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.