The Complete Alice by Lewis Carroll

First published 7 December 2000

The Hunting of the Snark and me
We met one day for morning tea
Perching on a sofa wide
With my father by my side
Eight years old, still new to words,
I made friends with talking birds,
Ran screaming from the Jabberwock
Balanced on an outthrust rock
Looking out on Wonderland
Silver-covered book in hand
An epic in six fits - or eight?
Sitting by the blackened grate
Little Alice there with me
Reading over morning tea.

I just love writing sonnets. From this response it would seem that I loved it even back in 2000 before I'd found out about the Italian form [it's my favourite because it's trickier to work with than the Shakespearean form]. Most of my sonnets aren't much good, but this one came out just like it is here, and I've never felt the need to change a single word. It's not entirely accurate - for example, I don't know of any actual talking birds anywhere in the Alice books - but I like the way it sounds.

The picture conveyed, however, is almost accurate. I was indeed around eight years old when I first read the Alice books for myself, although I had had them read to me previously - yes, by my father, who taught me to read by reading aloud to me from when I was a baby. Alice was the second full-length novel that I fell in love with [the first being The Hobbit]. I didn't understand all of it at first, but it's full of such great characters and crazy ideas - like the Red Queen having to run fast to stay in the same place - that it grabbed me immediately.

There are two things which aren't as accurate as they could be. Firstly, while my copy of the book does indeed have a silver cover, I could never have held it in my hand at the age of eight. It's A4 and 3cm thick, which is an awkward way to distribute nearly 2kg. I'd have had to rest it in my lap to read it comfortably. Secondly, I certainly wasn't reading it "by the blackened grate". Although I would have been near the fireplace in the living room, it's been blocked up for years and I doubt whether it even has a grate, much less a blackened one. I probably put that line in for the sake of the rhyme, intending to fix it later, but then decided that it sounded better the way it was.

It has been suggested that the Alice books, together with The Hunting of the Snark, are actually a creative exploration of quantum theory. I believe this is mentioned in The Annotated Alice [which is probably lying around here somewhere]. Quantum or no quantum, Alice remains a story in which is there is as much for grown-ups as for kiddies. I'd read it again anytime.