Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll

I love Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland. Now all I need to do is see the movie. Movies never seem to do the books they take after justice. How ever it is interesting to see a director or company to portray the images you read. I feel Tim Burtons portrayal of Alice in Adventures in Wonderland will be very vivid and trippy unlike Disney's which I imagine will be family friendly and pastel colored. However Lewis Carroll's has written a story with so much creative imagery, and situation that taking on the task of recreating Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland seems very daunting. Millions have read the book and each pictures Alice, the Cheshire cat, and The Queen of Hearts in a different way. The crochet scene alone; Mission Impossible 6. Alice says it's confusing herself. It has so many little crawly creepy objects running around; hedgehogs, headless cards, cats, flamingos, soldiers. I read the croquet episode three times so I could take it in. Rather like a AP Lang multiple choice passage :) Oh goodness.
One thing I want to touch on before I end this post, did Lewis Carroll have an alternative motive in writing this? Was he trying to send philosophical messages to society? It feels like he was. "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." It seems like he has so much to say that I don't understand. Mostly because I was born in the wrong time period and have nothing to base my understand off of. Who was he again? He seems to be a disturbed yet, talented man.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Caroll

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll AKA Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, published in 1865 (Until I wikipediaed the book, I had no idea that Lewis Carroll was a pseudonym. That's kind of life changing.) I , had to read a classic so I raided my little sisters bedroom book shelf, and found Alice's Adventures in wonderland. Since I never read it or have seen any of the movies I figured it was something I had to do before I left high school. It was. Carrol or excuse me, Dodgson, was a word and literary genius. I never realized how often he was quoted from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. For example "I can't explain myself, I'm afraid, Sir, because I'm not myself you see." (personal favorite), "We're all mad here.", "Off with his head!" Now those are the famous ones but there were so many others that were as good, "She took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed: it was labeled "ORANGE MARMALADE," but to her great disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing somebody underneath, so she managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she fell past it." Isn't that strange? How does one think up something so peculiar. It reminds me of when in Latin, Mr. Pendrick gives us latin half sentences we have to translate and complete. Everyone fills in the most ridiculous thing they can think of. Today my favorite was, "Because the seas had boiled, the child exploded softly." Now that sounds violent but can't you see a grumpy child flash into a puff of smoke? The situations he thinks of are so unearthly and he came up with this during the 1850's. It seems so science fiction like. Maybe Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy or something but not... English industrialism like.

The Women Who Raised Me by Victoria Lowell

How did the first passage of the book lead you to anticipate the ending of the book? I just finished The Women Who Raised Me by Victoria Lowell and according to the first passage of the book, "For anyone who has spent any portion of their childhood as a ward of the state, the notion of emancipation has multiple meanings. Though I was legally and financially emancipated at the requisite age of eighteen and had always been fiercely independent, it wasn't until I was forty-three years old and a working mother of two that I finally set myself free." This passage tells the whole story, pretty much. It tells none of the details but, it led me to the conclusion that it would be about survival and life lessons. It was. She survived no, she thrived. Taking everything that was offered for her. Now she's almost 50? and I, the reader feel proud of her, for making it through the "system." Orphans or children in the foster care system have very difficult lives, they die earlier, are permanently emotionally scarred, go into a life of crime much more often than someone raised in a caring two parent family. Without the support we can not expect them to win so those who do, are...stars. In my mind she is a hero. She is an actress, a major supporter and fundraiser, leading bills and laws to improve the lives of children like her who are in the foster care system. Raising money so they can take acting lessons, dance lessons, and improved living conditions.

The Women Who Raised Me by Victoria Rowell #2

In The Women Who Raised Me by Victoria Rowell, my favorite part of the book was Mrs. Rowell's descriptions. This one in particular was great. "Can we take your picture of you with your mother?" The Collinses asked in a matter-of-fact manner as though Dorothy [her mother] was still alive. I realized this would be the only photograph of me and my mother together, so I obliged with the stipulation that they send me copies. And they did. I stood in front of Dorothy's casket and looked defiantly into the Collinses' collective lens. Flash went the cameras." Rowell clearly has a gift for explaining things. This was during her mothers funeral, which she had learned of almost accidentally and decided to attend although she was unwelcome by her mothers' biological sisters. It was such an unusual and powerful situation to read about. To do that took guts. She felt it was her duty to attend the funeral so she did. Her recollection of the event for me, the reader was great. I could clearly see the character acting through this and felt the awkward wonder Rowell meant to give the reader.

The Women Who Raised Me by Victoria Rowell

This blog is about The Women Who Raised Me, a book by Victoria Rowell, published in 2008. A women who traveled through Massachusetts state foster system and yet still, managed to achieve many things in her life. In fact, she is still achieving those many things because, she's alive and well working as an actress and dancer. Thanks, she says to, all the women who raised her, like the title says, during her childhood she went through several families all of whom influenced her, and gave her what she needed to succeed. The book was interesting. I have rather liked what I've read so far. My mother did not like it. She was given the copy by friends, and started it over winter break. She never finished it though... She said it was a story she had heard a million times before. She prefers happy ending fiction. Why Mama even started it is a mystery. I disagree, no two stories are exactly the same. All stories have flashes of hope, failure, change and chance. That's why we read. To see the love and obstacles people go through for it. They a flashes into other possible live for us, the reader. Which is why I read, to look in another world. Victoria Rowell has such an honest voice, that the story compels me to continue. She tells everything, so it seems. As the reader I really felt for the little girl who was given up by her mentally unstable mother, and taken away by the state. The book in my eyes was very well done.

Bird By Bird by Anne Lamott AND The Women Who Raised Me by Victoria Rowell

I finished Bird By Bird by Anne Lamott (1994) It was good. Enjoyable, the writing advice was okay... I suppose. It was just so similar to Stephen King's On Writing. Once you've read one book on writing, you've read them all. At least that's how it feel after reading these books. Another similarity, the best part of the books was the stories of how writing influenced their lives. That was much more interesting them advice on how to write. The information on how to write was correct and well thought out, and writing is a skill you need to succeed in life. I don't care. I don't want to write, in fact I want to pass and be adequate in the future but, I never ever want to be a writer. It's too personal, and the lives, and situations writers go through seem horrible and discouraging. Both King and Lamott say pretty much no one makes it. Writing is a natural talent. You cannot just "improve" and be the next Tom Clancy or Nora Roberts. Lamott, as did King softened the blow with their own horror stories, attempts and failures. Gradually telling their lives stories as well, this way I, the reader, stayed interested. Thank goodness they were such eccentric weirdos, with fascinating backgrounds.