“Well, now that we have seen each other,” said the Unicorn, “If you’ll believe in me, I’ll believe in you. Is that a bargain?” (Lewis Carroll, Alice Through the Looking-Glass)
We watched the classic 1951 Disney version of Alice in Wonderland the other day. It was a bit disappointing, to be honest, and so (as often happens) it sent me back again to the books. And the main thing I noticed was how gratuitously rude all the creatures are, especially to Alice. It’s utterly delightful. Among the choicest insults are: “You don’t know much, and that’s a fact” (the Duchess); “Really, you are very dull” (the Mock Turtle); “I never saw anybody that looked stupider” (the Violet); “It’s my opinion that you never think at all” (the Rose); and, the best of all, “You’re so exactly like other people” (Humpty Dumpty – ouch).
Retro Snowdrops
Of course, plenty of other children’s books feature rude characters. Gandalf is splendidly tetchy (“Fool of a Took!”) in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, leading to this eulogy from Faramir: “Many are my names in many countries, he said. Mithrandir among the Elves, Tharkûn to the Dwarves; Olórin I was in my youth in the West that is forgotten, and in the South, Mister Grumpy-pants…”
St Fergus’ Church
Of course, the main thing about the Alice books is the sheer strangeness of it all, and the dream logic that obtains throughout (you can’t answer a door unless it says something first, for example). It’s an endlessly quotable book, even occasionally drifting into eastern mysticism and the illusion of the self: “I can’t go back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.” Anyway, I’ll leave you with my favourite passage of all. Alice is talking with the Cheshire Cat, who’s telling her about the Mad Hatter and the equally mad March Hare:
“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.
“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”
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TECHNICAL STUFF
I’m taking my time with the sleeves, now that the hard yards of the yoke are behind me. The Caithness style was to have a run of plain knitting at the top of the sleeve, followed by a moss stitchy-type band, and then it’s plain knitting again down to the cuff (which was usually a little fancier than just knit 2/ purl 2). The sleeves will only be 16 inches from the top of the shoulder to the bottom of the cuff, I.e., not very long, so I’m decreasing by two stitches every fourth and fifth rows alternately.
My preferred version of Alice in Wonderland was produced for television, in two very long parts. It was full of movie stars, each of whom got to do a show off piece, but I taped it on VHS and then made a copy without those parts. The rest of it was straight out of the book! I watched it with the book open to check. The producer had even designed it so that each bit was separated by Alice alone in the woods, so the editing could be seamless.
Next best for being unmeddled with was a British production, in the late 80s or 90s.
The sheep knitting with extra needles puzzled me for years until I learned to use multiple dpns.