"Through the Looking-Glass" By Lewis Carroll

By Irina Ponomareva
"Through the Looking-Glass" is the second book dedicated to Alice and her wonderful adventures in her dreams. This time Alice finds herself inside a weird chess game and meets a lot of funny characters who do and say strange things and recite a lot of poems. At last she becomes a Queen, though it doesn't make her life in the looking-glass world much easier.

One would think the world on the other side of the looking-glass is an exact reflection of our own world. How boring and unimaginative we adults must be to think so! As Alice soon finds out, it's as different from our world as could be.

Once again Lewis Carroll plays with words - he can't help himself. "There is nothing like it" might sound like a figure of speech at first - but then we find out he means it literally: a nice bit of fun for the natives, I daresay, and a good exercise for a foreign reader. Yet, once again, I feel sorry for the translators.

I couldn't say why, but I feel a little sad as I follow Alice through the looking-glass world - something I never felt when reading the "Wonderland" book. There is something melancholy in the air, like saying good-bye to one's childhood, which is weird, because Alice is just seven and a half, and the best part of her childhood is still waiting for her. Is it Lewis Carroll's emotion that makes its way into the imaginary world on the other side of the mirror - or is it just me? I don't know. It's probably coming from the Russian cartoon based on the book, which I used to watch often together with my daughter when she was very little.

It's a beautiful book all the same, and I enjoy every line of it, especially the dialogues. It says a lot about the author's writing skills, I should think, because the dialogues have to be the hardest part of the art of writing. In Lewis Carroll's hands they become as sweet as music and as captivating as unsolved mysteries. Lewis Carroll's books are a great mystery as they are.

Talking flowers, invented words, goods in a store which move away when the customer looks at them, a Knight who can't ride his horse and even the ill-tempered Red Queen - why is it so hard to let them go, as if they were the best friends I'd ever had? Why does a fairy tale meant for children tell so much to someone who has already a child of her own? How do those simple words weave such a strong spell over a reader? And the book isn't even very long...

Do I just miss my own childhood? My conscious mind says no, but there must be a reason for the nostalgic feeling that Lewis Carroll's books awaken in my heart.