Book Review: "The Story of Alice" by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst

I have read many spin-offs, sequels, art books, historical fictions, horror novels, comic books and nonfiction biographies and autobiographies based on the world of wonderland, those who inhabit it and its creator - Lewis Carroll. In all that time I have probably come across about five books that I can say are basically the best to read if you want to get to know the main text “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” better: ‘The Chronicles of Alice’ by Christina Henry, ‘After Alice’ by Gregory Maguire, ‘The Looking Glass Wars’ by Frank Beddor, ‘Lewis Carroll: A Biography’ by Morton Cohen and finally this one right here - ‘The Story of Alice’ by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst.

Unlike other nonfiction books about Lewis Carroll - like the epic by Morton Cohen - this book actually primarily focuses on the relationship that is often seen in (as Douglas-Fairhurst puts it) in modern contexts as a ‘crime scene’. It makes no excuse for Carroll’s somewhat strange behaviour towards the mythical Alice Liddell, but tries to add reason to it as if it were no fault of his own, but rather a charge towards the novel. I have no opinion on the matter myself as the man is dead and so, is not here to state his intentions and motives towards Alice Liddell and though most of the section on Alice herself is based on interviews with the woman as she became older, there is a lot to be said about, as the author puts it, ‘putting words into (her) mouth.’

Lewis Carroll’s carefully constructed mathematical equation that turned into “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” is no less than a literary masterpiece that will keep getting remade and reworked hopefully, long after I myself am gone. With each new working there is a new concept added or found, a new critique of the novel. I remember myself when my friend and I would discuss the extended metaphor for puberty within the novel and how each character is a different symbol for the menstrual cycle. Yep, it was far-fetched, but you could find it if you went looking. Douglas-Fairhurst’s novel takes it a step further. Instead of finding various extended metaphors within simply the novel, he finds extended metaphors within Lewis Carroll’s own life, applies them to the situations he found himself in, applies them to the friendship he had with the Liddell family and then works out what happened in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” in comparison to what was going on when Lewis Carroll first mentioned the great idea of writing an adventure story for the young Liddell that was initially titled “Alice’s Adventures Underground”. (If you’re from London, chances are she probably missed her train). Though the writing style in some places can be fairly repetitive and even somewhat overtly fantastical at times, I think that this may be the correct way to investigate Wonderland as a concept.

Wonderland cannot be investigated by rationality. It is a place where rationality does not exist and therefore, when Douglas-Fairhurst writes that very first chapter about Alice Hargreaves (maiden name: Liddell), we get this immediate obstruction from the truth. There are lines about what she can and cannot remember, people twisting her words and others putting words into her mouth. It is a reflection of what is to come in Wonderland and this is how we are introduced to it. We are introduced to it through ‘mights’ - everything that may have happened also may not have happened. It remains as big a mystery as the man behind the work himself. It is only when you have read all these books about him that you realise that though you may know a lot - you have actually discovered nothing.