrossed in this Star Wars comic. At one point I said, “We have to go,” and he didn’t look up. That was the moment he discovered story and reading. I think he might have been six or seven so I’m curious if you have a similar memory.
CH I have two kids as well and I have a love-hate relationship with the Dave Pilkey books, Captain Underpants and Dog Man. I do not like reading them with my kids but I love that they love reading them. Anyway, when I was that age, six, seven, eight, I read all the Goosebumps books and the Hardy Boys stuff. That was great fun. Encyclopedia Brown holds a special place in my heart. But then very shortly after I turned nine, my mom came to me. I still can’t believe she did this and handed me Sphere by Michael Crichton. So I read Sphere and loved it and then I got a copy from her of The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks.
FB But she was feeding you all sorts of different things.
CH Those were the only two that my parents ever actually gave me telling me, “Here, you need to read this.” But what they did was they filled their bookshelves with all sorts of interesting-looking spines. Which is the great thing about sci-fi and fantasy. Love them or hate them, the covers are interesting.
FB Boy, did I find out how important that is?
CH With yours? Tell me more.
FB At Comic Cons, there are so many distractions for people and a piece of artwork can get a kid’s attention. I could see them coming, beelining right towards me. It’s gotta be that card soldier right up there. And they go, “What are those things? What are those, knights?” It became abundantly clear why having great art and great covers are important and fantasy and sci-fi do it better than anybody,
CH The titles as well. This is why authors don’t always get to choose their titles. Just like somebody who writes online, it’s often the editor who chooses the title. When I was 14, my friend tried to hand me a copy of The Lord of the Rings. I hated the cover. I hated the title. I’m not touching that. You keep your stupid book.
FB Little did you know. So what motivated you to finally read it?
CH It was that first peek at Peter Jackson’s trilogy.
FB Did you put those two things together and remember that book?
CH Yep. I don’t know why that particular story stuck in my head, maybe because I was being kind of a jerk to my friend. But when I was a little younger, 12 or 13, I read The Hobbit for a book report in school. I enjoyed it but I had no idea that this guy had written anything else. And so yeah, sure, I read this thing about a hobbit. So when I was watching The Fellowship of the Ring in theaters and Bilbo finds the ring in the prologue, I was so confused because I’ve seen this before. It was killing me. It took me four or five minutes before it finally clicked into place.
FB That was one of the kind of great openings for a movie in terms of laying out the story and the backstory and the narration and the battles and they did it with so much grace and economy and then you land right in a character, but you have context. I remember that opening really well and being blown away.
CH It’s under-appreciated that when you come to a story, it matters. It matters as much as who you are and what it is. And not just at what age, but what day. How excited are you? How depressed?
FB Well, it certainly was true for me with Alice in Wonderland, because I came to Alice when I was 10. My grandmother’s name was Alice. It was my mother’s favorite book. And they handed this book to me and I looked at the cover and said “There’s no way. Come on, mom. She has a blue dress and she goes down a rabbit hole? This is going to be terrible.” And of course, I hated it. So I told her later in life that when I started writing The Looking Glass Wars, this was my revenge for her forcing me to read the original book. It wasn’t until college that I reread Alice and that I really, really appreciated it and found my way into the world,
So our lives with these two different books are somewhat parallel. I wish there had been a good Alice in Wonderland movie. The Lord of the Rings is the gold standard for the reluctant hero story, the quest story, and Alice is on a bit of a quest, but it’s also random and episodic and, so unlike Lord of the Rings, you know, it was a struggle to find a structure to tell that story, certainly as a movie, except for Disney’s version and, of course, Tim Burton found his way and he brought his fantastical vision to it. But The Lord of the Rings really defined the reluctant hero story.
CH It’s defined a lot about modern fantasy. But some people do have a tendency, especially when they’re younger, to think that fantasy started with Tolkien in 1938. It didn’t. Fantasy was going on for a long time. It just had a different form. It wasn’t structured the same way. So you had people like L. Frank Baum or George MacDonald writing fantastical things. It just had a different flavor and a different purpose.
FB And Lewis Carroll. Wonderland has now been defined as a magical place. There’s Winter Wonderland and Middle Earth is also equally recognizable as a fantasy realm that in some ways can feel very real and is often referenced in culture these days, which I find really interesting. But I’m a big L. Frank Baum fan because I think all authors named Frank are excellent.
