Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland 

Author: Lewis Carroll

I feel a bit embarrassed that this is on my list, so here’s the story. We were leaving on a five hour drive for a vacation that evening. I wanted something to listen to. So I went to my library app, and searched for “classics” that were available to borrow immediately. This was one of them. The other two options I found were Robinson Crusoe and The Time Machine. Robinson Crusoe was too much of a commitment for the drive, since it was a ten hour listen, and my wife was not interested in The Time Machine, so Alice it was.

This book is talked about more than you might think. For example the phrase “Down the rabbit hole” that we reference so often comes from this book. I knew the general story as I watched the movie when I was a kid, but I assumed if I re-engaged with the story as an adult, I could pick up the obvious complex themes in the book that made it such a longstanding beloved classic.

Turns out it’s just a bunch of nonsense. And I am not even saying that as an insult. The author himself is quoted saying it is nonsense and most characterize the genre of the book as Nonsense Literature.

I even browsed around online after listening for a while, trying to get an analysis of the book from brighter minds then myself. Of course there are theories out there, but they are all conjecture and seem to be trying too hard to extract meaning from something when the author himself admits he was just writing nonsense. (The book was written to entertain a young child Lewis Carroll knew).

In summary, I did not enjoy myself. I did not learn anything. I did not pick up on any underlying themes or messages that mattered.

On a positive note, It was a nice quick book that didn’t require much mental stimulation to pay attention to. This is in sharp contrast to The Brothers Karamazov which I had ongoing at the time which my translation clocked in at about 980 pages of dense and complex storytelling. So this was a nice break.