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.
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