What was your experience reading the book Alice’s Adventure in Wonderland?

I turned the pages and read. It was a pretty normal experience. Not much different from any other book.

I read it when I was a kid – maybe age 8–9. I remember not liking it; the premise of all those normal things (like rabbits) talking and walking and wearing suits was too weird for me.

Since then, I have never liked Fantasy books, although I love science fiction in general.

I was a kid, and thought it clever and funny. I had no idea that it was brilliant and biting commentary on social norms and the vagaries of personality. But after navigating those norms and experiencing those personalities, I came to understand the tale as a work of absolute genius. It should be assigned reading for the nation’s politicians, and Trump could not be elected, were every voter compelled to review that book prior to entering the booth.

I’ve really enjoyed it every time I’ve read it.

It was wonderful!

Not a fan. I never took to fantasy very much, not as a kid nor as an adult.

I liked magic like Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie, but not stories like Alice in Wonderland that were more mysterious and scary and had odd characters.

It is a different read if you are smoking something or if you are not.

Read it again. If nothing else, it is a book about perceptions on and explanations of REALITY. The characters aren’t scary. They are purposefully absurd and designed to illustrate poignant truths. I’ll bet if you read this book, then switch on the news, a light will go on in your head.

@HP The reality isn’t very fun at this point either, and can be pretty scary.

The scary was my POV as a little girl; although, I don’t like talking animals or distorted images of people very much even now. Alice in Wonderland always had the illustrations or I saw it as a movie, so I was watching or seeing pictures not just in my own mind.

I also don’t like looking at videos of people who use those apps that make them look like animals. The exception is Halloween I sometimes draw a cat face with make-up and put on ears, and I’m ok with Mickey ears at Disney, but I’ve never owned a pair.

Holy shit! That would have been a catastrophe for me. I would have been afraid to be left alone in a room with a book. But did you see the Disney cartoon version of Alice when you were a kid? Think back and see if scenes from that film serve as allegories on current affairs.

I got the impression everyone was stoned out of their minds!

YES. They’re all crazier than shit, and they are all preposterously exaggerated so we cannot miss the point that they are crazier than shit. They live in a place where crazier than shit is the norm. Now think for a moment on just who among us are hell bent on convincing you and I that crazier than shit is NORMAL. When someone tells you Trump is fit for office, believe me they either never read or have forgotten this book.

It was a good book. So much better when I did acid and read it. ~

I LOVED IT! And sort of lived it.

I discovered Alice in my grandmothers book room the summer I was 12. Everything about it fascinated me, the story, the language, characters, the drawings. I couldn’t put it down or stop thinking of what could mean.

I still reread it. It’s one of three or four books I could say changed my life.

@chyna – Shrooooooommmms ;p

I remember my mother gave me a copy of “Alice in Wonderland” to read and I got stuck on the first page as I couldn’t understand how a book could have conversations in it. Somehow, I couldn’t understand how words which were spoken could appear in the text on a page and in frustration I gave up.

I read it eventually and enjoyed it and for a time it was one of my favourite books. I used to own a compendium that included most of Lewis Carroll’s writings, but “Alice in Wonderland” has always been my favourite.

Everything in Alice’s dream is monstrous and insane but Alice is always calm and reasonable. She is the voice of good sense that comes from within ourselves and not from the external world.

Very different read, before and after learning about Lewis Carroll.

I remember enjoying it so much I missed my station on BART.

It was fine. I’ve read better books.

This is one of those stories where the idea of it is much better than the story itself. I’m actually pretty fascinated by the idea of a Wonderland with all the quirks and characters in it. But the story just doesn’t do it for me.

I guess the book was supposed to be some kind of social satire with references only people of that time can catch? But if I have to do extensive research just to enjoy the book then the book fails me.

I’m more interested in the modern fictions that spawn out of the book than the book itself.

The Disney cartoon version was re-released in theaters when I was around 10. Of course it was necessarily a rather abridged rendition of the book, but there are scenes from that film I still vividly recall.