CH Something that Tolkien did usher in, as far as what he gave the fantasy genre, there are many things, but one of them is a grounding in reality. When you’re reading Alice in Wonderland and you fall down that rabbit hole, or when you go to the magical land of Oz, all bets are off. You have no idea what’s up or down, left or right. Everything is kind of randomized, almost. It’s a fever dream. Whereas when you get to Tolkien, he bases Middle-earth on some imagined pre-history of our world. So when I lived for a couple of years in northern France, I was amid these rolling hills with the corn and these yellow flowers and green hills. I am in the Shire. I am right there. It is exactly as he described it. It’s that kind of grounding that you then have with Westeros. He’s basing it on the Wars of the Roses and this idea of the British Isles and what’s across the sea and these strange peoples that you come in contact with. It’s grounded in reality. Then, if we go back to Terry Brooks, he did a post-apocalyptic fantasy where it’s our world, but it’s what happens 1000s of years after the nuclear winter. It’s something that Tolkien did usher in, making it our world but fantastical.
FB That trope has been so successful. I was certainly inspired when writing my books to find a way to ground Wonderland and bring rules, logic, and history to the elements of visual aspects that people were familiar with. So the Valley of Mushrooms becomes a real place, a destination, and there are rules. The more I was able to ground the story in something that felt real for people, the more they could suspend disbelief and go on the ride. Then I expanded it again, using maps and other territories that were never part of Lewis Carroll’s original work. So having those worlds as potential settings or just referencing them gave the story a broader context and different mythologies to play off of. Falling down a rabbit hole, and having a portal is a trope from C.S. Lewis, but the palace intrigue is a trope and a genre that works if you can find yourself grounded in the rules and the logic. I love that about Tolkine’s books. He just went so deep and spent so much time crafting his world.
CH He was a special creature in the way his mind worked. But also, he was writing The Lord of the Rings for 15-17 years. It took him a long time to just write the book. It took him his whole life to construct the mythology around it.
FB I’m always interested in people’s experiences with their parents and how their parents influenced and shaped them. When you have this much love for literature, pop culture, and movies, finding a way to make a career out of that is really unusual and not often encouraged in society. How did you navigate that? What did your folks have to say, or anybody else? Was there a mentor who might have influenced you?
CH I will say, as delighted as I am with a decade of relative success with The Legendarium, this is not my full-time job. This is still largely a labor of love. But going back to your actual question, as far as my parents, I had a couple of advantages in that regard. Number one, they were accepting of whatever path we might want to take. That was never really a question. There was never a “Hey, you should go into pre-law.” Nobody ever said that to me in my house. So that was advantage number one. Then advantage number two is that I’m a middle child. I’ve got two older brothers and a younger sister, and all the middle children out there will know that you get largely forgotten in the mix. This is the middle child thing. I didn’t have that push that I think some kids might have had of, “You need to do this. I’m going to help you direct your life.” I just never had that. I’m sure a therapist out there would have a lot to say about this but as far as this conversation goes, it was quite an advantage. Because it let me cultivate just the stuff that I loved and not only what I thought I had to do.
FB I wanted to ask, why no Alice in Wonderland on your podcast?
CH It’s one of those things that, should we do it? Yeah, absolutely. Will we do it? Yeah, probably one day. It’s just that the “to be read” pile grows apace. It’s tough. We have to balance what’s new and interesting with what we want to read regardless of when they came out.
FB Have you read Alice before?
CH I was so young that I can’t remember. I think I read it when I was 12. It’s one of those things where you have flashes in images. Kind of like my remembering who Gollum was, “Wait a minute, I’ve seen this somewhere.” That’s what I have with Alice.
FB Since I’ve been working in the Alice world it’s kind of like you buy a Prius and suddenly you look around and everybody has a Prius. It’s like, “I can’t believe how many Priuses are here.” Alice seems to be everywhere in pop culture because I’m focused on it. In the last political cycle, you heard down the rabbit hole countless times. Then after our podcast, I was thinking about Lord of the Rings and how you have the books and the movies and the video games but there are also so many excellent games, the television show, and there are a lot of musicians that have been inspired by Tolkien, like Led Zeppelin, which was my childhood favorite. From your perspective, how much influence is there of The Lord of the Rings in culture today and why does it last? Why do those themes seem to be resonating now more than ever?
