Alice in Wonderland

I just finished reading Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll. I LOVED it. The book was very entertaining. What an imagination Carroll must have had. I heard some people say he was on drugs and some say he had mental problems. I did some research and all I came up with is that he suffered from migraine headaches, during which he had amazing dreams full of his fairytale ideas. I'm going to believe that theory. I also come up with great ideas in my crazy dreams, so why couldn't Carroll? Why does someone have to be on drugs or mentally unstable to write a book? I choose to believe that some people are just plain creative, like Carroll. Regardless of how he came up with the book idea, I still recommend it and I will definitely read it to our kids someday.
Many critics argue about the book's true meaning. But, most of the things I read said that Carroll wrote the book at the insistence of a family friend's daughter, whom Carroll loved to entertain with his stories. Thus, perhaps the book didn't have a true meaning at all. Perhaps it was just meant to entertain children. (That is one thing that drives me nuts about English majors/critics: they think that every book was written for a specific reason.) I'll admit that many of the great literary works are written with a deeper meaning in mind, but I also think that plenty of them are just meant to entertain and delight. Anyways, after I finished the book, I made Mitch watch the Disney version of it with me. It was good, but it was actually a lot crazier than the book is! (No wonder people think Carroll was on drugs- Disney made it seem that way!) There was so much in the book that wasn't in the movie, but for the most part Disney got it right, they just exaggerated it. I never knew what the Cheshire Cat was singing in the movie, but now I know he was singing the words to "Jabberwocky," the poem that Carroll wrote in The Looking-Glass. My favorite part of the book and movie is the "Un-birthday" scene. The Mad Hatter makes a very good point: there are 365 days in a year. Only one day is your birthday. The other 364 days are your un-birthdays. I think we should celebrate our un-birthdays instead. :)