MobileRead Book Club December 2017 Discussion: Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll (spoilers)

[gmw]

Originally Posted by fantasyfan

You make some excellent points. However, I think that the one character who is on a level with the creations in the “Alice”books is the Gardiner who has a mad frenzy reminiscent of the Mad tea party. His “song” ihas that same quality of unexpected nonsense thar we encounter in the verses in the earlier books. The Gardiner scenes are among the few moments where Carroll supplants Dodgson.

With the gardener (and, I think, with the opening scene as well) it was possible to suppose you were back in Wonderland. At the time I was wondering if that was really a good thing - did we need another Wonderland? The question became irrelevant as those aspects quickly faded out of the story. Even though the conclusion revisited the nonsense aspect, it did not regain that Wonderland feel.

[fantasyfan]

Originally Posted by gmw

With the gardener (and, I think, with the opening scene as well) it was possible to suppose you were back in Wonderland. At the time I was wondering if that was really a good thing - did we need another Wonderland? The question became irrelevant as those aspects quickly faded out of the story. Even though the conclusion revisited the nonsense aspect, it did not regain that Wonderland feel.

That’s a fair point. Sylvie and Bruno never has more than flashes of Wonderland. Whatever Lewis Carroll was trying to do, the elements of the work just don’t fuse. I think it remains an interesting curiosity—though I suspect many would leave out the adjective.

[JSWolf]

I do think that if Sylvie and Bruno had been written before Alice in Wonderland, it never would have been published. It's a mess of confusion and it flows as smoothly as a road that's been dug up.

[Bookpossum]

Yes, I think you are right JSWolf.

But as fantasyfan says, there are flashes there, and it's a shame Carroll didn't have an editor saying "Cut this chunk out and develop more of that, and you might make one good book out of it. Oh, and drop the babytalk!"

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

Yes, I think you are right JSWolf.

But as fantasyfan says, there are flashes there, and it's a shame Carroll didn't have an editor saying "Cut this chunk out and develop more of that, and you might make one good book out of it. Oh, and drop the babytalk!"

And also drop ca'n't. It's annoying. Just use can't.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

Yes, I think you are right JSWolf.

But as fantasyfan says, there are flashes there, and it's a shame Carroll didn't have an editor saying "Cut this chunk out and develop more of that, and you might make one good book out of it. Oh, and drop the babytalk!"

Yes. If he even had an editor for this book, it's obvious that person was too much of a fan to be of any use as an editor.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

Yes. If he even had an editor for this book, it's obvious that person was too much of a fan to be of any use as an editor.

One wonders who else refused to work with him on this book, though, given that the illustrator of Alice refused to illustrate either volume for him.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

One wonders who else refused to work with him on this book, though, given that the illustrator of Alice refused to illustrate either volume for him.

Please note that John Tenniel illustrated the Alice books.

Walter Crane may have refused to illustrate Sylvie and Bruno, as you noted earlier (and for which I found this reference), and he apparently did some engraving for Tenniel (see here), but Crane was not the illustrator for Alice in Wonderland.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by gmw

Please note that John Tenniel illustrated the Alice books.

Walter Crane may have refused to illustrate Sylvie and Bruno, as you noted earlier (and for which I found this reference), and he apparently did some engraving for Tenniel (see here), but Crane was not the illustrator for Alice in Wonderland.

My bad! I was pulling that from a journal article on the subject. I went back and re-checked, and the article does not make it clear that it was not the same person. Point of fact, it sort of made it sound like it was. Poor editing on the journal's part.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

My bad! I was pulling that from a journal article on the subject. I went back and re-checked, and the article does not make it clear that it was not the same person. Point of fact, it sort of made it sound like it was. Poor editing on the journal's part.

I agree that the journal is misleading, and it gets worse. In that link to the excerpt from the journal, that I gave above, the excerpt makes the claim:

The narrator of Sylvie and Bruno, who baldly announces "My name's Lewis Carroll" in his first fictional appearance,

Either that is missing from my edition or the article is putting words in Carroll's mouth. The author of the journal also uses phrases such as "the saccharine sentimentality" that I don't think does the article any favours.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by gmw

I agree that the journal is misleading, and it gets worse. In that link to the excerpt from the journal, that I gave above, the excerpt makes the claim:


Either that is missing from my edition or the article is putting words in Carroll's mouth. The author of the journal also uses phrases such as "the saccharine sentimentality" that I don't think does the article any favours.

What was interesting was it was one of the few journal articles I could find in the academic database on Sylvie and Bruno. I guess people just choose to write about Alice instead. Or my academic license is woefully small in scope

[Bookpossum]

Originally Posted by astrangerhere

What was interesting was it was one of the few journal articles I could find in the academic database on Sylvie and Bruno. I guess people just choose to write about Alice instead. Or my academic license is woefully small in scope

I could find very little either. Though I did find a few funny reviews on readers’ blogs - I mean funny in the sense of their enjoying giving it a bad review.

[fantasyfan]

Since we’ve mentioned the “Alice” books, some might be interested in the following.

Carroll wrote an earlier version of Wonderland called Alice’s Adventures Under Ground which was itself an expansion of the stories told on a boating trip. It exists in a hand-written MS with illustrations by Carroll himself. The text is enhanced with the use of colour for the title page, chapter openings, and some illustrations.

Project Gutenberg does offer a text with the illustrations and sample pages but if you go to the Internet Archive you can download the copy in the British Library for free.

https://ia800504.us.archive.org/21/i...Ground1864.pdf


I would suggest that you use the pdf format which works perfectly. The Kindle and ePub formats are riddled with errors.

[gmw]

fantasyfan, thanks for the PDF link - that's much better than the Gutenberg copies I had in my collection.

[fantasyfan]

Just one more thing. The British Library copy mentioned above ends with a drawing of Alice Liddell whereas the version I have from the British Museum reproduces a copy of the photograph of her.