7 Ages of Alice: Exploring A Multi-Layered Book

“Sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

We are all a collection of learning stories, Rosa wrote, and the words, phrases and language of “Alice” are woven into mine. 

So when I was prompted by Angela to reflect on quotable authors and how their words help me live my best life, then by Dean to remember the books I read as a child and the lessons they taught me… well I knew I had to write about Alice.

Because this is a book that’s come with me through every stage of my life.  Here are the 7 ages that she’s seen me through so far.

I remember hearing and reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as a small child, being enchanted by the stories and captivated by Tenniel’s cartoons.  Picking out another layer of meaning as a teenager, recognising the heroine’s feelings of puzzlement as her body shifts and changes and she tries to answer that age old question:

“Who in the world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle.”

Alice came back to me when I was a student of philosophy.  Most of the books we read were as dry as dust, but a more enterprising lecturer teased our minds with Carroll’s reflections on theories of language.  Here's a sentence I’m still grappling with today:-)

"'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.'"

I returned to Alice when I started out as a blogger.  I often found myself thinking of her surprise when she landed  with a bump at the bottom of the rabbit hole, wondering how on earth she got there (ever felt like that when you’ve arrived somewhere new?) but determined to explore, to investigate, to learn something from her adventure.

It was Alice who inspired the invitation on my (now archived) life coaching site:

"Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?"

Leading to lots of fascinating conversations about the metaphor of the invitation, what it means to dance, and what happens when we hear the music…

There are lots of writing lessons in Alice that I want to go back in and explore.  Some are delightfully back to front - "Speak in French when you can't think of English for a thing" - (are those the ones that make the strongest impression?) and some perfectly to the point.

"'Begin at the beginning,' the King said, very gravely, 'and go on till  you come to the end: then stop.'"

But  the book models as well as teaches a fantastic writing style: the simplest of sentence structures, vivid stories, plain language that anyone can grasp.  The plain language is of course mixed in with nonsense and that (I think) is what helps to create the multi-layered meaning, stories and messages that work on different levels – affecting different people in different ways, and the same person at different times of their life. 

It’s open enough to allow us to find the lesson we need to draw at any given time.

The book was something of a life saver to me when I was going through the hardest of times in my previous employment – burning out, trying to make sense of the frantic (purposeless) activity around about me, heart sick of the management rhetoric telling us what we “should” do, language that bore no relation to the reality of life within that particular part of wonderland.

What helped me through was the realisation – through Alice – that I’d been taking other people’s words, their language – at face value, rather than observing the detail of their actions.  A switch to focusing on what they did rather than what they said that helped me to see the comedy in the games played without purpose, the riddles we could never be expected to solve, the frantic breathless activity which ended, like the Caucus-race, when someone arbitrarily decided that the race was over.

It helped me to realise, and accept, the kind of world that I was in.

"'But I don't want to go among mad people,' said Alice.  'Oh, you can't help that,' said the cat.  'We're all mad here.''"

It helped me to see what was going on as some kind of mad game with no rules.  It made it seem less serious, more farcical – and gave me back a sense of power.

"'Who cares for you?’ said Alice (she had grown to her full size by this time). ‘You’re nothing but a pack of cards!'"

And of course she does stand up and throw off the cards in the end – and so did I…

Several years later I went on a course on NLP and storytelling.  Printed in the back of a manual was a multi-layered story.  I read the words with a jolt of recognition and astonishment, a wave of tears and a powerful expression of gratitude that I had now slain my particular monster.

It was Jabberwocky, a perfect example of nonsense, meaning both nothing and everything at the same time:

"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."

I want to learn more about how this works.  The role of nonsense in expressing and guiding us through times of change, through dark times when meaning gets lost, through times when we regain our power. 

It’s a learning  challenge I need to save for another day (when I have a little more time) but I know with total confidence that Alice will stay close by on my bookshelf, and that I will return to wonderland at future stages in my life, when I need to gather different meaning, and learn new lessons.

How about you?  Are there books like Alice that have different levels of meaning for you?  That have taught you different lessons at different stages of your life?

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This article is a contribution to our February theme at Joyful Jubilant Learning:  What do we learn from books?

The author Joanna Young is a writing coach who lives and works in Edinburgh.

