Lewis Carroll: Nonsense Against Sorrow - Softcover

What kind of a man was Lewis Carroll, and what motivated him to write the "Alice" books? David Holbrook draws on Carroll's correspondence, as well as the work of 20th century psychoanalysts, to step inside the looking glass of Alice, as it were, and see what the books reveal to us about the desires and conflicts of Carroll himself and about his relationships with those around him. The eternal freshness of Lewis Carroll's "Alice" books is evidence that there is much more in them than has as yet been examined and explained by the many critics and biographers who have written about his work. There is an enigma here - a man who led a somewhat dull life but who produced these stories that are so fascinating that they have become popular all over the world. Holbrook believes that the clue to their enigmatic appeal lies in the unconscious meanings that the books have for us. He sees the origins of these in the inner preoccupations of the author who suffered a trauma in infancy, and discusses this in detail, bringing in the work of psychoanalysts such as Phyllis Greenacre and D.W. Winnicott in particular. The book is a journey of discovery into the inner world of a great genius. It contains four photographs taken by Carroll, two of his own drawings, one by his friend Gertrude Thomson, and one by John Tenniel.

"To build a substantial reputation in one literary field is a signal achievement; but David Holbrook's name is known and respected in the domains of education theory and practice, in literary criticism and as a novelist and poet. David Hamilton Eddy in a profile on Holbrook in the Times Higher Education Supplement, 30th April 1993. Holbrook is startlingly original in using object relations theory from Klein, Fairbairn, Guntrip, Winnicott, and others to ground literary criticism in the realities of human development and interaction. Prof. Andrew Brink, University of Toronto"