CH As far as what we see around us, The Lord of the Rings has become, especially after the movies, the water we swim in but we don’t know we’re wet. So we see stuff and maybe it’s so familiar that we may or may not remark on it. There’s the old trope of the wayfaring traveler stopping by an inn. You have the Ringwraiths, one of Tolkien’s most original contributions to the genre, this idea of the twisted evil that used to be human and now serves the Dark One. This is a super common storytelling device now. I’m trying to think if there are things about it that we use daily like the phrase “down the rabbit hole”. I’m not entirely sure that we have that style of thing with The Lord of the Rings.
FB Is the line, “My precious,” from the book or the movie?
CH It’s from both but when Andy Serkis is saying it, it does something a little different. It gives you that living meme in your head.
FB I think “one ring” too but not to the level of “down the rabbit hole.” “Down the rabbit hole” is the reason Alice in Wonderland is the second most quoted book in the world.
CH You can read those huge lists of words and phrases that we still use from Shakespeare. I don’t think we do that with The Lord of the Rings. Although, everybody knows what a hobbit is. If you were to list magical creatures, you have elves and dwarves and ogres and orcs and hobbits. Tolkien invented hobbits out of whole cloth. I was actually just playing one of The New York Times word games and hobbit was one of the answers. I was like, “No way. Great!” So that’s in the dictionary now. We might have a little thing here and there.
FB But I think the grand quest and the themes of resilience and friendship and good and evil, it feels like so much of that started with The Lord of the Rings.
CH I think you might be right, as far as pop culture goes. But one of the wonderful things about Tolkien is that he never regarded his books and his world as an endpoint. They’re jumping off points. If anybody’s interested in reading a Tolkien short story, it’s about 20 pages long and it will change your life. It’s called “Leaf by Niggle”. Niggle is a reflection of Tolkien himself and it’s a story of meditation on death and life and what happens in the afterlife. The whole idea behind this story was that the painting that Niggle was creating, which mirrored Tolkien’s story, his mythology, comes to life in purgatory, and it’s his job to bring it to life and it becomes a waystation for other souls on their way from life into the afterlife. That’s how I think, at least at that point in his life, he viewed what he was building. When I say that what I mean is, he never wanted you to get lost in Middle-earth. He wanted you to use it to be inspired to go back to the real world and think about things differently. So when a reader comes to The Lord of the Rings with a certain type of mindset and a certain thirst for knowledge, you get out of Middle-earth and go, “Where did that come from?” And if you just scratched the surface a little you’d see that you should read Beowulf, the Icelandic Eddas, the Kalevala from Finland, and German fairy tales. It sends you, if you’ll excuse me, down a rabbit hole. It sends you off on an adventure to all these other things that are part of our world.
My favorite secondary writer on Middle-earth is Tom Shippey. He wrote J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century and The Road to Middle-Earth, these kinds of intellectual treatises on Middle-earth and Tolkien. What I appreciated about that was that he gave endnotes, he gave suggestions on what to read next. He’s somebody who can crystallize ideas. Like, where did this reluctant hero come from? Tolkien didn’t invent that. Where did the idea of courage in our stories come from? He didn’t invent that, he just gave it to us and said, “If you want to learn more about this, I base the Rohirrim on the Anglo-Saxons, the old English, go read Beowulf.”
FB It’s the handing down of stories, which I think is so important. I’m getting a little bit lost with what we have in social media. I was listening to somebody talk about social media and he had a graph that showed every month of your life from 18 to 90 and he showed that if you stay on social media, this is how much time you would have wasted on social media. But then more importantly, he goes back to the difference between social media being a 15-second interaction as opposed to when books were the main form of entertainment, you had to focus and you would sink into a world and go on an adventure. You’d have to absorb so much of the world to get enjoyment from it. I fear that we’ve lost some of that. So hearing what you’re talking about in terms of these books being a waystation is a great way of conceptualizing that experience of finding other stories and other authors.
CH One of the most wonderful and infuriating things about the internet is that it’s simultaneously forever and utterly fleeting. So, when I’m finally done with The Legendarium, I’ll take all of the audio files, put them on a thumb drive, and save them for posterity. Then, in the future, people will look at the thumb drive and go, “How the heck am I supposed to read this?” But I have no such grand ambitions. I do love the idea of helping other people love the books that they love. There’s something about sharing those books with others, whether I’m the one talking into the microphone with my friends in the studio or if you’re the one listening on your headphones, there’s something about experiencing it with other people and hearing other perspectives that can really solidify what you love.
