Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

[PatH]

The Book Club Online is  the oldest  book club on the Internet, begun in 1996, open to everyone.  We offer cordial discussions of one book a month,  24/7 and  enjoy the company of readers from all over the world.  Everyone is welcome.

April/May Book Club Online ~ Starting April 15

Alice in Wonderland
by Lewis Carroll

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (commonly called Alice in Wonderland) was written in 1865 by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. We can enjoy the novel as a fantasy as well look for the amusing examples of logic contained throughout. Whether or not you've read the story as a child or adult, we welcome you to share our adventures in wonderland.

Discussion Schedule:    April 15-20 Opening Poem; Chapters 1 and 2    April 21-27  Chapters 3 - 6

Some Questions to Consider
Let's share information, as it becomes relevant throughout the book, from any introductions, footnotes or other sources we find.
Let's keep a list of characters we meet, as well as animals that are mentioned in the poems and ballads.

April 21-27 Chapters 3 - 6

Chapter 3: A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale
1. What new creatures do we meet here?
2. When Alice, the birds and other animals get to the bank soaking wet, how does the mouse attempt to "dry them?"
3 When that fails, what does the Dodo suggest they do to dry themselves?
4. What is Carroll saying by using the term "caucus" to describe the race?
5. The mouse's tale is an example of "figured verse"--a poem whose shape on the page is an object relevant to the poem.  Do you know any other examples?
6. Why do all the animals leave Alice at the end of the chapter?

You can read the novel online

Discussion Leaders:  PatH and Marcie

[PatH]

My opinion is it would be better to read the book first.  What does anyone else think?

And you're right; let's fan ourselves small and go on our way.

[bookad]

the poem meant a lot more to me after reading the Gardner item telling of how the story came to be in print.  A relaxing boat ride down a quiet river (no motorboats or cars or planes, WOW don't know if I've really been in that situation)with nice companions, a picnic lunch to look forward to, pure enjoyment.

....but for Alice asking to have the story written down we might not be having this discussion....??this was Lewis Carroll's first published book??....there might be so many other wonderful ones he made up in his entertaining Alice and her sisters that are never to be known

as for Alice's fall down the tunnel following the rabbit; I don't think kids of that time were protected the way they are now....Dicken's David Copperfield had the kids among drunks & fighting & filth, ..............even though they were the lowest of society I'm imagining trying to protect children from ugliness in that day might have been very hard and enough would creep into lives of younger ones to make them braver about the world around them....even when brought up in a small village/town as Alice and her sisters were brought up. Therefore scary things like falling down a tunnel being separated from one's parents & the narrator's tone of voice being familiar and comforting ( I am only imagining) would much scare away.

from The Mystery of Lewis Carroll by Jenny Woolf.........pg 14, Carroll wrote in a letter that he disliked boys because he had been a 'simply detestable' little boy, himself.  Because of Carroll's dislike of little boys, one could not write he liked little children, and coming from a family with 10 siblings and himself I want to believe he just enjoyed the comradeship of younger ones who in their turn enjoyed his vivid imagination

Deb
   
unless a book is too hard to get into I prefer to read a book then see the movie, though I must say the movie version with Gene Wilder was a delight

[marcie]

Bellamarie, thanks alot for sharing Zoey's reactions. It helps me to imagine the reactions of the Liddell girls and why Lewis Carroll made some of the decisions he did in writing the story.

Deb, I wonder too how many more wonderful stories we would have enjoyed if one of the children had asked Lewis Carroll to write them down. Or, perhaps, this one was different from the rest and that is why Alice asked for it to be written.

I agree with you, Pat and Deb, that Bellamarie might want to finish the book before viewing a film version. There are quite a few versions and each one that I've seen emphasizes something a bit different. I think you want your "own version" of Alice before you get the others inside your head.

[marcie]

Alice gets too small by drinking the liquid and then she gets large --more than 9 feet high -- from eating the cake she finds. That brings us to the next chapter, THE POOL OF TEARS.

As Alice feels different, in great part to growing and shrinking so many times, she begins to wonder if she's been changed into someone else. In literal fashion she tries to compare herself to some of her friends to see if she might be one of them, who are not as clever as she. What do you think of some of the "fact" games she tries?

[JoanP]

I love to listen to Alice's conversations with herself - giving herself good advice, "though she very seldom followed it."

I'm beginning to get into the humor, the fantastical (is there such a word?) and leave off my own fears with the realization that the three girls are comfortable with such storytelling.

