Alice in Real Life Wonderland. All interesting in art and beyond. Soup for the poor

Greg Hildenbrandt © kinopoisk.ru

Today, 4th of July , Book lovers all over the world are celebrating the birthday of the legendary adventure story "Alice in Wonderland". On this day, more than 150 years ago, the British publishing house Macmillan published and presented the first edition of the legendary book by Lewis Carroll. This fairy tale became a real legend, a favorite book of millions of readers. We invite you to find out interesting facts about your favorite book, as well as remember catch phrases.

Lewis Carroll © vk.com

English mathematician Charles Lutwidge Dodgson wrote the tale of the travels of the girl Alice in the amazing Wonderland. In 1862, during a picnic, Charles began telling a fictional tale on the go to Alice Liddell, daughter of the faculty dean of Christ Church College in Oxford, where Carroll taught mathematics. The ten-year-old baby was so carried away by the fairy tale that she began to persuade the narrator to write this story down. Dodgson followed the advice and, under the name of Lewis Carroll, wrote the book "Alice in Wonderland", which was born exactly three years after the fateful picnic. It was destined to become one of the most popular books of all time, with which both adults and children have been addicted over the years.

The book "Alice in Wonderland" has been translated into 125 languages of the world. But the translators had to work hard on the text. The fact is that if you translate the fairy tale literally, then all the humor and all the charm created by the author disappears. The original version has a lot of puns and witticisms based on features. of English language.

"Alice in Wonderland" was filmed 40 times, including animated versions... The first film adaptation was filmed in 1903. Just a few years after Carroll's death, directors Cecile Hepworth and Percy Stove filmed a 12-minute film based on the story. At that time - the beginning of the century - it was the longest film shot in the UK.

It is interesting that in the first version of the tale there were no such vivid characters as the Hatter and the Cheshire Cat.

In one of the most popular translations, the Hatter was called the Hatter. This is because in English "hatter" meant not only "hatter". This word was used to describe people who do everything wrong. The British even have a saying: "mad as a hatter".

There are over a million paintings created by artists from all over the world that depict episodes from the legendary tale. Salvador Dali painted 13 watercolors for different situations from the book.

The poem "Jabberwock", which is included in the fairy tale "Alice in Wonderland", consists almost entirely of non-existent words. However, these words obey the laws of English - and are very similar to the real ones.

Top 10 best quotes from the book "Alice in Wonderland":

You know, one of the biggest losses in a battle is losing your head.
Tomorrow is never today! Is it possible to wake up in the morning and say: "Well, now, finally tomorrow"?
The best way to explain is to do it yourself.
If each person did their own thing, the Earth would spin faster.
From mustard - they are upset, from onions - they are cunning, from wine - they blame, and from muffin - they are kind. What a pity that no one knows about this ... Everything would be so simple. If you ate baked goods, you would be good!
The more you learn at once, the less you suffer afterwards.
You are beautiful. All that is missing is a smile.
Do not be sad. Sooner or later, everything will become clear, everything will fall into place and line up in a single beautiful pattern, like lace. It will become clear why everything was needed, because everything will be correct.
I've seen cats without smiles, but a smile without a cat ...
Alice was surprised that she was not surprised, but the amazing day had just begun, and there is nothing surprising in the fact that she had not yet begun to wonder.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.
Of course, now there are already and will be many publications on this topic, and each one gives its own idea of the fantastic events in the life of Alice or Carroll.

Before breakfast, Alice said, there are six impossible things; but I bring you seven real things: little-known ideas in this special combination of madness and sanity, maturity and childhood of Alice in Wonderland.

The original title of the tale was "Alice's Adventures Underground", and it might seem that our heroine should have met the Queen of Moles and not the Queen of Hearts (hearts).

Fortunately, Carroll was quite self-critical, he offered several options to his friend, writer and editor Tom Taylor.
Some titles, such as Alice in Among the Goblins, were even worse, but luckily Taylor helped with the selection and Carroll settled on Wonderland as we have today.

He named himself too cumbersome. Charles presented four options to his editor for his review: Edgar Cuthwellis, Edgar U. C. Westhill, Louis Carroll, and Lewis Carroll.

2. Alice's story arose one day.

It is not always possible to pinpoint the origin of a book in one day, month, or year, but with Alice we have that luxury thanks to the author's extensive writing.

