Some Pig (original) (raw)

Alice Through the Needle’s Eye: The Further Adventures of Lewis Carroll’s Alice, by Gilbert Adair – I had first heard of this in an essay, which I think was about Oz. I didn’t think of looking for it until recently, however. Beth gave it to me for my birthday. I’m not opposed to sequels by other hands, as I’m sure you can tell from my take on the post-Baum Oz books. I’m generally more concerned with whether the later author respects the original than whether they imitate the style, although one doesn’t preclude the other. Adair does try to copy Lewis Carroll in many ways, both in structure and wording, bringing Alice into a strange land through unusual means, taking her through a series of adventures with constant wordplay and sudden changes of scenery, and having her wake up at the end. As per the title, she’s transported through the eye of a needle, which she’s trying to thread to make a jacket for her cat Dinah. There’s a running alphabet theme that Alice discovers, starting with an A-stack and a swarm of bees, and ending with a Parliament meeting of all the letters. She sees a rain of cats and dogs, and encounters an Italian hairdresser who speaks in italics, and a Grampus who constantly reads from his own autobiography to find out what’s going to happen next. Some of the events are specifically crafted after ones from Carroll: a Welsh Rabbit instead of a Mock Turtle; a race involving Running a Temperature, Jumping to Conclusions, and Skipping the Difficult Passages instead of a caucus-race; and the Parliament meeting that dissolves into chaos like the Knave of Hearts’ trial or Alice’s coronation party. There are more storybook characters with the Country Mouse and Jack and Jill. The Red and White Queens reappear to wait with Alice in a seemingly endless queue.

And there are plenty of nonsense songs, although I don’t know that any of them are parodies like most of Carroll’s. In some ways, the wordplay seems even more frequent and to always build on itself more than in the originals. So maybe the issue is that Adair might have tried too hard, but that’s not really a fair complaint. I did enjoy reading the book, and illustrator Jenny Thorne does a good imitation of Tenniel.

This also leads me to recall another Alice-related book I own, Alice in Puzzle-Land, which my mom gave me in, I believe, my teenage years. The author, Raymond Smullyan, was a mathematician and logician, as well as a concert pianist. Published in 1982, the book isn’t really a story but a series of logic puzzles, with Alice and the other familiar characters used as a framing device. Each chapter would have a series of problems, progressing from fairly simple to really difficult. At one point, Humpty Dumpty discusses paradoxes, and argues that the “all Cretans are liars” anecdote technically isn’t one. Another chapter introduces the other White Knight, who is a Looking-Glass logician, a person with a belief system that seems insanely complicated but is pretty simple with a key. Martin Gardner, a friend of Smullyan’s, provides an introduction, and Greer Fitting provides mostly simplified and modified versions of Tenniel’s illustrations.

9 from the Nine Worlds, by Rick Riordan – This is a collection of nine short stories set in the Magnus Chase universe (which is actually the same as the Percy Jackson and Kane Chronicles universe, but with a different focus), each one featuring a different character and taking place in a different world from Norse mythological cosmology. It’s been a while since I read the Chase books, so I didn’t remember all of the characters that well, but the stories were enjoyable. One has Frigg‘s daughter Mallory Keen teaching the dragon Nidhogg insults to use against Ratatosk. In Other, the Dwarf Blitzen stops Alviss‘ attempt at revenge against Thor, the Valkyrie Samirah al-Abbas investigates the egg of one of the roosters that is supposed to crow at Ragnarok, and the Vanir are presented as hippies who like freeform jazz. Baldur makes an appearance in Helheim, and the tales are tied together by Thor taking a morning jog through all nine worlds.

Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White – I first saw the movie in second grade, and have seen it several times since then. I never read the book, though, even though I think I remember a copy of it at home. So I finally did, after buying a used copy in North Carolina. White takes a rather realistic and bittersweet view of nature, describing it as beautiful but also sad and fleeting. Wilbur, the runt of a litter of piglets, is saved from being killed by a girl named Fern, and he goes to live on a farm where he becomes best friends with a spider who only lives for a few months. She saves his life by writing messages in her web, convincing people that Wilbur is important enough not to be made into pork products. The film is a pretty straight adaptation in many ways, including quite a bit of the dialogue, but does make efforts to be a bit more cheerful. I understand White wasn’t a fan of the songs, even though not all of them are happy. And the character of Jeffrey, the misfit gosling who befriends Wilbur and Charlotte, isn’t in the book at all. Seven goslings do appear, but none of them have names. I always liked the rat Templeton in the movie, and he’s pretty much the same in the book, although everyone else likes to point out that he doesn’t have any morals. He’s not actively malicious in either version, however, and will help out if it doesn’t mean going out of his way or if he gets something out of it. There’s probably been some kind of study of the scale of animal and human communication in fiction, and this is a case where the animals all understand each other and the people around them, but the humans don’t understand them. Fern does, at least to an extent, and her parents wonder if she’s mentally ill. There’s no indication that Charlotte is any more intelligent than any other spider; she just cares more, I guess.

The Drawing of the Three, by Stephen King – The second book in the Dark Tower series has Roland discovering doors leading to different times and places in our world. Traveling through them, he’s able to both take other people’s minds and physically accompany them. He first meets Eddie Dean, a heroin addict forced into running drugs for the mob. In an earlier time, the two of them find Odetta Susannah Holmes, a Black woman with dissociative identity disorder, one of her personalities speaking in dialect that seems more like it’s from fiction than anything spoken by actual people. These two both accompany him on his journey to the Tower, ending up on the beach with the doors, which is inhabited by some monstrous lobster creatures that are fortunately edible. Another door brings Roland into the mind of the psychotic Jack Mort, who was responsible for both Odetta’s disabilities and the death of Jake in the previous book. The story progresses rather slowly over the course of these first two books, but the worlds in which it takes place are pretty complex.

I’ve also read a few more of the Uncle Wiggily books. I’m not going to do a full review of each one, as they’re pretty formulaic, but here are a few things that interested me. Uncle Wiggily’s Fortune has the gentleman rabbit, who already seems pretty well-to-do with his life of leisure and live-in housekeeper, going out to seek a fortune. He seems to spend most of his time seeking adventures and helping others, seemingly without having to work a job, even though there are other animals in the books who do. His search for riches leads him into multiple traps that he has to escape from, but he’s eventually gifted a huge crop of vegetables that’s worth a lot. The Skillery-Scallery Alligator makes an appearance in this one, with some worms helping the rabbit escape by tying up the reptile’s legs. It’s actually spelled as the Skillery-SCALERY Alligator, and I’ve also seen “Skallery”; there isn’t a whole lot of consistency there.

Uncle Wiggily’s Automobile tells of the experiences the rabbit has while driving around in a car that has an edible turnip steering wheel and bologna tires, with a lot of nonsense words used to describe the auto parts. Dr. Possum and Nurse Jane Fuzzy-Wuzzy are in this one, the latter finally becoming a real nurse. And in Uncle Wiggily’s Airship, the character builds a flying vehicle out of a clothes basket, toy balloons, and an electric fan.

It’s pretty fragile, but he still manages to get a lot of use out of it, and improves it over time. There’s a character in this one who I guess is non-binary, as Garis describes the Flump as “sometimes a he and sometimes a she.” They’re always unhappy, and enjoy making others miserable as well. When Uncle Wiggily cheers up the Flump, they start going by Scrump instead, and are described as “a nice old lady Grandmother.”