Alice in Wonderland

I’ve just recently finished listening to Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass and Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and followed those up by watching Tim Burton’s recent film, Alice in Wonderland.

I went to Meredith College for undergrad, and as part of a long-standing tradition, once every four years, faculty and staff members put on the Alice in Wonderland production for students. That was one of my favorite things from college. As I listened to the stories on my iPod recently, I could remember exactly which professor played which part in the 2000 production, so that made my reread even more fun.

I’ve always loved both of the stories, mostly because of the memorable lines that are complete nonsense.

Some of my favorites:

Alice in Wonderland

Alice: "Curiouser and curiouser!"
The Cat: "We're all mad here."
The Queen: "Off with her head!"
The Queen: "Sentence first -- verdict afterwards."
Alice: "You're nothing but a pack of cards!"

My very favorite, though, is from Through the Looking Glass:

Alice laughed, "There's no use trying," she said, "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

I have to confess that though I enjoyed the movie version, I didn’t much “get” it. I was about three quarters of the way through before I realized why Alice was about 20 years old. Because the whole movie was like a sequel to the real Alice in Wonderland story. Wonder why they didn’t call the movie something else?