On July 4, 1862, Carroll took little Alice Liddell and her sisters Loreena and Edith to go boating. To entertain the girls, he sculpted - seemingly out of thin air - a series of adventures in an unknown land in which Alice became a heroine.
(Loreena and Edith were given less glamorous roles: Lori and Eaglet).

Delighted with the stories, the girls asked Carroll to write down the stories. Two and a half years later, Carroll completed the manuscript as a Christmas present in 1864.

3. Complex mathematics and Christian secret symbols in "The Adventures of Alice".

Carroll's father, a cleric and later an archdeacon, instilled in his eldest son a passion for mathematics and strict adherence to Anglican doctrine.

Some critics, for example, saw the tale as Carroll's rebellion against the repressive socio-religious context of Victorian England.

Alice fought, after all, against bizarre characters who impose strict, meaningless rules.
They wrote that the book addresses popular mathematical discoveries.

The Caterpillar, the Hatter and the Hare became irrational supporters of the new in mathematics, and the Cheshire Cat delighted the emissaries of Euclidean geometry, his smile is the shape of an ellipse.

4. Carroll's attitude towards Alice may not have been platonic.

The 150th anniversaries of great books tend not to focus on negative stories, but Carroll's tale has a sinister side.

Although his writing brought him fame, Carroll's main artistic preoccupation was the photography he produced.

Often scantily dressed girls were his models. In fact, he wrote in his letters, "he is unlikely to agree that girls' forms should ever be closed." (Recent biographers have tried to normalize this behavior in the eyes of society and clear their name).

The exact nature of their relationship is murky - his diaries are missing from April 1858 to May 1862 - but Alice played at least the problematic role of Carroll's little muse. (He was 20 years older than her.)

In Alice's writings on this subject, there are no hints of sexual relations, but there is something obvious in the photographs.

5. Alice has since become a muse for generations of artists and writers since Carroll - including Vladimir Nabokov.

Virginia Woolf: "Alice is not books for children," she once said. "They are the books with which we become children."

What Wolfe meant is that these tales restore the ability to think creatively. They remind adult readers how even the dystopia of the heartless Queen of Hearts' world can be a series of delightful games.
Surrealists André Breton and Salvador Dali also took a particular interest in Wonderland.

Other writers were amazed dark side fairy tales. Vladimir Nabokov, who translated Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in Russia, was heavily influenced by Carroll's books when he wrote his classic Lolita.

6. There are about 20 first editions of the book - and only one original manuscript.

7. Pictures of Alice can be even more important than her words.

The illustrations are secondary to most authors, but as emphasized at the Morgan exhibit, this is not Carroll's case. He made 37 pen and ink sketches for the original manuscript.

Although he had the eye of a photographer, he lacked the talent of a draftsman.

He invited Sir John Tenniel to do the illustrations for Alice. Tenniel, as we know, is the first illustrator of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass, whose illustrations are considered canonical today.

On August 2, 1865, the Macmillan Publishing House published the first edition of Lewis Carroll's The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland.

SmartNews decided to choose the 5 most interesting facts associated with this famous tale.

Hatter

There is a character in the tale called the Hatter or the Mad Hatter. The name Mad Hatter owes its origin to the English proverb "mad as a hatter". The emergence of such a proverb is due to the fact that in the 19th century, the masters who were engaged in the manufacture of hats often suffered from excitability, speech impairments, and also trembling hands. The health disorder of the hatters was caused by chronic mercury poisoning. The mercury solution was used to treat the hat felt. As you know, the poisonous vapors of mercury affect the central nervous system.

Cheshire Cat

The Cheshire Cat was absent in the original version of the tale. This character was added to the tale in 1865. Some explain the mysterious smile of the Cheshire Cat by the then popular saying "smiles like a Cheshire cat." Some researchers believe that the appearance of a smiling cat was given to the famous Cheshire cheese. According to another version, the idea of inventing this character of Carroll was prompted by the figure of a sandstone cat, which was installed near the church of St. Wilfrid in the village of Grappenhall.

Mouse-Sonya

The character Mouse-Sonya in the book "Alice in Wonderland" was periodically in the teapot. This can be explained by the fact that children at that time kept dormouse as pets in teapots. The kettles were filled with grass and hay.

