"Through the Looking-Glass" by Lewis Carroll: Young Alice, fresh from her adventures in Wonderland, is lounging around the house one day, musing at her pet kittens, when she catches the room's reflection in a looking-glass above the fireplace. She begins wondering how the reflected world differs from her own, eventually stepping through the mirror into a nonsensical, backwards realm based on a chess game.
Alice emerges in her new reality to find a bunch of red and white chess pieces milling about in the ashes of the hearth. The tiny pieces can't see her, so Alice's attempts to help cause quite the commotion, frightening the poor pieces out of their wits. Alice soon turns her attention to a nearby book, finding a poem called "Jabberwocky" that can only be read when held up to the mirror, and even then it doesn't make much sense. Unable to reconcile the poem's gibberish, Alice leaves the house to explore everything the new world has to offer, floating outside as if she herself were carried by an invisible hand.
After a pointed discussion with some talking flowers, Alice meets the Red Queen, who's now as tall as the little girl. The Queen, a short-tempered snob, takes Alice to the top of a hill, allowing her to see how the entire countryside is laid out like a chess board. Alice wants to play, so the Red Queen says she can enter the game as a White Pawn. If she advances eight squares, she'll be made a Queen. Didn't Ryan Seacrest accept a similar deal? Manhood out.
Along her journey from Pawn to Queen, Alice encounters a litany of illogical lunatics, including Tweedledum and Tweedledee, two chubby identical twin brothers, exactly alike in portliness and pretension. The bloated brothers, differentiated only by the names written on their collars, dance and sing with Alice before Tweedledee recites her "The Walrus and the Carpenter," a seemingly playful poem with a decidedly disturbed meaning. The boys then show Alice the Red King, peacefully slumbering in the woods, telling her everything, herself included, is only a figment of the monarch's dream. If the Red King were to wake up, the world would cease to exist. I have a somewhat similar belief that the world would end if I ever sobered up. I'm sacrificing my liver for all of humanity. I'm not scared to be noble. Start pouring.
Alice, unnerved by the revelation, has little time to fret before Tweedledum and Tweedledee begin fighting over a broken rattle. The dispute doesn't last long, with the two combatants scared off by a giant crow flying overhead. The ensuing wind created in the bird's wake brings a shawl belonging to the White Queen, who happens to be a dowdy, disheveled mess. Alice returns the garment to its rightful owner, fixing her up as best she can, and is confounded when the Queen suddenly turns into a shop-owning sheep. The woolly proprietor sells her an egg, placing it on a shelf at the opposite end of the store, instructing Alice she'll have to get it herself. It's so hard to find good help these days.
As the girl approaches her purchase, the store fades away, replaced with a wooded countryside, and the egg grows larger and larger until it takes the shape of Humpty Dumpty, an enormous egg- man sitting precariously on a thin wall. While Alice shows concern for his safety, Humpty Dumpty assures her not to worry, as the King would send all his horses and all his men if he were to ever fall. See, that's called foreshadowing.
Humpty Dumpty is a learned scholar, professing a masterful command of words. He's their master, making them mean whatever he wants, nothing more and nothing less. He enlightens Alice to the meanings of certain puzzling terms from "Jabberwocky" and recites her a poem. But before he reaches the end of his opus, Humpty Dumpty abruptly dismisses her. He never even answers her farewell. Oh, that's just Humpty being Humpty.
Alice storms off, cursing his rudeness, when a violent crash shakes the entire forest. A mad rush of soldiers and horses stream by, each stumbling and bumbling their way to the rescue. Alice avoids the mayhem and meets the White King, an ineffectual leader fond of note-taking. The King introduces Alice to his two messengers, Haigha and Hatta, who just happen to be the Wonderland's March Hare and Mad Hatter in memorable cameos. The group watches as the Lion and Unicorn fight for the crown, reenacting an old song. From there, Alice meets a foolish old Knight, becomes a Queen, and finally wakes from her dream during a demented castle celebration. Her little black kitten was the cause of all the mischief, inspiring her vision of the Red Queen and the crazy chess game.
A lot of the characters in "Through the Looking-Glass," such as Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Humpty Dumpty, the Lion and the Unicorn, had existed for years in nursery rhymes and folk songs, but Lewis Carroll's depictions are the ones that have become ingrained in our culture.
Much like its Wonderland predecessor, "Through the Looking-Glass" leaves itself open to myriad interpretations, but, at its core, it's merely a playful yarn meant to amuse children, specifically Alice Liddell and her two sisters, who were very much Lewis Carroll's heart. In fact, this book was written around the time Alice and her family split from Carroll, and he was losing his dear child to the onset of adulthood. As Wonderland was set in the vibrance of a beautiful summer afternoon, its sequel takes place in winter, symbolizing the cold, harsh reality facing Carroll. The work closes with a poem, the first letter of each line spelling out the name Alice Pleasance Liddell. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Or wait, maybe there was? He didn't give her any Jesus Juice, did he?
Ignoring the bizarre personal circumstances, "Through the Looking-Glass" is a titanic literary achievement, bursting with creativity and imagination. Carroll is at his best when twisting language into absurdity, sparking earnest illogical debates between the innocent Alice and her many mad cohorts. The plotting is ingenious, mimicking precise chess maneuvers, and the details of the backwards world are endlessly clever, stretching the very limits of sanity.
Carroll's linguistic talents are on display in the "Jabberwocky" poem, where he literally concocts new words, stringing together one silly-sounding syllable after another in telling the story of a boy slaying a monster. A few of the invented terms, such as galumphing and chortle, have actually entered the lexicon.
Lewis Carroll's courageous works, completely free of inhibition and perpetrated solely for joyful pleasure, should stand as a sterling example for all writers. There are no limits when telling a story. Be inventive. Be unique. Be truthful to your vision. Talent is freedom.
RATING: 