Miscellaneous Alice > The Hunting of the Snark: 3rd part of an Alice trilogy?

[Treacle]

There is an undercurrent of people who act as though they consider The Hunting of the Snark to be the third Alice book, that Snark is the Alice world without Alice.
The inspiration for starting Snark, it could be argued, puts it more in the Alice group than in the Sylvie and Bruno group or than in the Phantasmagoria group of poetry.

[Fane]

Despite the fact that The Hunting of the Snark was "Inscribed to a dear Child", Gertrude Chataway, I personnaly would not see it as a third part to the Alice stories, if that was the case, Carroll would have probably set Alice as the main character. Furthermore, I find that the atmosphere in The Hunting of the Snark isn't exactly the same as in the Alice books.
I fact, I find there is something different in each of Carroll's pieces, although they are linked togther with the same sort of writing style, that is Carroll's "nonsense" style of writing.

[The Queen of Hearts]

In the annotated Alice, Gardener (can't remember if that's his name or not and I'm to lazy to leave my chair) mentions it's conection with the poem Jabberwocky. If you look through it you can find certain things also mentioned in Jabberwocky making it seem as though Carroll wrote The Hunting of the Snark with an intentional conection to Jabberwocky. He even mentions it possibly taking place on th esame island. To me that seems to be the only conection to the Alice books, so I don't consider it to be a third Alice book just another one of Carroll's fantabulous writtings.

[The Queen of Hearts]

Opps! It's Gardner, excuse my stupidness due to tiredness.

[Perceval]

I'd consider Sylvie & Bruno more the follow-up to the Alice books. Through the Looking Glass closes with the famous acrostic poem, ending with the line "Life, what is it but a dream?" Sylvie & Bruno opens with another acrostic poem, the opening line being "Is all out Life, then, but a dream".

Shifting from the "real" world to the Fairylands and back is even more jolting for the narrator of Sylvie & Bruno than it is for Alice.

[Treacle]

Okay, I'm back to this again.

If Lewis Carroll is the ring writer that he is, and it can be shown that the Alice books are not only rings in themselves but structurally parts one and two of the same continuing story, what if Snark turns out to also be a ring composition that also analyzes to be part, the tail piece, the end, of that same story? That is, three volumes, one story, as Harry Potter is seven volumes, one story.

Sure, Snark has no Alice, and is dedicated to another little girl, and isn't illustrated by Tenniel, but that doesn't necessarily mean CLD was done writing the story. If the parts fit together as one complete ring, who's to say CLD isn't playing Humpty Dumpty and leaving that fact to the reader to discern?

[Treacle]

This long after the books and the poem were published it may say a lot about the strength of the writing that there are still Alice fans and Snarkists. Carroll wrote popular (cultural) parody. Things have changed so much that that setting is gone from living memory. I don't know where fans of C. L. Dodgson's writing would be now if not for the Annotated Alice and the Annotated Snark.

[Mad Hatter II]

I think it might, emphasis on MIGHT, have been a prequel of sorts. I think Snark might have been the founding of Wonderland, like the party went on the found Wonderland and Looking Glass Land as well. Maybe even the bonnet maker might have been the Hatter's great grand father or something, if so then that would mean old Hatta might be the true ruler of Wonderland

[Treacle]

Harry Furness said that Snark was intended to be part of Sylvie and Bruno but that Lewis Carroll decided to publish it on its own. So I don't know; if the S&B saga can be considered a sequel to the Alice books, and Snark was published as its own book after the Alice books, and before S&B, does that make it a bridge, a transition between the two parts?

Wasp in a Wig made it to proof sheets, it seems, but didn't make it into the publication of Looking-Glass. That also was a publishing decision on the part of the author.

Snark was an awfully big "Easter Egg" staring at the reader, if that's what it was.

[Treacle]

It may not mean anything, but Chris Riddell's illustrated edition has a happier ending: the Baker who encountered the Boojum Snark did not die. I do not know if the blonde girl,the Baker in disguise, is a reference to Alice. I'd like to think this could explain why Alice is not in Sylvie & Bruno: her character has been vanished away, removed from the active list.

If Lewis Carroll wouldn't tell what he meant, Chris Riddell shouldn't have to explain either, since he's the modern equivalent of John Tenniel, political cartoonist and book illustrator.