The realistic me wondered why Alice had to "polish off" the drink and "finish off" the cake.  I would have done a little at a time.  But this is not my story, is it?
Now she is way too tall to get through the little door even though she can reach the little key again...
I have a lined notebook with an illustration of Alice on the cover, under a toadstool, with the words, "Curiouser and Curiouser."  I think this expression is the one often associated with this story.  
Could the white rabbit have helped her, had he not been so startled at finding her there? Did you take his reaction as indifference?

[JoanP]

"Who in the world am I?"

She must have been changed for Mabel, because she used to know a lot of facts - "Mabel knew very little." (The Liddell girls must have giggled at this reference to Mabel -I've a note here that says in the original version of the story, Ada and Mabel's names were Gertrude and Florence - cousins of the Liddell girls)

[bellamarie]

Deb,

from The Mystery of Lewis Carroll by Jenny Woolf.........pg 14, Carroll wrote in a letter that he disliked boys because he had been a 'simply detestable' little boy, himself.  Because of Carroll's dislike of little boys, one could not write he liked little children, and coming from a family with 10 siblings and himself I want to believe he just enjoyed the comradeship of younger ones who in their turn enjoyed his vivid imagination

I found this and felt it is possibly inferring that Carroll may have been sexually abused at the school, giving me pause as to why he would not like little boys and is fixated on little girls.

In 1846, young Dodgson moved on to Rugby School, where he was evidently less happy, for as he wrote some years after leaving the place:

I cannot say ... that any earthly considerations would induce me to go through my three years again ... I can honestly say that if I could have been ... secure from annoyance at night, the hardships of the daily life would have been comparative trifles to bear.[12 Collingwood, Stuart (1898). The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll. London: T. Fisher Unwin. pp. 30–31.]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Carroll

Now, getting back to the chapter, I found it very comical when Alice was talking to the mouse.  She tried so hard not to mention her cat Dinah, so she changes the subject to dogs and then says, " and belongs to a farmer, you know, and he says it's so useful, it's worth a hundred pounds!  He says it kills all the rats and__oh dear!" cried Alice in a sorrowful tone.  "I'm afraid I've offended it again!"  For the Mouse was swimming away from her as hard as it could go, and making a commotion in the pool as it went.


I am anxious to find out just why the mouse hates cats and dogs as he said he would tell her once they reached the shore.

Ciao for now~
 

[marcie]

JoanP, yes, I think that getting into the mindset of Carroll telling this story to the Liddell girls, whom he knew very well,  helps us to see the humor and suspense he creates. I can just hear them shouting to him..."why is Alice drinking the whole thing? Just because it doesn't say "poison" doesn't mean, it isn't. Why is she eating the whole cake?" It's sort of like those scary movies when the innocent person walks into a dark house and we're yelling at the screen, "don't go in there!!"

Carroll also was a logic teacher in "real life" and he may be teaching the girls logic through humorous "reverse logic."  

That's very funny, Joan, that Carroll used the names of their cousins to refer to children who didn't know very much.

Bellamarie, the girls must have found it very comical too when Alice was trying not to mention things that would upset the mouse but kept getting deeper and deeper into predator territory.

Bellamarie, your reference to Lewis Carroll's letter about Rugby School does seem to hint at sexual advances from fellow students or teachers. I guess we'll never know. I found it interesting to find out that, while he enjoyed being tutored by his adoring mother when he was younger, his reading was quite restricted. "The reading lists she carefully prepared for him testify not only to her devotion and dedication to the son she called 'dearest Charlie', but also, and less happily, to the rather stultifying 'properness' of Dodgson family life: almost all the books on his mother's list are religious texts of the preachy kind that Lewis Carroll would one day satirise in the pages of his first 'Alice' book." http://carroll-myth.wild-reality.net/briefbiography1.html

[bluebird24]

http://www.aliceinwonderlandshop.co.uk/history.html

[bluebird24]

http://www.poemhunter.com/lewis-carroll/

[bluebird24]

Thank you marcie for the lory pictures.

[bellamarie]

I found this especially interesting, the last paragraph in chapter II:

It was high time to go, for the pool was getting quite crowded with the birds and animals that had fallen into it: there was a Duck and Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet, and several other curious creatures.  Alice led the way, and the whole party swam to the shore.