Turtle Quasi

The Quasi Turtle character in Lewis Carroll's book often cries. This is due to the fact that sea turtles often have tears. They help the turtles remove salt from the body.

Exactly 155 years ago - July 4, 1862 - during a picnic, Charles Dodgson took a walk with three Liddell girls. Then an unknown math teacher told them the story of the adventures of a little girl who ran after the rabbit into Wonderland. One of Dean Liddell's daughters - 10-year-old Alice - insisted that he write down the whole story. Dodgson followed the advice and wrote Alice in Wonderland under the name of Lewis Carroll. This is how a wonderful fairy tale was born, on which not a single generation of children grew up.

Here are some interesting facts about the famous book.

Its first edition was completely destroyed, because the author was not very happy with it. By the way, many of the beloved characters were not originally in "Alice". One of these is the Cheshire Cat. The working title of the work was Alice's Adventures Underground.

The adventure story about Alice during the lifetime of Lewis Carroll brought him incredible popularity. The book has been filmed more than 40 times. In addition, several computer games have been created based on the fairy tale.

The book has been translated into 125 languages of the world. And it wasn't that easy. The thing is that if you translate a fairy tale literally, then all the humor and all its charm disappears - there are too many puns and witticisms in it based on the peculiarities of the English language. Therefore, the greatest success was enjoyed not by the translation of the book, but by the retelling of Boris Zakhoder. In total, there are about 13 options for translating a fairy tale into Russian. Moreover, in the first version, created by an anonymous translator, the book was called "Sonya in the kingdom of the diva." The next translation appeared almost 30 years later, and the cover read "Anya's Adventures in the World of Wonders." And Boris Zakhoder admitted that he considered the name "Aliska in the Rascal" more appropriate, but decided that the public would not appreciate such a title.

The prototype of the book Alice was Alice Liddell, with whose family Carroll talked. This fact is indicated on her memorial plaque. She lived a long and happy life. At the age of 28, she married a professional cricketer in Hampshire and had three sons. Unfortunately, both eldest sons died in the First World War. Alice died at the age of 82.

About creating a book:

· Many scenes of the tale have been analyzed by scientists and researchers from various fields of knowledge. So, in the episode when Alice falls into the hole, she asks herself questions of logical positivism. And cosmologists saw in the scenes of Alice's increase and decrease the influence of a theory that tells about the expansion of the Universe. Also in the fairy tale they saw a hidden satire on Darwin's theory of evolution and the theory of natural selection (episodes with a sea of tears and running in a circle).

· The book contains 11 poems, which were a kind of parodies of moralizing songs and poems of that time. Their perception is difficult for modern reader, it is especially difficult to understand the skilful play on words of the writer in the translations of the book.

· The first book reviews were negative rather than positive. One magazine in 1900 called the fairy tale too unnatural and overloaded with weirdness, dubbing Carroll's work a dream fairy tale.

The book contains great amount mathematical, philosophical and linguistic allusions, so not every adult can understand all the subtleties of the book. This work is considered the best example of the genre of absurdity in literature.

Crazy characters The Hatter and the March Hare were borrowed by Carroll from english sayings: "Crazy as a hatter" and "crazy as a March hare." This behavior of hares can be easily explained by the mating season, and the madness of the hatter is due to the fact that in ancient times mercury was used to make felt, and mercury poisoning causes mental disorders.

· In the original version of the tale, the Cheshire Cat was absent. Carroll only added it in 1865. Many people still argue about the origin of the mysterious smile of this character: some say that at that time the saying “smiles like a Cheshire cat” was very popular, others are sure that this is due to the fact that the famous Cheshire cheese was once given the look of a smiling cat.

· In honor of most of the names that were associated with the book (including the prototype of the main character - Alice Liddell), and the names of the characters themselves, astronomers named minor planets.

· Originally the book "Alice in Wonderland" was titled "Alice's Adventures Underground" and was personally illustrated by the author. Lewis Carroll is literary pseudonym Charles Ludwidge Dodgson. He was professor of mathematics at Oxford.

Cinema:

· The Matrix has many parallels to Alice in Wonderland, including some that can only be seen by reading the script. Offering two pills to choose from for Neo, Morpheus says, "Pick red, you'll stay in wonderland and I'll show you how deep this rabbit hole goes." And when Neo does right choice, on the face of Morpheus "the smile of the Cheshire cat" appears.

