Suma Mandalapu

Lewis Carroll (this is a pseudonym, his actual name is Dodgson, Charles Ludwidge Dodgson) is one heck of a guy. Seriously. Yes, many must have read it when they were young (so did I) but this is not a book just for kids. Hardly can kids appreciate the merit of this man’s sheer brilliance of creativity that is so very wonderfully captured in the book. The book is filled with randomness and imagination and is completely taken on by subtle hints and sensible pithy.

I’ll quote a few lines to drive my point.

 

“Wouldyou tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here ?” asked Alice

“ That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said theCat.

“ 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 only you walk long enough.”

 

 

And the Duchess who finds a moral in everything:

 

“ Very true, ” said the Duchess : “ flamingos and mustard both bite. And the moral of that is—‘ Birds of a feather flock together. ’ ”

“ Only mustard isn’t a bird,” Alice remarked.

“ Right, as usual, ” said the Duchess : “ what a clear way you have of putting thing!”

“ It’s a mineral, I think, ” said Alice.

“ Of course it is, ” said the Duchess, who seemed ready to agree to everything that Alice said :

“   there’s a large mustard-mine near here. And the moral of that is—‘ The more there is of mine, the less there is of yours. ’ ”

“ Oh, I know!” exclaimed Alice, who had not attended to this last remark. “ It’s a vegetable. It doesn’t look like one, but it is. ”

“ I quite agree with you,”  said the Duchess ; “ and the moral of that is—‘ Be what you would seem to be ’—or, if you’d like it put more simply—‘ Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise. ’ ”

 

Not to forget the Mock Turtle and The Gryphon:

 

“ And how many hours a day did you do lessons?” said Alice, in a hurry to change the subject.

“ Ten hours the first day,” said the Mock Turtle : “ nine the next, and so on. ”

“ What a curious plan!”  exclaimed Alice.

“ That’s the reason they’re called lessons,”  the Gryphon remarked :“ because they lessen from day to day.”

 

The book is filled with such nuances that thrives the intellect and makes one chortle. Anybody can write a book on nonsense but it takes a genius to write something of this sort. The characters are lively, indulgent and guide us wonderfully through the insanity of things around. It’s never a question of why or why not, actually it’s not even a question but an answer to everything that needs a reason and the many things that lack it.

This book is about living, this book is about dreaming, it is about the preciousness of one’s self, the amusement of one’s own mind, the relaxation that throttles one’s soul, the music that makes one hum and the riddles that one ponders on. It is a book that reminds one of one’s own innocence, the wishes of one’s unfilled hearts, the limitlessness of one’s own imagination and the magic that lies there under. This is a book that would render all alike in its exquisite madness of verse and its silly rhymes but I should warn lest you should be beguiled there is more here than that meets the untrained eye.

This is a book to remind us that our faculty (One of the inherent cognitive or perceptual powers of the mind) should be vast, open, original and resourceful and not to be hindered by the mundane reality that halts the realm of dreams. It is indeed a book to cherish and remember.