Hi from Downunder

[Kayta]

Hi from Australia, where we have to stand on our heads to read a book the right way up . I'm a voracious reader and been looking for a forum to talk about books and reading (the next best thing to doing it, is talking about it) for a while. It's so nice to find a forum that doesn't lump sci-fi/fantasy into horror or "OTHER" mixed categories. Or have posts with "like wow man, like totally" in them.

I read sci-fi/fantasy, obviously, but also science factual and mystery and humour and biography and general fiction and when I run out of good books/mags I've been known to read cereal packets just to keep my eyes moving. I'm married to a [shock, horror] non reader (he's dyslexic) but have managed to infect all 4 of my children with the voracious reader bug. Now all I have to do is explain to my 10 year old's teacher that YES she is allowed to read (selected) adult fiction, including Twilight.

Looking forward to discussing books and converting more people into Pratchett fans ('cause there's not enough of us downunder yet).

[Suzanne]

Like totally wow man, hello and welcome!

You have a great sense of humor, I look forward to chatting with you.

[DarrenHumby]

Welcome to forum, hope you enjoy your stay here, great topics up for discussion
Darren
www.darrenhumby.com

[oblivion]

Just wanted to add my words of welcome to Darren, Kayta and Eyebrowse as well.
Kayta, bad luck having to read the books standing on your head but believe me, reading them from back to front isn't easy either.

[missyannlala]

I am so glad to hear that you infected your children with the reading bug! I hope to do the same (in the future) even though my current 'husband to be' isn't a big reader.

The struggles we endure. haha.

Welcome!

[Kayta]

Thanks for all your welcomes. I'm chuckling already, obviously I've found the right place.

[Robert Tulip]

Just wanted to add my words of welcome to Darren, Kayta and Eyebrowse as well.
Kayta, bad luck having to read the books standing on your head but believe me, reading them from back to front isn't easy either.

Speaking of standing on your head in the antipathies, here is a comment from http://www.booktalk.org/alice-chapter-o ... t7206.html

It's hard to decide whether "Alice" attracts us because of "deeper meaning" that a child wouldn't see, or because it always awakens the child in us. The first chapter is the most magical in the book. I tend to see it as maybe the most successful evocation in literature (as far as I've read) of the dream state, with its illogicality and random but important meanings. Also I see it as reflecting the child's concerns about identity, which Carroll was perhaps the first to really think about. He took children seriously, in that sense.

Thanks Bill, this is a sound and astute analysis of the dream-like quality of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Deconstructing the meaning of the dream images, we can see that the 'Drink Me' bottle of size-altering magic potion stands for the emergence of modern chemistry and physics, both the transformative power of chemicals and the recognition of orders of magnitude in physics, from the atom to the universe. Old Father William is my favourite. Hailing from the Antipathies deep below Wonderland, Bill lives upside down, standing on his head for his health. The walrus and the carpenter are archetypes of the colonial experience. The walrus is fat colonel blimp, while the carpenter is his practical sidekick. They eat the oysters without noticing, much as England ate the world by establishing the British Empire.

Analysis of the dream visions of Alice in Wonderland requires entry into a child-like naivete and innocence, a theme we discussed here on Booktalk as appearing strongly in the famous English children's story The Secret Garden.

__________ 27 Dec 2009 07:39 __________

The theme 'Down the Rabbit Hole' provides a memetic English appropriation and reflection of deep old myths of descent into the earth.

The Greeks have the descent of Odysseus and of Orpheus into Hades to meet Pluto the God of Death. Christianity has the descent of Christ into hell after his death on the cross.

The meme of the descent into the earth comes originally from the shamanic practice of lucid dreaming to imagine tunnels into the earth as a main method of traditional medicine.

Religion and fiction find a need to incorporate this idea into their stories. Lewis Carroll represents a Victorian British perspective, where tales of primitive tribes were circulating among anthropologists, and the idea of descent also had a respectable orthodox imperial pedigree in the stories of Christ and Ulysses. Carroll borrows the mythic meme of the tunnel into the earth to provide a framework for his imaginary satire.

I get the feeling that this mythic resonance is a big part of why Alice in Underland strikes such a popular chord.

[Chris OConnor]

I'm cracking up too. What an intro and subsequent discussion. Welcome to BookTalk.org. You'll fit in well.