· In the film "Resident Evil", the director used a lot of analogies of the film with L. Carroll's fairy tales: the name of the main character, the name of the computer "Red Queen", a white rabbit on which the action of the T-virus and antivirus was tested, access to the "Umbrella Corporation" through mirror, etc.

· In Tideland, Jelisa-Rose reads excerpts from Alice in Wonderland to her father, and reminiscences from Alice run through the entire film: a bus ride, a fall in a hole, a rabbit, Dell behaves like the Duchess from Wonderland, like the White Queen from Through the Looking Glass), etc.

Tim Burton's film:

· Alice is already 19 years old in Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland. She randomly returns to Wonderland where she was thirteen years ago. She is told that she is the only one who can kill the Jabberwock, a dragon in the power of the Red Queen.

· Surprising coincidence - Tim Burton's London office is located in a house that once belonged to Arthur Rackham, the famous English painter, author of the legendary color illustrations for the 1907 edition of Alice in Wonderland.

· Almost Alice - While working on the film "Alice in Wonderland" (Tim Burton), two music albums were born: the soundtrack to the film with music by Danny Elfman and "Almost Alice", a collection of 16 songs, which included the composition of Avril Lavigne "Alice (Underground)", which sounds on the end credits of the film, as well as songs by other musicians inspired by the film. The title of the album is a quote from the movie. The entire Dungeon is eagerly awaiting Alice's return, but when she returns, no one - including Alice herself - believes that she is the correct Alice they once knew. In the end, the wise caterpillar Absolom concludes that in front of them is Almost Alice.

· Portraits of Johnny Depp - Actor Johnny Depp always prepares hard for every role, and the Mad Hatter is no exception. Long before filming began, the actor began painting watercolor portraits of the Mad Hatter. Later it turned out that his vision of the character largely coincides with the director's vision of Tim Burton.

· The Mad Hatter is a mood indicator - The Mad Hatter is a victim of mercury poisoning. Unfortunately, in the old days, such incidents were a frequent occurrence among hatters, since chemistry was an invariable attribute of their craft. Depp and Burton found an original way to emphasize the madness of the Hatter: he is like a ring-indicator of mood; the slightest change in his emotional mood is instantly reflected not only on his face, but also in his clothes and appearance.

Change - B real life Mia Vasikovskaya's height, playing Alice, is 160 cm, but Alice's height changes more than once during her wanderings in Wonderland: from 15 cm to 60 cm, then up to 2.5 m, or even up to 6 meters! The filmmakers tried very hard to use practical methods on set, not special effects. Sometimes Alice was put on a box to make her appear taller than the others.

· Drink me - The elixir that Alice drinks to reduce her size is called Pishsolver. The cake she eats to grow is called Upelkuchen.

· Sour and Sweet - Actress Anne Hathaway, who plays the White Queen, decided that her character would not be flawlessly white and fluffy. The White Queen shares the same heritage as her sister, the evil Red Queen, which is why Hathaway calls her "punk rock pacifist and vegetarian." In creating this look, she was inspired by the group "Blondie", Greta Garbo, Dan Flavin and Norma Desmond.

· Jiga-how? - Jiga-Dryga (Futterwacken) - a term denoting a dance of unbridled joy performed by the inhabitants of the Underground. When it came to composing the music for this dance, composer Danny Elfman was taken aback. He wrote 4 different versions, each of which was funny, unique and, in the words of Elfman himself, "teetered on the brink of decency."

· Gemini - Actor Matt Lucas has been cast as Tweedledum and Tweedledum, chubby twin brothers who fight among themselves and whose incoherent chatter is incomprehensible to anyone but themselves. However, Lucas (for some reason) could not portray both Tweedledee and Tweedledum at the same time. Another actor, Ethan Cohen, who was standing next to Lucas on the set, was contacted for help. However, it will not appear on the screen.

Fitting and Fitting - Costume Designer Colleen Atwood worked tirelessly on Alice's costumes for Mia Wasikovskaya. After all, the heroine constantly changes in size and often changes outfits, including a dress made from the curtains of the Red Queen's castle, and even knightly armor. Atwood had to find special fabrics for each size and sew the suits in such a way as to highlight the unexpected changes in Alice's height.

