Synopsis
The Victorian era treated Lewis Carroll as a saint; our own sees a dark side to his relationship with Alice Liddell, even as it gobbles up sanitized versions of the Alice character in cartoons and tourist attractions. Brooker (communications, Richmond, the American International U., London), who previously has written about Batman and "Star Wars" as cultural icons, traces two specific contemporary discourses about Carroll and his books. One evolved in Carroll's lifetime and sees his works as joyous nonsense. The other, which has its origins in the 1930s, views the author as a pedophile and his stories as disturbing allegories about his obsession. Brooker's study includes a few choice b&w images. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
The Washington Post
Alice's Adventures makes a good companion to Robert Phillips's classic anthology Aspects of Alice, which covers the essentials of Wonderland scholarship between the 1860s and 1960s. It also complements Martin Gardner's celebrated Annotated Alice, recently published in a "Definitive Edition." But the world of Alice is truly resistant to any reductionism: These are texts so rich that they can support every sort of critical investigation (or pseudo-critical indignity) and yet still remain ever fresh. — Michael Dirda