Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Publication
St. Martin's Press (2010), Edition: 1, 336 pages
Description
A portrait of the author of "Alice in Wonderland" analyzes contradictory aspects of his character, tapping recently discovered sources to set Carroll's life in the context of Victorian England, and assesses his financial difficulties and his relationship with the real Alice.
Media reviews
In "The Mystery of Lewis Carroll" Woolf eschews the minutiae and factual richness of [Morton] Cohen's magisterial biography of 1995. Her aim is to present a convincing portrait, and she writes with affection as well as admiration for the man revealed by her research. Above all, she urges modern
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readers to remember that Victorian mores differed radically from our own. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member waltzmn
The answer is probably "autism." Now what was the question?
The riddle of Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) somewhat resembles the ultimate question of "life, the universe, and everything" in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: we know that the answer is 42 (a number, incidentally, that seems to
Charles Dodgson is an enigma. So much so that this deeply religious man has been variously painted as a pedophile, a writer of horror stories -- even as Jack the Ripper. So there have been many attempts to "explain" him.
But what is there to explain? He went to college. He became a mathematics teacher. He came to like the children of the Dean. He wrote a number of books. He was very shy and rather isolated. He never married. He died. What is so peculiar about that?
Jenny Woolf tackles that problem head-on. This isn't a biography, although it includes much biographical information; if you want a true life story, Morton N. Cohen's monumental work would be a better place to start. Woolf instead tries to look at what we know about Dodgson's personality, using what sources she can (including his check register, which she was the first to explore).
Her conclusions seem mostly sound. He wasn't a pedophile, merely a man who loved children. He was isolated, hard to understand, probably very lonely inside. Depressive. A man who loved children because they loved him.
Writing as an autistic, I do think she has missed a key point: Dodgson's evident autism, which explains his shyness and his social failures and his peculiar friendships. But although she does not emphasize this, she gives much of the data which hints at an autism diagnosis. Her analysis explains a great deal.
This is not the place to start if you are studying Dodgson. But if you find this strange, diffident, brilliant man worth studying, this is a book you will want to read.
The riddle of Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) somewhat resembles the ultimate question of "life, the universe, and everything" in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: we know that the answer is 42 (a number, incidentally, that seems to
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have fascinated Dodgson), but we don't know what it is the answer to.Charles Dodgson is an enigma. So much so that this deeply religious man has been variously painted as a pedophile, a writer of horror stories -- even as Jack the Ripper. So there have been many attempts to "explain" him.
But what is there to explain? He went to college. He became a mathematics teacher. He came to like the children of the Dean. He wrote a number of books. He was very shy and rather isolated. He never married. He died. What is so peculiar about that?
Jenny Woolf tackles that problem head-on. This isn't a biography, although it includes much biographical information; if you want a true life story, Morton N. Cohen's monumental work would be a better place to start. Woolf instead tries to look at what we know about Dodgson's personality, using what sources she can (including his check register, which she was the first to explore).
Her conclusions seem mostly sound. He wasn't a pedophile, merely a man who loved children. He was isolated, hard to understand, probably very lonely inside. Depressive. A man who loved children because they loved him.
Writing as an autistic, I do think she has missed a key point: Dodgson's evident autism, which explains his shyness and his social failures and his peculiar friendships. But although she does not emphasize this, she gives much of the data which hints at an autism diagnosis. Her analysis explains a great deal.
This is not the place to start if you are studying Dodgson. But if you find this strange, diffident, brilliant man worth studying, this is a book you will want to read.
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LibraryThing member kraaivrouw
I was looking forward to this because I think it's interesting to look at the debate surrounding Carroll and the attempt to place him within the context of his era is interesting. Due to the loss of his diaries (it's likely his family destroyed them), Carroll is in many ways a cipher - he's a blank
The book is written in such a dry fashion that it was really difficult to get through until finally I gave up and skimmed for more interesting bits (there aren't many). This ground is well-covered in other places and while the book's big new discovery, the records of Carroll's bank accounts, is definitely a new discovery it's also not incredibly illuminating or interesting, or at least this writer didn't make it so.
