Wonderland: An Anthology

When I noticed this new set of short stories inspired by Alice in Wonderland I immediately begged a copy to read. I’m such an Alice fan that recently, when someone came into my home for the first time, they asked if it was my favourite book. I’m not sure I’d fully realised that I’d acquired a tea set, a dodo, a Mad March Hare, and a 5ft white rabbit with working pocket watch that stands in the hall! I have a lot of the literature inspired by Alice and fell in love all over again watching the recent Royal Ballet production of the story. Being a therapist means I have a fascination with the psychological aspects of the story. The ‘eat me/ drink me’ section can be read as an interpretation of puberty and the need to be noticed on one hand, but the urge to disappear on the other. The Red Queen as a metaphor for the stifling confines of Victorian middle-class womanhood, and her cries to chop off heads can be seen as a curtailing of Alice’s adventure and freedom. The White Rabbit is a picture of anxiety and The Mad Hatter and friends may be mad, or may be portraying madness to be free and avoid the court and all its rules. It is always the characters that draw me in most, just as they did when I was a child. I’m a sucker for anthropomorphic characters -as my collection of textile sculptures shows - so my imagination ran riot when I first read the novel, full of waistcoated rabbits, monocled dodoes and hares in top hats. I actually own a hare in a top hat. I’m a hopeless case! Lewis Carrol wrote a book so beloved that it has inspired writers, artists, photographers and filmmakers and the recent explosion of Alice merchandise means we see it everywhere we go. I was interested to see what writers such as M.R. Carey and Catriona Ward had done with the story.

Some stories pick up the psychological elements I find intriguing such as Alison Littlewood’s ‘Eat Me, Drink Me’ where a woman who is getting married has doubts and imagines how much easier it would be to become her pet rabbit. This reminded me of Tim Burton’s film version which opens at a garden party where Alice’s engagement is to be announced. Tiring of being primped and made ‘acceptable’ to the restrictive society gathered in the garden, Alice follows the white rabbit into a maze where she escapes into Wonderland. This underlying theme of the what is acceptable female behaviour is echoed elsewhere in the anthology; in Juliet Marillier’s story ‘Good Dog, Alice’ Dorothea’s grandad warns her against calling the dog Alice because creatures with that name can be prone to ‘wild escapades’ and in George Mann’s ‘About Time’ a girl called Lucy has visited Wonderland as a child, but now she’s a grown woman shouldn’t such childish pursuits be set aside?

The underlying creepiness and horror of Wonderland inspires other stories within the collection. I remember being horrified by the scene with the Duchess, the pig and the meat cleaver when I was young and I find Tweedledum and Tweedledee slightly disturbing, because although comic, they remind me of the ghostly twin girls in Stephen King’s The Shining. L.L. McKinney’s story is set in a world already created by her novel ‘A Blade So Black’ and brings an Alice twist to the crimes of Jack the Ripper in a story entitled ‘What Makes A Monster.’ ‘There Were No Birds To Fly’ is M.R. Carey’s take on some of Wonderland’s residents by placing them in the horror genre whereas Cavan Scott represents some of the gorier elements of the tale with some residents slowly disappearing. Carroll’s book pairs well with the fantasy/supernatural genre and I feel these stories are quite successful. The whole anthology is bookended with two Alice poems by Jane Yolan.

There is something for everyone here and while not every story grabbed my imagination, there were certainly enough to keep me interested. Every anthology I’ve read feels uneven because I don’t connect with every genre and writer, and I’m sure the favourite stories here would be different reader by reader. What the anthology tells me as a whole, is that Lewis Carroll’s story is a living entity, ripe for adaptation and inspiring to every new generation and reader. The story is so rich that it really does lend itself to most genres, with this anthology alone ranging across sci-fi, horror, fantasy, cyber-punk and crime fiction. It can also be transported to any location - here it is relocated to the present day, takes in the folklore of Japan and the Wild West. For me, it’s still the psychological aspects that resonate, where Wonderland is a metaphor for freedom, escape, madness and the difficulties of growing up or saying goodbye. Rio Youer’s story ‘Vanished Summer Glory’ explores bereavement and what grief does to the imagination. I’m sure I will dip in and out of this book from time to time, but for now I’m going to make a cup of tea in my ‘Drink Me’ mug, plump up my flamingo cushions and put up my white rabbit slippers. Maybe I’ll have a snooze, or an adventure....