The annotations say:  Carroll's Dodo was intended as a caricature of him self_ his stammer is said to have made him pronounce his name "Dodo-Dodgson. "The Duck is the Reverend Robinson Duckworth, who often accompanied Carroll on boating expeditions with the Liddell sisters.  The Lory, an Austrailian parrot, is Lorina, who was the eldest of the sisters (this explains why, in the second paragraph of the next chapter, she says to Alice, "I'm older than you, and must know better").  Edith Liddell is the Eaglet.  It is amusing to note that when is biography entered the Encyclopedia Britannica it was inserted just before the entry on the Dodo.  The individuals in this "queer-looking party" represent the participants in an episode entered in Carroll's diary on June 17, 1862.  Carroll took his sisters, Fanny and Elizabeth, and his Aunt Lucy Lutwidge (the "other curious creatures") on a boating expedition, along with the Reverend Duckworth and the three Liddell girls.

Marcie, I remember reading that Carroll was very close to his father before he died.  His mother restricted his reading, well, imagine that and he becomes a writer of fantasy.    

bluebird,  Thank you for the wonderful links.  Love the pic of the shop and the pic of Alice.

[PatH]

I found it interesting to find out that, while he enjoyed being tutored by his adoring mother when he was younger, his reading was quite restricted. "The reading lists she carefully prepared for him testify not only to her devotion and dedication to the son she called 'dearest Charlie', but also, and less happily, to the rather stultifying 'properness' of Dodgson family life: almost all the books on his mother's list are religious texts of the preachy kind that Lewis Carroll would one day satirise in the pages of his first 'Alice' book." http://carroll-myth.wild-reality.net/briefbiography1.html

That explains the many verses that are take-offs on sermonizing children's poems of the time.  We've already seen one--How doth the little crocodile.  My book gives the original:

How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!

How skilfully she builds her cell!
How neat she spreads the wax!
And labors hard to store it well
With the sweet food she makes.

In works of labor or of skill,
I would be busy too;
For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.

In books, or work, or healthful play,
Let my first years be passed,
That I may give for every day
Some good account at last.

Isaac Watts

I can just see a generation of Victorian children hooting at Carroll's versions of the goody-goody poems they endured.

[bellamarie]

PatH.,  I remembered reading this poem, and what stuck out to me was this particular stanza:


In works of labor or of skill,
I would be busy too;
For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.

I never really knew where or when I first heard this, but I used to tell my kids growing up to keep busy to stay out of trouble, because idle hands are the devil's work.  I looked this up on Google and found the origination of the saying.  It is also found in the Bible.


http://forums.catholic.com/showthread.php?t=7920

I found the following information at the Phrase Finders discussion forum:

"Nothing good comes from boredom. It's said that idle hands are the devil's workshop, an old saying dating at least as far back as Chaucer in the twelfth century who called idle hands the devil's tools."

"IDLE HANDS ARE THE DEVIL'S TOOLS - "Idleness is the root of mischief. This maxim has been traced back to Chaucer's 'Tale of Melibee' (c. 1386). First attested in the United States in 'Collections' (1808). The proverb is found in varying forms:: Satan has some mischief for idle hands to do; The devil finds work (or mischief) for idle hands to do." From "Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings" by Gregory Y. Titelman (Random House, New York, 1996). "
http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_b...ssages/17.html

[marcie]

Pat you say you  "can just see a generation of Victorian children hooting at Carroll's versions of the goody-goody poems they endured." Me too and I bet the Liddell girls were laughing as he changed those poems. I think they are very clever.

Bellamarie, good research on the "idle hands" and interesting that Charles Dodgson had a stammer which didn't seem to appear when he was "Lewis Carroll" telling stories to children.

[Frybabe]

As I read the posts, I wonder if Carroll was bullied at school rather than sexually abused. I would think that one who stammers/stutters would be taunted or laughed at. I remember such an occurrence when I was in elementary school. And then, he could have been labeled a Momma's Boy and gotten made fun of for that too.

[PatH]

Whichever the cause, it looks like one reason the socially uncomfortable Dodgson liked the company of little girls was they were safe companions.

[marcie]

Frybabe, you could be right about that and you too, Pat.

Pat and I are wondering how you all feel about the pace of our discussion. Would you like to speed up the reading a bit in the next week and take on the next four chapters (or whatever number suits) instead of just two? Let us know your thoughts. We'll start new chapters on Monday.

Meanwhile, what other related background have you found or what other thoughts do you have about Chapter 2?

[marcie]

I'm still laughing over the parody of the poem that Pat found for us.