FB There are so many great books. I’ve encountered so many over the years at Comic Cons. You must know this, but they have a great one in Salt Lake City. I used to think it was just for comic books but they love all things to do with pop culture, particularly novels.
I remember when I first started going to cons, I was telling Penguin, my publisher, “I sell more novels at Comic Cons than comic books. You guys should have a booth here. You guys should be promoting your authors at Comic-Con.” And they took my advice.
CH It’s remarkable. When you go down Artist Alley at a Comic Con you see there is often a lot of fan art based on their favorite books and it sells like freakin’ hotcakes.
FB It’s terrific. Tell me about the book you’re covering on your latest podcast.
CH It’s The Acts of Caine series by Matthew Stover. The first book is called Heroes Die. I urge everyone listening to Google Heroes Die and check out the cover. It is, without a doubt, the worst cover I have ever seen in my life. The mid to late-90s was the nadir of fantasy cover art and this one takes the cake. But it is a remarkable book. The Acts of Caine is a four-book series and each one varies in length. He uses a different tone and style in each one. He has different themes that he tries to capture within each book. They’re wildly different, unlike most of the series that we tend to read and love. It’s like listening to an album by Beck. You never know what the next track is gonna bring you. So the book is Heroes Die and the series is called The Acts of Cain. The first episode is out so people can go check that out. I highly, highly recommend it. I’m actually doing this in conjunction with the Inking Out Loud podcast. The host, Drew McCaffrey, and I are going to be swapping back and forth, doing one episode on mine, the next on his, and vice versa.
FB That’s a cool idea. What’s the emphasis of his podcast?
CH He does a similar thing to what we do on The Legendarium. It’s a book club-style podcast. He’s a writer himself as yet unpublished but it’s only a matter of time. He’s very good. So he comes at it from a writerly perspective. Whereas I tend to come at it from, shall we call it, a readerly perspective.
FB Have you thought about writing?
CH It is something that I’ve considered for sure. I have a few ideas bouncing around in my head. But I am not sure if I have the discipline to carry it through. I admire people like you who can even finish a book, let alone get it published and get thousands and millions of people to read it. But it’s something that I’ve thought about a lot over the years because I’ve got this question a lot, “Hey, you talk about books all day. Why don’t you write one?” So maybe I should, at some point. But also, I think while writing is a talent that can be cultivated, so is reading. And right now I am happy to continue cultivating that talent and trying to get better at it.
FB To be able to break down those stories and share them as you do in the podcast is definitely a talent. I remember listening to some of your podcasts before I came on and I thought it was really intimidating. I do not want to get into a deep discussion about some of these books because that is not how I process my creativity. I have to go deep into my world and then hope that these influences show up. But I can’t be thinking about other books or other writers. I have to think, “Is this a nice sentence? Is this a decent paragraph? Does this make for a good end to the chapter?” I was listening to you dissect some of these novels, it was really impressive. I really encourage people to listen to your podcast. It’s tons of fun. Obviously, you’ve done it 450 times so you know what you’re doing and you have a great radio voice as well.
CH I appreciate that. When I got hired at the radio station at 21 or 22, I was told that I would never be on the air and that my voice was terrible.
FB Yes, I love that. Because it speaks to that thing about being rejected and failing and then finding your way and how satisfying it is to overcome that rejection and find something you love.
CH The thing I love about The Legendarium and the reason why I keep doing it, there are a lot of reasons but this is one of the big ones, is it opens doors. It lets me meet people like you. It sends me to this or that convention. It provides opportunities. At the beginning of the show I had been working in a bank for four years and I got to talking to one of my customers. I invited her on the podcast and that’s how I got a job in marketing and how I ended up doing other podcast projects and YouTube channels. If you do what you love, it may not make you rich, but it can open doors and lead you to meet people.
FB I really love that story. It is following your passion and trusting that those doors will open and doing the work. It’s been a real pleasure and thank you for sharing your love of all things Tolkien. I look forward to maybe catching you at a Comic Con in the future.
CH Oh, absolutely. Thank you so much for having me, Frank.
From Wonderland to Reality: The Unearthed Interview of Lewis Carroll & The Red Queen!
Not long after delivering Seeing Redd, book two in my Looking Glass Wars series to my publisher, I received an express package from London. Inside I found a sheaf of fragile, handwritten pages written in pale, lavender ink. The package had been sent by historian Agnes Mackenzie, who was assembling the Princess Alyss of Wonderland scrapbook of art, journal entries and letters. Her brief note informed me that through some of her arcane literary contacts that this lost interview had come to her, and she knew I would want to see them immediately.
