Author! Author!: Shaping the Shapers

In Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, there is an element to life called Narrativium, a force that seeks to shape certain destinies along a pre-formed path. The third son must succeed in his endeavors; the despised but virtuous girl must marry happily ever after. That is the way the stories must go, and there are some people who use their knowledge of this for their own advantage. It is specifically stated that that is not the way things work here in the Roundworld, but I'm not so sure about that.

Narrativium -- especially in the lives of artists -- keeps trying to force the shapes of our lives into stories, and influences our interpretations of the lives of others. Occam's razor -- or an underlying cynicism about life -- always makes us take the main chance as far as famous writers go. Lewis Carroll must have been a pedophile and not simply a lonely man who made friends with little girls; Robert E. Howard must have been a momma's boy, and weak. In the case of Lewis Carroll, the evidence has been minutely sifted for one hundred and fifty years, and remains ambiguous at best. In the case of Howard, perhaps he always had a suicidal tendency that he refrained from acting on out of consideration for his mother. It need not necessarily been brought on by an Oedipal despair, though that is the narrative that many, even at the time, settled on. His philosophy -- the uncompromising, Nietzschean battle with life -- may have had as much to do with his suicide, but many would rather not consider this, as it is uncomfortably close to their own view of life. "It's a good philosophy, if you don't weaken, but he was weak, so the flaw was in him, not the philosophy."

Narrativium forces Bill Cosby into the role of America's Dad, and we are shocked when we discover how far he is from that role. Narrativium forces artists into a dance between their public image and their private selves, for the image becomes part of the narrative of the books, as if the artist's character is now an ingredient of the book's story itself. Even popular writers like J. K. Rowling or Neil Gaiman have occasionally offered unpopular statements that they have had to retract or explain away with cunning re-interpretations of their own words.

How far is an artist's self part of the work they present? How much is what he offers gold, and how much dross? All artists try to give us the gold of their character or wisdom and leave out the dross from their work; can it be judged by the junk in their lives, and entirely rejected because of what we see as personal flaws that are not even represented in the work? And how do we -- can we-- judge when a work is worth saving for the gold, and not rejected for the alloy of dross that has snuck in?

Author! Author!: Lewis Carroll

There have been quite a number of biopics of authors of fantasy over the years, some more realistic, some more romantic, and some frankly down-right fantastical. Over a few weeks I intend to review a few of them.

Dreamchild (1985), purports to tell the story of the widowed Alice Hargreaves, the erstwhile little girl on whom was based Alice in Wonderland; she is traveling to the United States on an invitation to celebrate the one hundredth birthday of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) at Columbia University. She is accompanied by the (fictional) orphan girl Lucy, who is wooed by a down-on-his-luck journalist in an effort to gain access to and exploit the elderly Alice. As Mrs. Hargreaves travels down the rabbit-hole of 1930's America, she has dreams about encountering the characters from the stories, and has childhood recollections about her friendship with the eccentric Oxford don. Although having conflicting memories of affection and ridicule, eventually she comes to a clearer understanding and reconciliation with her past and the loving friendship of the lonely Lewis Carroll.

Coral Brown plays Alice Hargreaves, Amelia Shankley the young Alice, and Ian Holm is Lewis Carroll. Jim Henson's Creature Shop provides the Mad Hatter, March Hare, and other characters from the book. Peter Gallagher and Nicola Cowper play the journalist and the orphan companion in the tacked-on "romantic" subplot. The main interest of the movie is, however, neither that nor the hallucinatory episodes of fantasy creatures, but the memories of Alice as a little girl, and her complicated (and controversial) relationship with the man who immortalized and idealized an aspect of her character in a classic work of children's literature.

Jabberwocky, by Lewis Carroll

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Won't You Join The Dance?": Alice At 150

One hundred and fifty years ago today, Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) first told the story of Wonderland to Alice Liddell and her sisters.

Long Has Paled That Sunny Sky

A boat, beneath a sunny sky

Lingering onward dreamily

In an evening of July--

Children three that nestle near,

Eager eye and willing ear,

Pleased a simple tale to hear--

Long has paled that sunny sky:

Echoes fade and memories die:

Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,

Alice moving under skies

Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,

Eager eye and willing ear,

Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,

Dreaming as the days go by,

Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream--

Lingering in the golden dream--

Life, what is it but a dream!

--Lewis Carroll, 1832-1898

On July 4, 1862--a date, as W. H. Auden declared, is "as memorable a day in the history of literature as it is in American history"--Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (better known by his pen name of Lewis Carroll) and his friend the Reverend Robinson Duckworth took the three Liddell sisters (daughters of a University friend) on a three-mile rowing trip up the Thames. The middle daughter, Alice Pleasance Liddell, who was ten, along with her sisters demanded a fairy tale to fill in the duller stretches of the journey. Dodgson begin spinning the story of Wonderland, using Alice herself as the main character. The facility and felicity with which he told the tale made Duckworth ask him if he really was making it up extempore. Some months later (again at Alice's insistence) he wrote the tale down, adding his own illustrations, and some time later published Alice's Adventures In Wonderland. This was followed by the sequel Through The Looking Glass and What Alice Found There. At the end of that book, this haunting acrostic poem appears, the first letter in each line spelling out the full name of Alice Pleasance Liddell. The above photograph of the real Alice was taken by Dodgson himself; as you can see she had straight dark hair, not the wavy golden curls that the illustrator John Tenniel gave the literary Alice.