Quote of the Day (Lewis Carroll, on a Boat Ride in July)

“A boat beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July —
 
“Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear.”— English children’s book author, clergyman, mathematician, and photographer Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll (1832-1898), “A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky,” from Through The Looking Glass and What Alice Found There (1871)

The first couple of stanzas from this poem that I’ve quoted here refer to one of the most consequential boat rides in history: the one in July 1862 when Lewis Carroll, going up the Thames with Alice Liddell and her two sisters, came up with the tale that eventually saw print as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Quote of the Day (Lewis Carroll, As the Cheshire Cat Opines on Directions and Sanity)

[Alice] “was a little startled by seeing the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off.

“The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice. It looked good-natured, she thought: still it had VERY long claws and a great many teeth, so she felt that it ought to be treated with respect.

“'Cheshire Puss,' she began, rather timidly, as she did not at all know whether it would like the name: however, it only grinned a little wider. 'Come, it's pleased so far,' thought Alice, and she went on. 'Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'

“'That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat.

“'I don't much care where--' said Alice.

“'Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.

“'--so long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation.

“'Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, 'if you only walk long enough.'

“Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another question. 'What sort of people live about here?'

“'In THAT direction,' the Cat said, waving its right paw round, 'lives a Hatter: and in THAT direction,' waving the other paw, 'lives a March Hare. Visit either you like: they're both mad.'

“'But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.

“'Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat: 'we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad.'

“'How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.

“'You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'”— English author, illustrator, mathematician, photographer, and teacher Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, a.k.a. Lewis Carroll (1832-1898), Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865)

This past week, a writer’s group submission by a prolific and accomplished playwright, Jim, alluded to Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in its own delightful satire. After guffawing all the way through, I hunted down my copy of Lewis Carroll’s classic.

Midway through the Victorian Era, Alice amused readers through its whimsical depiction of eccentric characters (including the anthropomorphic Cheshire Cat). These days, it can strike people like me as a future glimpse at an age—such as ours—when absurdity edges closer to reality.

The image accompanying this post is one of the drawings from the original edition of the book by the English illustrator, graphic humorist and political cartoonist Sir John Tenniel (1820-1914).

Quote of the Day (Lewis Carroll, on the “Caucus-Race”)

“'What is a Caucus-race?' said Alice…

'Why,' said the Dodo, 'the best way to explain it is to do it.'…

First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, ('the exact shape doesn't matter,' it said,) and then all the party were placed along the course, here and there. There was no 'One, two, three, and away,' but they began running when they liked, and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know when the race was over.”—Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Last weekend, I had the good fortune of attending an exceedingly amusing, well-acted, and well-directed theatrical adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland at Dwight-Englewood School in Englewood, N.J. One scene in particular struck me with particular force: the caucus-race that Carroll described above.

The actors in the scene ran themselves silly. One minute one person was last, but because they were all running in a circle, that person was also, paradoxically, first. In fact, they all were first and last. There was no obvious person in the lead, and despite everyone’s exhaustion, no winners when the action ceased.

Why did all of this seem so familiar to me? I wondered. Where had I seen it all before?

And then it struck me. Carroll’s absurdist exercise could, in fact, describe the never-ending quest for the White House. This year, in fact, you can’t find closer real-life examples to his characters than the Oval Office aspirants now running in the GOP primaries. (I hasten to add that the play’s creators were more intent on offering an old-fashioned, family-friendly show than political satire, so my perception was purely my own.)

There’s a constant attempt in the press to identify which candidate is up and who’s down, but until the first vote is counted, it’s pointless. Just as someone emerges as an alternative to Robo-Candidate Mitt Romney, something happens: a minor gaffe, a freshly unearthed scandal or conflict of interest, or a “What-the-Hell?” moment captured and posted forever on YouTube.

But none of the foregoing is necessarily fatal. After all, one version or another of it is afflicting all the candidates. The voters are watching daily so many candidates sucking wind in the race to the White House that they’re making allowances. The most conservative elements of the GOP didn’t have much use for President George H.W. Bush, but many took to his late-campaign slogan in 1992: “Annoy the media—Vote for Bush.” A generation later, they’re applying the same principle, with most interesting results, to all the GOP candidates. In fact, if they have any guiding principle at all, it seems to be: If the media say it, it can’t be true.

Even on Election Day next year, it won’t come to an end. If the eventual GOP nominee wins, he’ll begin campaigning for reelection, even while he’s picking his Cabinet, because that’s how Presidential "permanent campaigns" are run these days.

The only person for whom it all ends on Election Day is President Obama. If he wins, he can’t run for a third term. If he loses, it’s extraordinarily unlikely he’ll ever run for the Presidency again, even if, like Grover Cleveland, he wanted to do so. He’ll still be young, but the Democratic Party has not been kind of late to losing candidates.

Maybe Obama won’t mind, anyway. After all, modern Presidential politics has taken on an increasingly Alice-in-Wonderland quality to it, and Obama has had an increasingly pinched look around the corners of his mouth, as if he’s tiring of the Carroll-type nonsense of it all.