In essence, these pages were Lewis Carroll’s attempt to interview Queen Redd during her time in London to write the definitive book of her life and times. I need to share this literary windfall of Lewis Carroll’s grueling, handwritten efforts to please his harshest critic of all.
Lewis Carroll was an acclaimed author when he received a summons from the Queen to visit the grounds of the former Crystal Palace Exhibition in London on a gray February afternoon in 1873. With Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass published Carroll perhaps believed he had written all he had to say about Wonderland. But this was not to be the case, as Carroll was about to have his first meeting with Wonderland’s Imperial Viciousness, Queen Redd, Queen Victoria’s doppelganger.
Exiled and nursing a deeply wounded ego she had read both of Lewis Carroll’s books glorifying her despised niece (“whether you spell it Alyss or Alice she is still a BRAT”) and now demanded that he write a book about her. What this recently uncovered trove of written material reveals is that Lewis Carroll was detained and somehow imprisoned within a looking glass along with a hard chair, a writing desk, a stack of blank pages, a selection of steel dipping pens and several bottles of his favorite lavender ink.
Redd did not trust Lewis Carroll to get her story right (look what lies he wrote about her niece!) and insisted that he write what she dictated with an occasional riddle or rhyme added since she rather enjoyed those and prided herself on knowing the answer to Carroll’s “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” (Because I say so!)
Lewis Carroll:
Note to self — On April 2, 1873
It’s a damp, drafty day in this vast conservatory built of glass. Why must this horrible woman live in such frigid accommodations? Surely a deposed queen can at least afford adequate housing in a proper hotel. Look at her seated on her glass throne nibbling at toffee creams like some monstrous Jabberwock queen. Is this a dream or have I somehow physically encountered the brutal inhabitants of a parallel world? Whichever the case, I am having a good deal of trouble accepting the fact that I am imprisoned INSIDE a looking glass without conceding madness. And yet I am in here and she is out there. Oh dear, she is staring at me with such a malevolent intensity. Is this the end?
Queen Redd:
“Lewis Carroll!!! I am ready to begin! Start scribbling for your life!”
Lewis Carroll:
Note to self — I wait, pen poised, as the woman begins to intone in a languid, cruel voice.
Queen Redd:
I, REDD the true Queen of Wonderland…am not a monster. I have known love. I have felt sadness. I know what it is to feel joy and pain. But at a young age I realized those who embraced and championed the accepted world would label me a monster because I saw life in a more…IMAGINATIVE…way and wished to live on my own terms. I was not born to follow. I was born to be Queen, and this is my story of how I set Wonderland free!
LEWIS CARROLL:
Could you perhaps describe Wonderland to me since you are probably aware that your niece felt I got it all wrong…
Queen Redd:
Now listen and listen close you stuttering little wretch. Wonderland is absolutely NOTHING as you described it. Wonderland is not a child’s vision of silly creatures and hideous heart clad dowagers. Wonderland is obviously beyond your ability to imagine so I must explain it to you in vivid detail. Images are not flat but multi-dimensional. In fact, everything is multi-dimensional including fragrances, tastes, moonlight, and cresting waves. It is a land of unlimited possibility and vision filled with an intoxicating energy that never let’s one rest and say “Ahhh. Good enough.” HAH! Nothing is ever good enough because you constantly envision what could be! And only I possessed the most powerful imagination of all for I could see what no others DARED to see. I went beyond what eons of Queens had imagined and let loose all that had been hidden and suppressed. I freed Wonderland’s dark side, and it was magnificent!
Lewis Carroll:
I believe you mentioned having been in l-l-love. Did I hear correctly?
Queen Redd:
I was in love exactly ONCE. Alyss’ father, King Nolan, had sworn his love to me. But as soon as the throne was given to my sister Genevieve, so was Nolan. He tagged after her like a little spiritdane. After that betrayal, I knew that no one would ever love me for me. It was the throne they loved. And so, I shall rule as I have lived. Alone.
Lewis Carroll:
What was it like to rule Wonderland for 13 years?
