16/06/2026
BOOK REVIEW: "Through the Looking Glass" by Lewis Carroll
Well walking around the FMI library and came across a copy of 'Through the Looking Glass' by Lewis Carroll. First published in the 1870s (this version is from 2011). Well as I haven't read this book since childhood thought I will have a look. Well had such a good time reading the book, so I wish to tell share information about this book and its author dear reader.
The story is one of a fantasy where a young women falls asleep, and dreams she enters a reverse world through the mirror on the mantelpiece, whilst playing with her kitten. This incidentally is not a childrens book, but a book with a child protagonist.
In the world she (Alice) enters, the characters take the form of chess pieces, and the world that of a chess board.
Alice progresses across the board till she enters the eighth square and become a Queen.
On the way she encounters strange feelings and events and a plethora of characters. Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Humpty Dumpty, White Knight, and Kings and Queens, and she experiences disassociation and disorientation.
These characters in the parade of characters purportedly mirrored real life personages in Carroll's circle. All ends well you will be glad to know.
The narrative contains several poems. One of particular note is "Jabberwocky". The opening and closing verse, which are in mirror writing in first instance, are as follows
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe
A nonsense poem, which follows standard parameters, but utilises made up words in a beguiling manner. Some words have become standard English such as 'chortle' ie chuckle and snort. Other poems appear in the text which include phrases much used in English expressions, such as 'of cabbages and kings".
To talk of many things is the expressions meaning but it is used as title of stories (O. Henry) and music bands.
The book ends with an acrostic poem which spells out the name of a young women of a family the author was friendly with, and who may have inspired the story. The word plays which the author indulges in include many portmanteau ie the combining of two words to make a separate meaning. Contemporary examples are 'Bollywood' or 'Mockumentary'. Other word use calls upon a knowledge of older or dialect English. Gyre and gimble for example.
The book explores elements of mathematics and philosophy of a kind. Constant double talk and puns litter the text. The author whose pen name was Lewis Carroll, was in fact a certain Dodgson who was an establishment figure, churchman and long time academic. He was also an innovative mathematician and inventor of some renown, who had a gift for photography in its early days around the 1880's.
The work and its authors life have been subject of many kinds of analysis, from Freudian to anti-establishment. Does his satire undermine the society he lived in? Was his penchant for photographing young girls aberrant? Theories abound.
For such a small piece the book enlivens debate at several levels. Moral, linguistic and just as a nonsense yarn to entertain the kids.
Read and enjoy - Review by Neil