ORIGINAL
Against Idleness And Mischief
by Isaac Watts

How doth the little busy bee
Improve each shining hour,
And gather honey all the day
From every opening flower!

How skilfully she builds her cell!
How neat she spreads the wax!
And labors hard to store it well
With the sweet food she makes.

In works of labor or of skill,
I would be busy too;
For Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.

In books, or work, or healthful play,
Let my first years be passed,
That I may give for every day
Some good account at last.

LEWIS CARROLL'S VERSION

How doth the little crocodile
      Improve his shining tail,
     And pour the waters of the Nile
      On every golden scale!

     'How cheerfully he seems to grin,
      How neatly spread his claws,
     And welcome little fishes in
      With gently smiling jaws!'

[bellamarie]

I liked the pace of the first two chapters this week, especially since it dealt with the introduction too.  I am off vacation on Monday and with the holiday behind us, we could probably go more than two chapters per week.  I am happy with how ever you decide to do it.

Frybabe, It is very possible he was bullied during the day, which could be the "hardships of the daily life." My impression of possible sexual abuse came from "secure from annoyance at night." 

He stated, "I can honestly say that if I could have been ... secure from annoyance at night, the hardships of the daily life would have been comparative trifles to bear."

My youngest son stuttered when he was growing up, especially if he had to do a reading in church.  Our pediatrician said if we do not make too much of it, he will be comfortable and gain his confidence and grow out of it.  Today he works in a position for Ford Motor Company and has to make oral presentations to VIPs convincing them his computer programs will save the company millions of dollars.  I am sure he is still nervous, but not one stutter now that he is all grown up.  I wonder if Carroll's friends made fun of his stutter.

[JoanP]

This is a confession - I don't get the parody- if that is what the little crocodile is supposed to be - of Isaac Watts' busy little bee.  Can someone take me aside and explain why Alice is trying to remember these verses at this time??  I can see the lazy, slow- moving croc as a contrast to the busy bee - is that it?  

I did notice in the Annotated that Watts also wrote, "O God, our help in ages past." Now I could understand If Alice had been  trying to remember the verses to this hymn to get her out of this situation.

The pace is fine - but even if we speed up, I 'm certain we'll have posters who will pick up on interesting details.  

[JoanP]

How do you suppose Alice addresses the author, her teacher.  I imagine "Mr. Dodgson," don't you?
How do you think of him? I think I'll refer to him as Lewis Carroll when talking about his book, but when we're talking about the man,  the boy, apart from his work, I'm torn.  A good example would be the fact that Charles Dodgson stuttered, but LewiS Carroll, as,a storyteller did not!

I've a friend who stutters some, but when she sings, it doesn't happen.  Another, who stutters, but not when he holds his ears.

[bellamarie]

How Doth the Little Crocodile is parody of moralistic poems. A moralistic poem is supposed to teach morals and good qualities. It's a parody of the poem Against Idleness and Mischief, by Isaac Watts (that's the poem that Alice was originally reciting, beginning "how doth the little busy bee"). The difference is that the bee poem was teaching the morals of good, hard work... While the crocodile poem is parodying it by 'teaching' that deception, trickery, and predation are desired qualities.

To me it's another way of saying, Looks are deceiving. The crocodile in this poem is smiling to the fish, as if it had good intentions, when in reality, he really wanted to eat them up.

After reading this I thought of the poem The Spider to the Fly, how the spider lured the fly into his parlour, so of course I went to Google and found this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spider_and_the_Fly_(poem)

The Spider and the Fly

“Will you walk into my parlour?” said the Spider to the Fly,
 'Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy;
  The way into my parlour is up a winding stair,
   And I've a many curious things to shew when you are there.”

“Oh no, no,” said the little Fly, “to ask me is in vain,
 For who goes up your winding stair
     -can ne'er come down again.”

 ~By Mary Howitt, 1829

The story tells of a cunning Spider who ensnares a naive Fly through the use of seduction and flattery. The poem is a cautionary tale against those who use flattery and charm to disguise their true evil intentions. When Lewis Carroll was readying Alice's Adventures Under Ground for publication he replaced a parody he had made of a negro minstrel song[1] with a parody of Howitt's poem. The "Lobster Quadrille", in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, is a parody of Howitt's poem; it mimics the meter and rhyme scheme, and parodies the first line, but not the subject matter, of the original.[2]

Hmmmm......why after reading this did I feel it's how Carroll got the girls to always want to be with him and listen to his stories.  The girls are naive like the fly, while Carroll is like the spider, enticing them with more curious stories.  Sure gives me something to ponder.  These poems are like opening Pandora's box.