Queen Redd:
My rule began with absolute vivid, chaos! I chose to have my coronation ceremony and masquerade ball held in the Valley of Mushrooms. Oh, how it must have rankled those ancient larvae to have their mystical realm invaded by my riotous, destructive celebration! We hacked and burned an infinite number of mushrooms to keep the bonfires going night after night after night! While this was certainly a highpoint, my destruction of the Millinery and the slaughter of the milliners was by far my most relished deed. Getting rid of the milliners was certainly a stroke of genius. Of course, my error was in letting one specific Hatter Madigan escape. My error was in believing the lies of The Cat! But that deserves a chapter of its own, The Cat’s lies, after all, are what have sent me here to this sad, dull world.
Lewis Carroll:
Why did you trust this cat?
Queen Redd:
The Cat was my answer to Royal Bodyguard Hatter Madigan. I imagined a beast that would act as not only my personal bodyguard, but as an assassin. The Cat was the key that opened Heart Palace, carried in by the Princess herself. It arrived as a tiny, mewling kitten held tight to the bodice of her lavish birthday gown only to swell and mutate into a monster of claw and fang! Genius! But my love for my own creation allowed me to believe it’s treacherous, self-serving lies that Alyss had been killed. I loved it so much I gave it 9 lives. And now only one remains. Who shall take my only offspring’s last life?
Lewis Carroll:
Note to self — The monstrous feline she describes lies just inches from my looking glass prison miming sleep while no doubt ready to pounce, shred and snap should I attempt to flee. As terrifying a creature as it is I must acknowledge both my curiosity and shame in the same breath. The Cat is exactly as the poor child described, down to every vicious, coiled claw. How it must have terrified her! As I observe the creature it appears to be as real as myself or anything else conceived in this world. This realization sends my mind spinning by the possibility that all the child’s fantastic tales were indeed true.
Lewis Carroll:
How did you come by your battle cry of “Off with their heads!” Is it true you collect these heads once they are…off?
Queen Redd:
I have been misquoted out of context so many times now that I am feeling rather raw and annoyed. It’s not that I in any way, shape or form COLLECT heads. NO! NO! NO! I have simply found beheading to be a quick method of extermination and identification. While I did revolutionize the technique and the chant is undoubtedly a brilliant Reddism (“Off with their heads!” Simple and succinct.) I, in fact, enjoy many, many ways of dealing with my enemies and have often issued orders such as “Drown them all!” and “Trample them to death!”
Lewis Carroll:
Note to self — She is utterly mad! I fear for my life and suspect that when I write my last line, she will issue yet another of her Reddisms on the order of “Hurl him from the top of Big Ben and smash the scribbler to bits!” But while part of me desires nothing more than to escape, a much larger part must discover how this end. I never could stop in the middle of a good story, especially when I am writing it!
Lewis Carroll:
Why did you break with the Wonderland custom of sending Imagination to other worlds?
Queen Redd:
When I realized how much of Wonderland’s imagination was being given away to this world I was incensed! I had known that the tedious Inventor’s Parades would send trinkets and bad poetry off to somewhere ‘out there’ but had no idea of the magnitude of imagination being lost. When I took control of Wonderland, I issued a decree that I wanted it back! I wanted all the imagination that Wonderland had been blithely spewing through the Heart Crystal since who knows when. Easier decreed than done! Since I have been marooned here in this dull world, I now realize that I can simply think of it as another avenue of resources. All the black imagination that festers here awaits my guidance. The spheres have opened for me, and this world will soon know my rule.
Lewis Carroll:
Note to self — I hold a HORRIFIED GASP deep inside me! What does she mean? I must find out.
Lewis Carroll:
You intend to rule this world as well? But what of our Queen Victoria?
Queen Redd:
Who?
Lewis Carroll:
Our beloved Queen Victoria. She is England’s Queen.
Queen Redd:
She is…for now. One of my great skills of imagination is body snatching. Once I re-establish my rule in Wonderland I intend to, as you say here, return to COLONIZE this little gray world and rule over both realms simultaneously for infinitum. But for now, I think I’ll assume your queen’s body as my own. This book that you are writing will serve as my introduction to the earth’s masses. It’s only honorable to warn them as to whom they will be dealing with. No?
Lewis Carroll:
Note to self – April 7, 1873
I am home once again in my living quarters at Christ Church College. The furnishings, the light, the windows and even the view all appear to be as usual, but I know that nothing will ever again be the same after my “adventure” inside the looking glass. I continued writing and recording and suggesting proper wording as Redd intoned her monstrous memoirs and ambitions. I decided that if I was not already completely mad the sound of her grating voice screeching endless descriptions of mayhem and murder would soon lay waste to what was left of my sanity. But then, quite suddenly, it all ended. I glanced out of my looking glass prison one morning as the light began to fill the exhibition hall and saw that Redd, The Cat and her strange gathering of criminal outcasts had all departed. Nothing remained of their presence but the stack of pages I held in my hand. I gathered all the pages closer to me and held them tight, for these words were all I now possessed of Wonderland.
