Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin
Buy on Amazon: Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin
I’ve been on quite the Alice in Wonderland binge lately. Over the Christmas break I read the Looking Glass Wars books by Frank Bedder, then more recently saw the new Alice in Wonderland movie. Then.. I picked up Alice I Have Been.
What a breath of fresh air this was compared to the over saturation of everything else. Instead of exploring more of “Wonderland”, Melanie Benjamin gives us a fictional account of the Alice so few of us actually knew, the one living in our world.
Now, with that said I will tell you.. there are some really creepy, really disturbing parts to this book. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) was a disturbed individual (as evidenced by the photographs he would take of young girls see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Carro…) I was thoroughly weirded out by the behavior and, honestly, was thankful that Alice in Wonderland is not one of my favorite childhood stories.
Okay, so I said it. It wasn’t one of my favorites. Let me warn you before you pick up this book – if Alice in Wonderland IS one of your favorite stories it’s very possible that reading this fictional book (even with the inspiration it takes from reality) will impact your view of the original Alice in Wonderland. It has affected mine. I intend to do a bit more reading, but regardless.. my view of Alice has been altered.
The story is interesting, I loved how Melanie Benjamin did not hesitate to give us a real picture of what Alice’s life might have been like. I loved the fictional retelling of a real-life meeting between Alice and Peter Llewelyn Davies (Yes.. that Peter Pan). There were quite a few things I loved about this book and I wouldn’t discourage anyone from reading it, aside from what I stated above.
