Thursday, October 28, 2010

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

by Lewis Carroll (Illustration by Camille Rose Garcia)

This is of course the classic story of Alice's Adventure in Wonderland...down the rabbit hole...the growing and the shrinking...meeting the white rabbit...the mad hatter. the duchess...the Cheshire cat...the Queen of Hearts (Off with her head!)...and the Mock Turtle and Gryphon.

I just read the story again because I got the new version with illustrations from Camille Rose Garcia. Well, firstly the book itself is like Mr. Carroll was on some hallucinatory substances. It reads like it's written by someone high whilst still maintaining some semblance of sanity, a 19th century stoner if you will.

Well, to add to the effect the new Garcia illustrations are just very very strange and add to this weird world that Carroll has created, though Garcia's illustrations have a more modern and dark undertone to it. See the cover there, you would wonder if Alice is a suicidal, pill-popping alcoholic who really is just tripping on too much medication. I always pictured it to be a colourful world, sort of like when the kids from That 70's Show smoke too much weed. That said, Garcia's is still a beautiful set of illustrations. Great book for any collector of classic fiction, updated with lovely modern artwork.

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