You can read more of her work at the Confident Writing blog. This month she's focusing there on taking leaps and bounds with our writing - join her there if you're ready for a slide into wonderland!

Photo credit: Estherase

Comments

[Deb Estep]

Hi Joanna,

I love how you've related Alice, all
through your life with us.

Although no one book from my childhood
stands out so vivid for me, but the time spent
by my Mother reading to my brother's and I, is
a warm cozy memory.

xo xo
Deb

[Joanna Young]

Hi Deb, how nice to catch up with you again :-)

Memories of those childhood stories are very powerful aren't they - I think we learn all the principles of storytelling in childhood... shame we have to relearn them when we get bigger!

Joanna

[Angela Maiers]

Joanna,
What a great post! Books are like onions with layers and layers of meaning. One of my favorite quotes from Alice is conversation between her and the Queen:

I can't remember things before they happen."
"It's a poor sort of memory that only works backwards," the Queen remarked.

Books are great memory triggers, but also wonderful ways to envision possibilities that come with new insights and explorations. Either way frontwards or backwards...books are golden!

[Joanna Young]

Angela, that's another great quote. The Queen has some fabulous lines doesn't she?

And talking of great lines, I love this one of yours

"Books are great memory triggers, but also wonderful ways to envision possibilities that come with new insights and explorations"

Maybe Rosa will be able to work it into one of her wondrous posts about some of the ideas we've been sharing here :-)

Joanna

[Steve Sherlock]

Alice did bring some wonderous reading time. I am inspired now to delve back into it soon. Unfortunately there are a few things already in the queue.

Books with multiple layers of meaning. I could go on and on about the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I really did grow up with it, reading it when it came to the US in the late sixties, and then yearly for quite a while.

More recently, the Philip Pullman trilogy "His Dark Materials" of which the first book, The Golden Compass was just in the movie theaters. There is much good in that series, not the least of which the main character is a female. As a father of two young ladies, this was important. They got enough of the Disney princesses, I wanted to get them something else.

[Joanna Young]

Hi Steve

I know what it's like to have a long reading list! I suppose that's one of the reasons I like books that you can dip back into again and again, your unconscious mind already knows that there's 'something' in the book that you want to re-read or learn afresh.

Have to confess I never read lord of the rings - seemed to be more of a boy thing when I was a youngster, and the length of the books put me off. Nor have I read the Pullman series, though my son did as an independent reader.

Oh, how nice it is to sit here and chat with you guys about books!

Joanna

[dave]

Hey Joanna - funny how Deb remembers our Mom's reading and I have no memory whatsoever, as I explained in Angela's post.

I really get your experience here. Though not as articulate, I have a connection to the Wizard of Oz.

Here is my most powerful memory of Alice and it has to do with learning...

When men on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go
And you've just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is moving low
Go ask Alice
I think she'll know

When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen's "off with her head!"
Remember what the door knob said:
"FEED YOUR HEAD"

[Joanna Young]

Dave, that's interesting isn't it, same experience, different feelings, associations and memories.

I like your verse extracts - though it sounds like a fairly psychedelic version of Alice!

Joanna

[Karen Wallace]

Bravo Joanna! Once again, you've made me think, you've turned on my writing juices and upped the ante with your words.

I do not remember reading Alice in Wonderland as a child. I now feel I missed something very important and will hasten to find a copy!

This discussion, with Steve bringing up Lord of the Rings and His Dark Materials (both I HAVE read, often), makes me curious. Do the books we read as a child and teen have a lasting effect on us as adults? Does not reading Alice mean I don't have the nonsense factor? (Although my absolute adoration of anything Dr Seuss may compensate)...

Does the learning we inhaled as we devoured books as youngsters have a discernable affect on the adult we become? (And I am making an assumption that most of the readers and contributors here at JJL were bookworms as kids?)

Oh the questions!!!

[Joanna Young]

Karen, you'll love Alice. She asks a lot of questions!

I don't know the answer on the influence of our childhood reading, but I would guess there must be some. But if you've read as a child then you've read some nonsense for sure... and if you're a human being then you've got some nonsense inside you!

I'd love to hear how you get on with Alice - it's an easy and, I think, captivating read.

Joanna

[dave]

It is Joanna. It is a verse from Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit :-)