illustration by Sir John Tenniel for
“Alice Through The Looking Glass”
Today is the 180th Birthday of ‘Lewis Carroll‘ (Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, b. 27 January 1832 – d. 14 January 1898).
From my “origin” story. (I wrote a much longer post about this, but it has fallen off Google, and I offer this instead):
That’s an oddity of human experience: knowledge (or disinformation, its opposite) changes what we see. In the ‘sixties, it was decided by dirty-minded psychologists that Lewis Carroll had a sexual “thing” of some sort for the real “Alice.” But then documents were found that pretty much killed that slimy notion. (We project our fantasies of history on history all the time: official histories are no less shaded, ofttimes, than family histories.)
Alice’s adventures in both books acquired a patina of evil, or even child molestation, and that view COLORED the experience of Alice (Wonderland and Looking Glass) for many years thereafter — even though it was purest fiction.
In the same way, Southern Historians “swiftboated” Ulysses S. Grant in the latter half of the nineteenth century. So successfully, in fact, that he is still regularly referred to as “one of the worst American presidents,” and often referred to as a terrible general. (Less successfully, since Robert E. Lee estimated Grant as the best general he’d ever faced.) As we change the histories of our nations, so we learned how to do it from changing the history of our families.
For a long time politicians did it (until the standard of fact checking became exponentially greater, post-internet). The story of the amazing expanding resume is as old as human history. As is the convenient story.
This has an ironic parallel to the politics of the moment, but we shall let that pass.
Dodgson was known, of course, as Lewis Carroll, and the “kiddie porn” aspect haunted the Western Mind for several decades until Carroll’s exoneration. I once assigned Theodore Sturgeon to review the odd book that came out of Dodgson’s four remaining nude child photos and I seem to recall that the review that appeared in HUSTLER in 1980 said more or less to get your mind out of the gutter and don’t waste time with books like that. IIRC.
Lewis Carroll gave this blog its name via his poem “Jabberwocky” in Alice Through the Looking Glass.
No: this is in Alice in Wonderland
And, while this may not be a Roman Meal, it ought at least qualify as a snicker snack.
And, fortunately, while birthdays come but once a year (even after you’re dead), Unbirthdays come all the time.
Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, self-portrait (photo)
Courage.