Ciao for now~

P.S.  I think Alice and the girls addressed him as Mr. Dodgson.  When we speak of his story he is Lewis Carroll, but when we speak of his childhood and life, he is Charles Dodgson aka  Dodo

[PatH]

Can someone take me aside and explain why Alice is trying to remember these verses at this time??

This happens when Alice has grown tall, and is trying to figure out if she is still the same person.  She tries to see if she still knows the same things.  First multiplication tables, which come out nonsense.  Then geography--"London is the capital of Paris, and Paris is the capital of Rome...".  Then she tries to remember Watts' poem, and this is what comes out.

[marcie]

Pat, yes, I think (to respond to Joan's good question), it's likely that the original was a poem that most children were taught to memorize and the Liddell girls would have recognized the contrast.

I found an article about morality and Alice in Wonderland that I think is a reasonable explanation. It's at http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_moral_lesson_in_Alice%27s_Adventures_in_Wonderland

"And while the Duchess is busy moralising [which happens later in the book], Alice speaks out for her right to actually think.

Thus it is arguable that Alice's Adventures in Wonderland has no 'moral', and that the entire book was intended as the antithesis of children's literature which does."

This site says that "During the Victorian era, recitals and related readings were very popular and audiences would gather in both home parlours and larger venues to hear poetry read aloud. Much emphasis was placed on learning the fine art of elocution." http://www.thememoryinstitute.com/remembering-and-reciting-poetry.html

I'm sure the practice was started with young children too, who had to memorize poems and that was just part of their accomplishments, like learning the distance to the center of the earth.

[marcie]

Joan and Bellamarie, I think that using Carroll in talking about his writing and Dodgson for his personal life is probably a good idea. I admit to being a bit lazy in just using Carroll for all (I also keep forgetting how Dodgson is spelled)  

[marcie]

We can continue to refer to previous chapters as we move on this week to the next chapters.

In Chapter 3, what creatures do we meet?

When Alice, the birds and other animals get to the bank soaking wet, how does the mouse attempt to "dry them?"

[Frybabe]

PatH, Radioman has been asking after you.

From the ballet, the Queen of Hearts:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5ZuM82ukQE

[PatH]

That's an amusing ballet--thanks, Frybabe.  I'll stick my nose in and reassure Don.

[JoanP]

Thanks everyone for the parody explanation.  Not to belabor the point, I'm still a bit puzzled as to how the little crocodile slithered into Alice's mixed-up state to get confused with the busy bee -  but that probably isn't part of the story.  Maybe it was the memory of a saltwater crocodile...possibly swimming around in Alice's own tears.  The pool of tears, complete with what looked like those Victorian bathing machines on the shore - so popular at this time.  Recently I remember them from when we read Tracey Chevalier's Remarkable Creatures - do you remember that?

The mouse DOES seem to understand French, doesn't he?  How frightened he became when Alice asked "ou est ma chatte"   It's a wonder he swam back to her when she apologized.  As soon as I saw the capital letters on the Duck, the Dodo, the Lory and the Eaglet, I assumed they represented some of the characters in the story.  I've an annotation which tells they represented those of the boating party-
 
Dodo= Dodgson
Duck= Rev. Dockworth
Lory=Lorina, the oldest Liddell girl
Eaglet= Edith, the youngest girl

But who was the Mouse?  (Is the mouse described as a male or a female, a "he" or a "she"? Will back and check  check on that.) One note suggests that  Aunt Lucy Lutwidge, ("a person of some authority") went with them on one such boating outing.  Another note suggests Mouse might be the children's governess, Miss Prickette.  The Mouse seems to be a familiar part of the party now...ready to dry off in the "Caucus-race"...

Not sure about the talk of William the Conquerer...we seem to be getting a little of everything here!

[bellamarie]

In my post #1089  I had listed the annotation of who the animals were to represent, but JoanP., interesting how the mouse could have been the governess. He sure is afraid of much, to be a governess.  My annotations said this about the aunt: 

Carroll took his sisters, Fanny and Elizabeth, and his Aunt Lucy Lutwidge (the "other curious creatures") on a boating expedition, along with the Reverend Duckworth and the three Liddell girls.

