Alice in Space: The Sideways Victorian World of Lewis Carroll (Carpenter Lectures) by Gillian Beer (PDF)

Description

The award-winning literary critic takes readers down the rabbit hole of Victorian cultural and intellectual influences on Lewis Carroll’s Alice books. In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Carroll created fantastic worlds that continue to live in the minds of readers today. Carroll conceived his Alice books during the 1860s, a time of intense intellectual upheaval, as new scientific, linguistic, educational, and mathematical ideas flourished around the world. Alice in Space explores these historic currents, revealing essential context for Carroll’s jokes, concerns, and hidden references. Parody and Punch, evolutionary debates, philosophical dialogues, educational works for children, math and logic, manners and rituals, dream theory and childhood studies—all fueled the fireworks of Carroll’s restless imagination. In this lively investigation, Gillian Beer convincingly shows him at play in the spaces of Victorian cultural and intellectual life, drawing on then-current controversies, reading prodigiously across many fields, and writing on multiple levels to please both children and adults in different ways. With a welcome combination of learning and lightness, Beer reminds us that Carroll’s books are essentially about the risks and pleasures of curiosity. Along the way, Alice in Space shares Alice’s exceptional ability to spark curiosity in us, too.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐In her introduction, author Gillian Beer states that she hopes “to augment the reader’s pleasure” in the Alice books “and demonstrate how they interact with some of the most stimulating discussions of the mid-Victorian period”, but instead bogs readers down with overanalytical explanations that venture beyond the point of what warrants exploring and discussing. Some of the text is so laborious and superfluous that one is liable to question whether these passages were truly meant to augment a reader’s pleasure in the Alice books. The book is littered with so many roundabout references and highfalutin verbiage one can’t help but think that Beer is trying to impress academicians rather than appeal to, interest, and delight fans of the Alice books. Only the introduction and three out of the eight themed chapters are worth skimming through, if not reading for their insightful and/or enjoyable content (i.e.: 3: puns, Punch, and parody; 6: names; and 7: dreaming and justice). (2.5 stars)

⭐This truly remarkable book is a guided tour of the Alice books as enjoyable and enlightening as the books themselves–and that is saying a great deal. Gillian Beer is a master of English prose, it’s a delight simply to read her as she demonstrates anew the immense resources of meaning and music of our language. Her particular concern in the book is to explore the intellectual background of the Alice books: what was Lewis Carroll reading, with whom was he in conversation, what cultural currents touched him and discreetly entered the books? Beyond that, Prof. Beer renews our appreciation for the wise and funny–and often moving–conversations and situations that Alice moves through. A masterwork.

⭐This is precisely what I need for my work. This is an academic, but highly interesting, book concerning how the Alice books fit into the social milieu of their times. It is not for the hobbyist or the trivial minded,

⭐This is not a novel, but a scholarly discussion of Lewis Carroll’s Alice books. Highly recommended. Beer worked on it for years, and it is a tour de force. A new way of looking at Alice.

⭐I sent this as a gift and have not heart a report

Keywords

Free Download Alice in Space: The Sideways Victorian World of Lewis Carroll (Carpenter Lectures) in PDF format
Alice in Space: The Sideways Victorian World of Lewis Carroll (Carpenter Lectures) PDF Free Download
Download Alice in Space: The Sideways Victorian World of Lewis Carroll (Carpenter Lectures) 2016 PDF Free
Alice in Space: The Sideways Victorian World of Lewis Carroll (Carpenter Lectures) 2016 PDF Free Download
Download Alice in Space: The Sideways Victorian World of Lewis Carroll (Carpenter Lectures) PDF
Free Download Ebook Alice in Space: The Sideways Victorian World of Lewis Carroll (Carpenter Lectures)