At the end of the day maybe this just wasn't the book I expected or the book I wanted. It was a bore and sucked the life out of its subject and that's really too bad.
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canvas for the biographer to write themselves on. It is this quality of him, so consonant with his books and poems, that makes it all so fascinating. This, however, is not a fascinating book.The book is written in such a dry fashion that it was really difficult to get through until finally I gave up and skimmed for more interesting bits (there aren't many). This ground is well-covered in other places and while the book's big new discovery, the records of Carroll's bank accounts, is definitely a new discovery it's also not incredibly illuminating or interesting, or at least this writer didn't make it so.
At the end of the day maybe this just wasn't the book I expected or the book I wanted. It was a bore and sucked the life out of its subject and that's really too bad.
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LibraryThing member PuddinTame
I thoroughly enjoyed this biography, but I think that it is probably not the first or only biography of Carroll that one should read. Woolf is not so much chronicling the events of his life as attempting to get at his personality and inner life. I would therefore recommend first reading a more
That said, this is quite interesting. Woolf has organized her material by the aspects of Carroll's life that she is exploring, rather than chronologically. This approach has its pluses and minuses. One the one hard it enables Woolf to explore coherently and in detail the various subjects. It is a trifle confusing, unless one has a better head for dates that I have, since it is hard to form a view of Carroll at a particular moment in life.
Woolf finds that there Carroll was conflicted with his various roles and inclinations, but on the whole he appears to have succeeded in balancing them. He was deeply religious, and understood the need for outward conformity, even while he was sometimes impatient with strict notion of propriety. She points out that with his father's death, Carroll was left with some responsibility as oldest son towards his ten siblings, especially his six unmarried sisters. If he had married, he would have lost his job at Oxford, besides adding more dependents, and best alternative was as a parish priest, a job that was not remunerative, and which apparently did not appeal to him. So his failure to marry may simply have been a realistic assessment of his situation.
Woolf argues that far from being a pedophile, Carroll's accounts show that he gave to charities to protect children from abuse. She sees his relationships with children as directing his affections towards those who were not sexually alluring to him, and therefore safe in an era that did not allow moral sexual relations outside of marriage. Moreover, Carroll had been a fond brother to his siblings, eight of whom were younger, and was hence very experienced at dealing with and amusing children. The children also sometimes served as chaperones that enabled him to interact with older girls and adult women while maintaining propriety.
The book is illustrated with photographs and drawings, many of them by Carroll.
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conventional biography, first.That said, this is quite interesting. Woolf has organized her material by the aspects of Carroll's life that she is exploring, rather than chronologically. This approach has its pluses and minuses. One the one hard it enables Woolf to explore coherently and in detail the various subjects. It is a trifle confusing, unless one has a better head for dates that I have, since it is hard to form a view of Carroll at a particular moment in life.
Woolf finds that there Carroll was conflicted with his various roles and inclinations, but on the whole he appears to have succeeded in balancing them. He was deeply religious, and understood the need for outward conformity, even while he was sometimes impatient with strict notion of propriety. She points out that with his father's death, Carroll was left with some responsibility as oldest son towards his ten siblings, especially his six unmarried sisters. If he had married, he would have lost his job at Oxford, besides adding more dependents, and best alternative was as a parish priest, a job that was not remunerative, and which apparently did not appeal to him. So his failure to marry may simply have been a realistic assessment of his situation.
Woolf argues that far from being a pedophile, Carroll's accounts show that he gave to charities to protect children from abuse. She sees his relationships with children as directing his affections towards those who were not sexually alluring to him, and therefore safe in an era that did not allow moral sexual relations outside of marriage. Moreover, Carroll had been a fond brother to his siblings, eight of whom were younger, and was hence very experienced at dealing with and amusing children. The children also sometimes served as chaperones that enabled him to interact with older girls and adult women while maintaining propriety.
The book is illustrated with photographs and drawings, many of them by Carroll.
Show Less
LibraryThing member MizPurplest
Unique perspective, but had trouble holding my attention.
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2010
Physical description
9.56 inches
ISBN
0312612982 / 9780312612986