The Mystery of Lewis Carroll: Discovering the Whimsical, Thoughtful, and Sometimes Lonely Man Who Created "Alice in Wonderland"
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Lenny's description:
Throughout the years, several biographies about Charles Dodgson (a.k.a. Lewis Carroll) have appeared. According to Jenny Woolf, each new biography was more and more about fiction instead of facts, and contained lots of speculation about his supposed pedophilia and drug use. Woolf tells us she tried to keep an open mind and stick to the facts, in order to describe the man he truly was.
Woolf not only turned to sources like Dodgson’s diaries, but she also discovered Dodgson’s bank account – a source that remained untouched by his family members, and she uses his sources of income and his expenses to shed more light into the matters Dodgson found important (or did not care about at all).
It is interesting to read lesser known facts, like Dodgson writing more about Harry (Alice’s brother) in his diaries than he did about Alice herself, that his friendship with the Liddell’s actually started through Harry, and that Dodgson did not only have child friends, but many female adult friends as well.
Woolf refutes the descriptions of Dodgson as a recluse, weirdo, or druggie, by pointing out that there is no evidence for it at all (on the contrary), but on the other hand she does not try to mask that Dodgson, in later life, did become quite a fussy and eccentric man, and that there was in fact some gossip going around about his friendships with women while he was alive.
Besides the facts, Woolf does make several assumptions herself and comes up with her own theories. Her most interesting theory is, that Charles Dodgson spent so much time with little girls because he wanted to reclaim his own innocence. He was not sexually interested in them at all - on the contrary: in the Victorian age, children were considered to be sexless and represented innocence. Dodgson was a very religious man and was very afraid of doing anything sinful. Jenny claims that Dodgson used little girls as an ‘antidote to sin’, this sin being a probable love affair with a married woman.
She also states that Dodgson may have photographed girls in the nude, instead of adult women, because he loved to study the human body, but did not want to risk being sexually aroused by it.
So although Woolf does not just state the bare facts about Dodgson, but also tries to interpret them, and we cannot be sure that her interpretations are actually correct, she does it in a most convincing and plausible way. Her biography is pleasant and easy to read and I can recommend it to anyone who wants to know more about the man who wrote ‘Alice in Wonderland’.
Seller's description:
A new biography of Lewis Carroll, just in time for the release of Tim Burton’s all-star Alice in Wonderland Lewis Carroll was brilliant, secretive and self contradictory. He reveled in double meanings and puzzles, in his fiction and his life. Jenny Woolf’s The Mystery of Lewis Carroll shines a new light on the creator of Alice In Wonderland and brings to life this fascinating, but sometimes exasperating human being whom some have tried to hide. Using rarely-seen and recently discovered sources, such as Carroll’s accounts ledger and unpublished correspondence with the “real” Alice’s family, Woolf sets Lewis Carroll firmly in the context of the English Victorian age and answers many intriguing questions about the man who wrote the Alice books, such as: • Was it Alice or her older sister that caused him to break with the Liddell family? • How true is the gossip about pedophilia and certain adult women that followed him? • How true is the “romantic secret” which many think ruined Carroll’s personal life? • Who caused Carroll major financial trouble and why did Carroll successfully conceal that person’s identity and actions? Woolf answers these and other questions to bring readers yet another look at one of the most elusive English writers the world has known.
Product details:
Seller name: Book Warehouse Online (Shipping rates and seller details)
Item number (ASIN): 0312612982
Author: Jenny Woolf
Edition: 1
ISBN: 0312612982
Item Dimensions: 2.31 x 1.56 (centimeters)
Languages: English x English x English
Manufacturer: St. Martin's Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 336
Package Dimensions: 130 x 600 x 950 (hundredths-inches)
Publication Date: February 2, 2010
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Release Date: February 2, 2010
Binding: Hardcover
Add your own review!
No simple answers
I just finished reading this book and it is wonderful. It was clearly very carefully researched, and does not paint Carroll as a saint or a sinner, but as a complex man, that was as difficult to fully understand in his time as he is ours, but only for different reasons.
One of the things I appreciated most, was how well things were put in context. Lewis Carroll was a man in Victorian England, each of those parts are looked at how they contibuted to who he was. To ofen he is judged by twenty first century standards which is niether fair nor reasonable. I'm not sure I said that well, but Jenny Woolf does.
If you are interested in the man behind story, read this book.
- by White Night on February 25, 2010
~Stand forth, then, from the shadowy past.~
When trying to understand a complex, multi-faceted and talented person it is not surprising to see a “tangle-tale” whirling in all directions. It’s somewhat amusing to see all the angles and ideas created from only a change of mind-state or simply a skip of generations. All the so called mysteries conceived by a swift of percpective or just by accidental loving-caring recollection of events certainly can transform a man’s life… C.L. Dodgson was no exception.
This new, insightful and refreshing biography gives us a different view and fair context to visualize an interesting person that sometimes raised brows right from the begining all the way on to our modern standards. This goes specifically around 1930’s when all the misladen information arrange in a manner that, instead of helping, lead us to a pit-stop of confussion… giving itself more space to connotations and aiding our modern approach wich sometimes collides unrighteously.
It’s about time for someone to use the most updated information and un-published recollections to make an accurate description the best as possible. To make sense and re-direct us for the true aspects of Dodgson’s charcter and life even though it may not suit everyone… but that is what a true biography is all about. Of course we don’t have to agree with every theory and statement but undoubtedly will encourage us to view things the right and proper way.
Mrs. Woolf cleared away most of the pieces unjustly sticked together. With much optimism and thorough research the author tackles the positive-negative spectrum of his life telling us that he was always seeking goodness but not always suited him… as often happens with our own life. So now at last C.L. Dodgson will stand forth!
- by NeVaR aSk on February 26, 2010
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