Lewis Carroll’s disbelief would in the end serve him much better as an author than having to admit that Wonderland was real. The whimsy and the freedom of a world he had imagined now reformed into the terror and reality of a place far beyond a sane man’s limits. Despite Carroll’s determination to turn Redd’s memoirs into a third book in his Wonderland series, he could never overcome the fact that truth is, indeed, stranger than fiction.
At this point, Lewis Carroll alone knew that the girl named Alyss must somehow stop her Aunt Redd from conquering not only Wonderland, but our world as well. The desire to help Alyss and make amends for his literary betrayal haunted him like an unanswerable riddle.
Why Stories Last? The Cultural Impact of Storytelling
Recently I was a guest on the podcast Legendarium with Craig Hanks—and he prompted the question “Why do stories last?” We had a wonderful conversation, which inspired this blog. Check out my conversation with Craig!
Stories endure because they are the timeless bridges connecting us across generations, cultures, and experiences. Great stories resonate because they echo the universal truths and emotions that bind humanity together. Through tales, we navigate shared dreams, fears, and aspirations, creating a collective tapestry of understanding and connection.
These recurring themes act as a shared touchstone, reinforcing values, beliefs, and societal norms that shape culture. By revisiting these motifs, communities strengthen their collective identity and perpetuate the core principles that unite us. Understood completely or not, becomes folklore…creating a suspended debrief; a new reality for a new generation…borrowing from the past and making them their own…a form of branded history.
It’s based upon the uniquely human capacity to classify experiences, symbolically and then to share them…the process through which an older generation induces and compels a younger generation. Cultural myth holds a paramount place in storytelling because it embodies a society’s deepest values, hopes, and understanding of the world and its origins.
These myths offer a lens through which communities interpret their past, navigate their present, and envision their future; they provide a shared framework that binds individuals together, allowing them to derive meaning, purpose, and a sense of belonging.
By incorporating these myths into stories, authors tap into universal truths and emotions, creating narratives that resonate deeply with readers, even transcending the original cultural context to appeal to broader audiences. Furthermore, these myths often serve as archetypes, forming the backbone for countless narratives and ensuring the continuity of cultural wisdom and tradition across generations.
The importance of realism amid such heightened realities in worlds of fantasy, (J.R.R. Tolkien most famously) makes characters, specifically heroes and their powers, when stripped away, real to an audience that wants to believe that these people really do exist. This transformation is a blurring of ‘reality’ fantasy.
“Lord of the Rings,” endures thanks to being a timeless exploration of universal themes: the battle between good and evil, the corrupting nature of power, the value of friendship and sacrifice. Hanging its hat on the enduring hope that even in the darkest times, light can prevail.
Tolkien’s richly constructed Middle-earth, lovingly crafted over a lifetime with its own histories, languages, and cultures, provides an immersive escape for readers, yet simultaneously holds a mirror to our own world. It is a reflection of both the beauty and its flaws of our true reality. The characters’ struggles with duty and destiny are deeply relatable, reminding readers of the strength and resilience of the human (and hobbit) spirit.
As modern society grapples with complex issues like environmental degradation and the erosion of community, Tolkien’s emphasis on the sanctity of nature and the importance of unity and fellowship becomes even more affecting. The saga, in essence, is a testament to the idea that even the smallest individual can make a profound difference– a message just as valuable today as the day it was penned. It shall remain relevant in any era to come.
“Alice in Wonderland,” still resonates because it delves into the fluidity of reality, identity, and logic, themes that are ever-relevant in our constantly evolving world. Carroll’s whimsical narrative allows readers to question and challenge the conventions and norms of society, echoing the universal journey of self-discovery and the quest for understanding in an often perplexing world.
Alice’s adventures, filled with bizarre characters and absurd scenarios, mirror the unpredictable and sometimes chaotic nature of life, emphasizing the importance of adaptability, curiosity, and resilience. The story’s trancelike quality and its celebration of imagination serve as a reminder that there is magic in the mundane and that questioning the “conventional” can lead to weighty insights.
