Curiouser and Curiouser

A friend of mine recently, when confronted with yet another conversation beginning with 'Hey, what if we did a version of Alice where...', responded by wailing 'Why can't anyone just do a traditional version?!' (He's on a personal mission to prove that Lewis Carroll wasn't out of his mind on drugs, or trying to rail against modern mathematics (thanks New Scientist for that particular theory), but merely writing a clever, absurb story with memorable characters and witty wordplay).

Which got me thinking. I've never seen so many versions of anything as I have of 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.' What is it about that book? A law lecturer (back in my wayward days of studying something useful...ha) once told me that Alice was the most-quoted book in the world (excluding, apparently, the Bible and Shakespeare), and that writers of law textbooks had a bizarre obsession with starting paragraphs with wrenched sentences akin to: 'Like Alice, the new law student can feel baffled by the hurrying rabbits, the smiling Cheshire Cats and the shrieking queens of the Wonderland that is contract law'.

I personally have been involved in a theatre production called 'Alice: Nightmares in Wonderland', whereby Alice fell into a criminal underworld, where the Cheshire Cat was a sultry hooker, Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee became a corrupt politician with multiple-personality disorder, the Caterpillar a pot-smoking hippie, and all the references to cakes, flamingos and bottles became drug references. (I was Alice. Back in my young, innocent, law-studying days).

A brief wander through the internet reveals version after version:



An 'Alice in Waterland' series from DA user Sugarock99 (view more at her gallery here).



Annie Leibovitz's designer Alice series.



Harmony Nicholas' 'Jabberwocky' series (see more here)



DA user Auriethepixie's fashion-inspired shoot (Original link here).



Charles Blackman's version.



American McGee's Alice (the computer game - Alice is in a mental hospital, has to defeat the evil queen to save her sanity).



And this amazing series, which I can't find on the net any more, to my great irritation - it's this amazing futuristic, steampunk version of Alice. The Cheshire Cat is a huge industrial blimp, with a red LED readout saying HELLO ALICE. Amazing.

So what is it about Alice that makes it such a popular choice for interpretations? I think the answer is complex.

Firstly, humans seem to be especially attracted to reasonably linear, journey-format stories which parallel our own lives - where a character finds themselves somewhere new and strange (birth), is confronted with a series of challenging situations, meets a host of characters, some of whom are determined to aid them, some determined to cause their downfall, and eventually leave, a little older, a little wiser (death).

Secondly, humans like to Find Meaning In Things. The eons-old 'What does it all mean?' question leads us to search for God, for love, for tradition, and ritual, and all those other things which allow us to feel like we're doing something positive and goal-oriented in the maelstrom of our existence. Alice, because it is quite surreal, lends itself ideally to the Search for Meaning, precisely because, on its face, it seems to have so little. It's the ultimate dream made text. One could readily say 'Well, really, what on earth is this? A girl falls down a hole, has an extended trip, talks to animals and then wakes up again. What the hell is that about?' To which the reply might be: 'Well, if you consider the Rabbit as a metaphor for the marching on of time, and the human desperation to use it efficiently, and for the Industrial Revolution and how machinery has enslaved us...' - it's really no wonder Alice is so popular - because its events and characters are so surreal and absurd, it's practically got a big glowing sign over it saying 'Analyse me! Make me meaning! Find some deeper truth in my words!'

Thirdly, because it is SO well known, it practically presents a blank slate for artists to tell us a new story. Because we know all the characters and plot so well, the potential for surprise is extreme. Wonder is easier to evoke when you are subverting expectations, and because Alice is so laden with these, they are easier to manipulate. It's like a child at a parade, waiting for Santa to come by on the float - we get ready to point and say 'There it is! There is the March Hare!'. So when we see a version of Alice set in a new place, we get our pointing fingers out, reading to find the characters we know and love hiding in other disguises. The moment when we discover that the White Rabbit is masquerading as a speed-addled junkie in white lycra, who can't sit down because she's too jittery (another element from the show I did), we experience an 'aha!' moment of revelation - we have caught the character despite their disguise, and we feel as though we have solved a little puzzle.

Perhaps I'm over-analysing. Either way, Alice, it seems, is here to stay (forgive the awful rhyme).

Now, I'm off to consider in my own mind whether the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble of getting up and picking the daisies.

S