· Leave his head! - Crispin Glover plays in Stein's film, Jack of Hearts, but on the screen we only see his head. The body of this 2.5-meter character is drawn on a computer. On the landing, Glover walked in a green suit and on stilts to appear taller. In addition, he was heavily made up (a patch on the eye and a scar complete the image). Stein's torso, armor, and even his helmet were CGI created. Only the face belongs to the actor.

· Leave her face! - Helena Bonham Carter endured 3 hours every morning while the make-up artists turned her into the Red Queen. During this time, the actress was sprinkled with white powder, blue shadows were applied to her eyes, her eyebrows and lips were painted in the form of a perfect scarlet heart. After filming, the special effects specialists enlarged the actress's head in the frame, completing the final image of the Red Queen.

Surprise Soles - Costume Designer Colleen Atwood painted scarlet hearts on the soles of the Red Queen's shoes. They can be seen when the royal lady puts her feet on a live pig-stand.

· Trouble with stilts - Crispin Glover spent most of his filming time on stilts. Once he fell off them and twisted his leg, after which stuntmen in green suits followed him all over the site to catch him in case of another fall.

· Friends of the Rabbits - Tim Burton wanted the animals to appear alive and real on the screen, not cartoon characters. Therefore, before taking on the work on the White Rabbit, the animators spent the whole day at the abandoned rabbit shelter, watching the animals. They filmed a whole photo session to capture the subtle nuances of rabbit facial expressions.

2D to 3D - Director Tim Burton made the decision to shoot the film in 2D and then convert it to 3D. The 3D translation of his film "The Nightmare Before Christmas" made such a strong impression on Burton that he decided to follow the same path with "Alice".

Special Effects Super Specialist - Tim Burton turned to legendary special effects guru Ken Ralston and Sony Imageworks for help in creating Wonderland and its wonderful inhabitants. Ralston (on account of which the first trilogy " Star Wars", As well as" Forrest Gump "and" Polar Express ") and his team have created over 2,500 frames with visual effects. The film did not use "motion capture" technology, instead the creators developed a combination of game scenes, animation and a whole range of other technical effects.

All in green - Cardboard silhouettes were used on the set to represent the characters that were later to be created by the animators, models in full height or people in green with eyes glued to different parts of the body - to help the actors choose the right gaze direction.

· Caterpillar hairstyle - Studying enlarged photos of real caterpillars, the animators discovered that the caterpillars are hairy. Therefore, Absolem was provided with a beautiful animated head of hair.

· Handcrafted - Very few actual sets were built for Wonderland. Only three interiors of the Round Hall (where Alice falls after falling down the rabbit hole) and the Red Queen's dungeons were built on the site. Everything else is created on the computer.

· Soul Mirror - The Mad Hatter's eyes are slightly enlarged: they are 10-15% larger than those of Johnny Depp.

· Browse the Web - When the animators started working on Dodo, the first thing they did was to search for his images on a Google search engine, and then - in the London Museum of Natural History.

Big head - A special camera was used to shoot the Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter) high resolution called "Dulsa": with its help, the character's head could subsequently be doubled without the slightest loss of image quality.

Alice and Carroll:

· Alice Liddell was the daughter of the dean of Christ Church College, Oxford, where he studied and later taught mathematics by the young writer Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll). Dodgson got to know their family and interacted with Alice over the years.

· The author told the three Liddell sisters the original version of his fantastic story, coming up on the go, during a boat trip on the Thames. The main character was very similar to one of the girls, and the rest of the sisters were assigned secondary roles.

· After listening to Alice's requests, Carroll added his story to paper. In the same year, he gave the girl the first handwritten version of the book entitled "Alice's Adventures Under the Ground". After 64 years, having lost her husband, 74-year-old Alice put up for auction a valuable gift and received 15,400 pounds for it. After this event, the copy of the book was resold several times and found peace in the British Library, where it can be found at the moment.

Carroll's literary character - main character Alice - could have gotten a different name. At the birth of the girl, the parents thought for a long time whether to call her Marina. However, the name Alice was considered more appropriate.

· Alice was a well-bred and gifted child - she was seriously engaged in painting. John Ruskin himself, famous english artist XIX century, gave her lessons and found her paintings talented.

· In 1880, Alice married a student of Lewis Carroll - Reginald Hargreaves. The young parents named one of their three sons Caryl, probably after the "pimp".