18 February 2010
Dovegreyreader and Lewis Carroll's Cat?
I'm pleased that Dovegreyreader.com (aka Lynne) has "The Mystery of Lewis Carroll" on her to-read list. She posted briefly about it here.She's often referred to as the top UK literary blogger, and her reviews are beautifully written, intelligent and entirely accessible. Although I know whatever she says will be worth hearing, I await her thoughts with some apprehension, because she admits to being prejudiced against Carroll and is hoping my book will change her mind.
My aim has never been to change anyone's mind, because I tried very hard to approach Carroll without an agenda and see what I found. I confess I’d hoped to find someone nice, because I loved “Alice." But if he’d been unpleasant, pretending otherwise wouldn’t have changed anything.
As it happened, I generally liked him. He was interesting, clever, kind, reasonably cheerful, surprisingly strong-minded and generally well adjusted to his society. I specially liked it that he tried hard to be good. That’s a bit unfashionable nowadays, but he seems to have taken it extremely seriously.
Perhaps the closed-in, repressive Victorian era suited him, really, because it made him rein himself in and hide himself away. That pruning or starving or deprivation, somehow seemed to make him stronger and more vivid. I wonder if he'd seem less interesting in today’s open and publicity-conscious world.
Here he is as a young man, perched on a windowsill at Croft Rectory. And oh, yes, there’s a cat again. Can it possibly be HIS cat? No; it’s Raine Szramski’s cat, GoGo, posing obligingly for this tableau. No smiles, but then GoGo's not the Cheshire type. Thanks, Raine (and GoGo).
My aim has never been to change anyone's mind, because I tried very hard to approach Carroll without an agenda and see what I found. I confess I’d hoped to find someone nice, because I loved “Alice." But if he’d been unpleasant, pretending otherwise wouldn’t have changed anything.
As it happened, I generally liked him. He was interesting, clever, kind, reasonably cheerful, surprisingly strong-minded and generally well adjusted to his society. I specially liked it that he tried hard to be good. That’s a bit unfashionable nowadays, but he seems to have taken it extremely seriously.
Perhaps the closed-in, repressive Victorian era suited him, really, because it made him rein himself in and hide himself away. That pruning or starving or deprivation, somehow seemed to make him stronger and more vivid. I wonder if he'd seem less interesting in today’s open and publicity-conscious world.
Here he is as a young man, perched on a windowsill at Croft Rectory. And oh, yes, there’s a cat again. Can it possibly be HIS cat? No; it’s Raine Szramski’s cat, GoGo, posing obligingly for this tableau. No smiles, but then GoGo's not the Cheshire type. Thanks, Raine (and GoGo).
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