Okay off to read the next chapters.  I am a bit behind, with Easter and vacation in the same week.  All is finally back to normal, with the crying 5 month old included.

Ciao for now~

[bookad]

Frybabe: interesting link about the ballet of 'Alice In Wonderland'...didn't it say to be on stage about 2015!

Jonathan: a little 'aside' about people's writing habits....in my post 18 I wrote about reading 'An Uncommon Woman' about Queen Victoria & her eldest child Princess Vicki...they wrote each other all their lives and  it was interesting in their writings they would underline words ....in reading Jenny Woolf's book about Lewis Carroll his mother's writing letter suggest she did the same i.e. letter to her sister

...Loui I have only got the Llama Wool High Dress she had last Winter & for Carry & Mary I have got nothing for the morning-the few High Dresses they had last Winter are quite done-their Pelisses must also pass down to the younger ones (the two smallest being wanted to make one for darling Edwin...Can I get  wrong in choosing the above for them in Darlington? they would be less expensive there I should think....

their English is different as well....I wonder how this habit of underlining was established....coincidence that the two books I should read virtually back to back should have this same feature in each; people from the same era!!!

I always love books where the animals are humanized and relate to people with speech etc....interesting that Alice can speak such a variety of thoughts and sounds quite grown up at times yet makes the same mistake 2+ times in relating about her cat to animals who would have a normal fear of that species...

Deb

[PatH]

I can well believe the mouse is the governess.  When they need to dry off, the mouse recites the driest thing it knows, and it's a passage from a history book.

[Frybabe]

Frybabe: interesting link about the ballet of 'Alice In Wonderland'...didn't it say to be on stage about 2015!

It's possible, Bookad. I didn't pay attention. It does look like it had a run last year with several ballet troupes. The Royal Ballet in London commissioned Christopher Wheeldon and Nicholas Wright to write the ballet and it first opened there in 2011. It just did the ballet again in Jan.

Doing a little research, it looks like in May of 2015 The Washington Ballet will do a presentation
http://www.washingtonballet.org/season-performances/alice-in-wonderland-1

Vermont School of Ballet, May of this year
http://www.theballetschoolonline.com/performance/performance_schedule.html

Kansas City Ballet is including it in the 2014-2015 season, but I don't see a date for it listed.

I wouldn't mind seeing it myself. Looks like fun. I see I just missed a performance in Frederick, MD

[marcie]

Joan, I did recall the bathing machines from Remarkable Creatures. I was "proud" of myself that I knew about them :-)

That ballet looks like a lot of fun. I was surprised at the humor in it.

[JoanP]

This morning I was reading another book - Nancy Horan's Under the Starry Sky and found another reference to those bathing machines, Marcie!  And another reference to Alice in Wonderland in a news article in Sunday's paper!

PatH - that is SO funny - the Mouse telling the "driest thing" it knew - to dry off the soaked party -  the story of William the Conquerer and the Archbishop of Canterbury!  Here, I was, trying to figure out the meaning of the story - missing the word "driest" altogether.  It's a good thing you are all here to keep me from being so literal.

By the way, I read back and see no references whatever to the Mouse's gender. References to "its tale" and "Alice's eyes fixed on it."  I agree, the Mouse is probably the governess.

[PatH]

Literal doesn't get one very far with Carroll, except in weird, inverted ways.

I also looked hard for the mouse's gender.

[JoanP]

So how do they get dried off?  The Caucus-race - as explained by the DODO. (I've a note which explains that the "caucus-race" might  symbolize Committee members in English government who do lot of running around in circles, getting nowhere.)

   Silly, wasn't it?  They all ran around in circles until the Dodo yelled the race was over.  I guess they all won - they were all dry, anyway.  Dodo announces they all won prizes, and then he points to Alice who will hand them out.

  Enough currants in her pocket for all - but not enough for Alice.  She must hand her own thimble to the Dodo, who then hands it back to her as her prize.  There is political symbolism involved here too.  I don't think little children will get this - (I didn't either, did you?)

I must say, I did enjoy Tenniel's drawing of the Dodo - with little human hands - how else could he hand Alice the thimble?

[marcie]

Apparently the "dry" history lesson is one that the girls would have been familiar with. Lewis Carroll was quite subversive of their schooling, in a very witty way.

 Yes, JoanP, when the dry lessons fails to actually dry the group, the Dodo suggests they run a "caucus" race. He's satirizing politics too. Even today many people think that politicians don't accomplish much for all of their running around.