Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll - Book Review

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland will surely bring back childhood memories for anyone who read the book when they were young. Despite it being a classic book, the level of absurdism and idiosyncrasy is yet to be surpassed by modern books.

Lewis Carrol, despite being a mathematician and a logician, defies his own logic by creating a light-hearted and absurdist story that managed to charm readers of all ages.

Its impact was great on the literary world and it managed to insinuate its way through English expressions, which people use lovingly to reminisce over this beautiful and absolutely whimsical story.

The plot starts with the infamous Alice, who plummets into a rabbit hole to find herself in a new world where mysterious drinks are lying around with labels that say to “drink me” and cakes with notes to “eat me”, both of which have shrinking and enlarging effects respectively.

Then a series of strange events take place, like the tea party that involved the March Hare, the Dormouse, and the Mad Hatter. The tea party never ends, as it is controlled by Time. She also participates in a croquet game, in which flamingos are used as mallets and the hedgehogs were used as balls.

She also meets the Queen of Hearts, who doesn’t tire of saying “off with their heads!” even when she plays the croquet. She also meets other interesting characters like the Cheshire cat, the hookah-smoking caterpillar, and the Knave of Hearts. It all ends with Alice waking up to the realization that it was all a dream.

There can’t be a very accurate character analysis or plot analysis for that matter, as everything happens in Carroll’s is so random and unpredictable that it is difficult to pinpoint the motives of the characters or the morals of the story, but then again, absurdist literature cares too little about these notions.

It was a charming piece of literature that can be read over a few hours and offers Alice’s entertaining view of a world so random and flamboyant. All these elements combined are a worth a rating of 9.5 out of 10.