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Jan. 8th, 2005 05:03 pmA few Christmas cards still trickling in, which is nice since I kind of feel like I missed the holiday. One from M's mum's mate Marie, which is just nice and alliterative to type, another from my cousin, who in response to M's comment that America "has no history," sent him a Native American flint arrowhead. (Also sent me an article on Billy's Bakery, from Country Living magazine of all places. Hard to think of 9th Ave. in the low 20s as "country," despite Billy's retro charm . . . )
Deeply engaged in prepping the Alice course. (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
teenygozer, are you out there?) Will Brooker's Alice's Adventures is a really good cultural studies-based approach to contemporary responses, both views of Carroll/Dodgson and Alice, and modern retellings, films, illustrations, the American McGee game, etc. It's a book I wish I'd had last year, or else I wish it hadn't been written, as I spent all semester planning to write it. (However, his approach is enough different than mine that he leaves space for my project.)
Also skimming through All Things Alice by the dubiously-named Linda Sunshine; this is more of a scrapbook "non-book" kind of deal, but it's full of older illustrations and a few useful bits and pieces, including the best compilation of Alice websites, some of which neither I nor my students stumbled across last time.
Finally, rented Dennis Potter's Dreamchild, the story of the older Alice Hargreaves coming to New York to a celebration of Carroll at Columbia. The movie's not historically accurate (instead of coming to NY with her son Caryl, she comes with an orphan/companion, Lucy, who falls in love with Peter Gallagher, who plays a young reporter who ends up acting as Alice's agent). Ian Holm, of all people, plays Dodgson/Carroll in the flashbacks. The music is almost menacing in some of his scenes with young Alice, and I honestly was waiting for some horrible pedophilia revelation, but instead the movie is playing with expectations and it ends on a note of reconciliation. (Alice Liddell Hargreaves, rather like Christopher Robin Milne, was not always happy in adult life to be best known as the original of a character in children's books.)
There are Henson puppets representing some of the Wonderland characters that pop up in Alice's memory, and they work quite effectively. I ended up really liking this movie and will be showing it in class for certain. Wish it was out on DVD, though -- I will probably end up picking up a used VHS copy because it is something I'd like to have in the collection.
For tonight, I've got a BBC Moll Flanders which I'm considering showing to my other class.
Deeply engaged in prepping the Alice course. (
teenygozer, are you out there?) Will Brooker's Alice's Adventures is a really good cultural studies-based approach to contemporary responses, both views of Carroll/Dodgson and Alice, and modern retellings, films, illustrations, the American McGee game, etc. It's a book I wish I'd had last year, or else I wish it hadn't been written, as I spent all semester planning to write it. (However, his approach is enough different than mine that he leaves space for my project.)Also skimming through All Things Alice by the dubiously-named Linda Sunshine; this is more of a scrapbook "non-book" kind of deal, but it's full of older illustrations and a few useful bits and pieces, including the best compilation of Alice websites, some of which neither I nor my students stumbled across last time.
Finally, rented Dennis Potter's Dreamchild, the story of the older Alice Hargreaves coming to New York to a celebration of Carroll at Columbia. The movie's not historically accurate (instead of coming to NY with her son Caryl, she comes with an orphan/companion, Lucy, who falls in love with Peter Gallagher, who plays a young reporter who ends up acting as Alice's agent). Ian Holm, of all people, plays Dodgson/Carroll in the flashbacks. The music is almost menacing in some of his scenes with young Alice, and I honestly was waiting for some horrible pedophilia revelation, but instead the movie is playing with expectations and it ends on a note of reconciliation. (Alice Liddell Hargreaves, rather like Christopher Robin Milne, was not always happy in adult life to be best known as the original of a character in children's books.)
There are Henson puppets representing some of the Wonderland characters that pop up in Alice's memory, and they work quite effectively. I ended up really liking this movie and will be showing it in class for certain. Wish it was out on DVD, though -- I will probably end up picking up a used VHS copy because it is something I'd like to have in the collection.
For tonight, I've got a BBC Moll Flanders which I'm considering showing to my other class.