In an era where individuality, self-expression, and challenging the status quo are more celebrated than ever, “Alice in Wonderland” stands as a poignant investigation of the boundaries of reality and the infinite realms of human imagination that has been playing out for generations.
Alice still matters today. Alice in Wonderland is primarily set in an upside-down world where chaos and randomness rule and nothing makes sense to the practical, stoic little girls who found herself marooned there. The world she encounters is threatening and unfamiliar, yet she navigates it, she challenges it, she triumphs and eventually, she returns home.
Alice has been read by multiple generations, so it captures a large part of our shared imaginative history. People who are adept at plumbing the zeitgeist are using our shared imaginative history of the Alice story, iconography to simultaneously reflect the chaotic world we live in (fear) and marry it to the comfort and reassurance of a childhood fairytale (escape and hope).
What Alice means to me and maybe others…Alice’s journey down the rabbit hole represents escape; escape into fantasy because reality can sometimes be a prison. Alice has endured and thrived through the decades for one reason, yes, its classic literature, but it is powered by pure and fierce imagination that has bound Alice into the psyche of generations.
Imagination is the root of all creation, nothing that has ever been or will ever exist without first being imagined. Albert Einstein said, “Imagination is more powerful than knowledge.”Also, Alice is a traveler, bombarded with oddities and weirdness at every turn, but she never loses her head. (Pardon the pun)
We relate to her journey; we can channel her when the world around us begins to collapse into chaos. For too many people, today’s world is upside down, chaotic, and random. We hope to be as stoic and courageous as she is exploring Wonderland.
“The Wizard of Oz” continues to resonate today because it encapsulates the timeless themes of self-discovery, the longing for home, and the realization that we often possess the strength and qualities we seek externally, within ourselves. Dorothy’s journey from the gray plains of Kansas to the technicolor world of Oz parallels the universal quest for adventure and understanding, only to recognize the inherent value and comfort of home and familiar surroundings.
The diverse cast of characters she encounters—each with their own insecurities and desires—mirror our own vulnerabilities and yearnings, emphasizing the human need for companionship, courage, love, and intellect. The story’s central message, that we often have the power within us to overcome our challenges and that the things we desire most are sometimes right where we started, remains a powerful reminder of self-worth and resilience.
In an age of endless quests for external validation and fulfillment, “The Wizard of Oz” serves as a poignant reminder that sometimes, the answers we seek are already within us.
“The Chronicles of Narnia” is relatable today as it melds profound spiritual allegories with universal themes of courage, friendship, sacrifice, and the eternal conflict between good and evil. C.S. Lewis created an immersive world where ordinary children are thrust into roles of significance, emphasizing the idea that anyone, regardless of age or background, can rise to greatness when faced with challenges.
Not only might you be “the one” – but you could be the one regardless of pre-destiny. The adventures in Narnia evoke a sense of awe, tapping into the age-old human desire to explore and belong to a world greater than our own, where the boundaries between reality and fantasy smudge. Furthermore, the struggles of the Pevensie siblings and their companions, set against the backdrop of Narnian prophecies and battles, mirror our own familiar internal and societal battles, underscoring the importance of faith, redemption, and the resilience of the human spirit. In a world where complexities continue to grow and moral compasses are continually tested, Narnia remains a beacon, reminding readers of all ages of the enduring power of hope, love, and the potential for magic in everyday life.
“Star Wars,” also lasts because it masterfully interweaves timeless themes of good versus evil, the hero’s journey, and the internal struggles of identity and destiny, set against the vast backdrop of a galaxy brimming with lore and wonder.
George Lucas’s vision tapped into foundational human stories, borrowing elements from ancient myths, religious narratives, and classic tales of adventure, thus grounding the space opera in a tapestry of universally recognizable motifs. The saga’s exploration of the Force—a metaphysical energy binding all living things—echoes our age-old fascination with the balance of light and dark, choice and fate, and the larger questions of purpose and interconnectedness.
Moreover, the diverse cast of characters, from farm boy Luke Skywalker to Princess Leia, and rogue Han Solo to the conflicted Darth Vader, showcases a range of human experiences, dilemmas, and aspirations, allowing viewers from varied backgrounds to find personal resonance.
In a world that often feels fragmented, “Star Wars” celebrates unity, resistance against tyranny, the power of hope, and the belief that anyone, from any corner of the galaxy, can rise to make a monumental difference.
