Charles Dodgson's Art

Maybe you know him only by the name "Lewis Carroll" (his pen name),
and maybe you don't know about him at all...

That's alright! Let me enlighten you about one of my favorite authors, poets, and photographers: Charles Lutwidge Dodgson a.k.a. Lewis Carroll, the author of Alice in Wonderland and the Through the Looking Glass tales & many others.

You may mentally chide me for even referencing it ( I would too!), but Wikipedia really summarizes it best:

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (pronounced /ˈdɒdsən/ dod-sən; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by the pseudonym Lewis Carroll (/ˈkærəl/ karr-əl), was an English author, mathematician, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer. His most famous writings are Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel Through the Looking-Glass, as well as the poems "The Hunting of the Snark" and "Jabberwocky", all examples of the genre of literary nonsense. He is noted for his facility at word play, logic, and fantasy, and there are societies dedicated to the enjoyment and promotion of his works and the investigation of his life in many parts of the world, including the United Kingdom, Japan, the United States, and New Zealand.

 He really was an interesting person. I have read several biographies on him and what truly amuses me the most is just how widely all of his biographers differ in opinion on his life & person! You have everything from some claiming he was an insane, drugged-out pedophile all the way to saying that he was a genius and a saint! (Personally I don't believe either of those extremes.)

The fact that he was a mathematician is generally not known as well as his authorship. But he was indeed all those things--a man of many interests, if not many proficient talents. He was smart & witty, if extremely shy/reserved in person. He seemed to prefer the company of children rather than adults (which I can sometimes identify with quite well.) He found his lyrical, comical literary voice first through telling stories that baffled, amused and entertained his little friends...and then later the wider world.

One thing is for sure: if you are going to study literature, and especially English lit, you can't ignore Lewis Carroll. He left a mark on our world.

Now, onto the most interesting pieces of his history that I've been digging up about him...

...his photography.

In addition to being a poet, deacon, mathematician, & all those other things, Charles Dodgson was a photographer. In his time, I suppose he would have been considered just another amateur, but I think his work had a timeless, lasting & highly artistic quality about it. For a while, I couldn't seem to locate any of these photographs of his that were talked about so much, other than the one of Alice Liddell (the girl whose name & person inspired Alice from his books) leaning up against an ivy wall as a ''beggar child''.

But now....I am proud to say, I have scrounged up several more photographs that he took, and now, I present them to you here:

{Click to make some larger.}

Alice Liddell (right) and older sister Lorina (left).

Alice Liddell

young Alice Liddell

"The Beggar Girl" aka Alice Liddell

Alice Liddell as a young woman.

Self portrait of Lewis Carroll/Charles Dodgson.

Edith, Lorina & Alice Liddell (L to R)

Mrs Liddell, her girls, Charles Dodgson & another young friend.

Edith, Lorina & Alice

 

Are they not just beautiful? 

Looking at them makes me wish I had a old tintype camera to play with, and that I still had my film Canon SLR too! Ah, well. I still have my appreciation for the arts, my tiny Canon digital, and my love of photography. :) That's enough for now.

Sarah's Key: A Book to Read & Remember

Have you ever read a book that left you shaken?
Utterly and completely moved? It is only a very good book, and a very skillful author that can write such a book.

Well this book, Sarah's Key, did that to me. Reading through it was amazing, but painful (because of what the story was about.) But I'm getting ahead of myself.

First, I should explain how I came to own this book in the first place! The simple answer is I got it from a libarian. The kind-hearted little lady that was running the 'Friends of the Library' shop last week was reading it as I came in the shop. (I always check the Friends shop for 'new' old book; I've grown my collection of over 35 antique books just from their selections for sale!) So, I always check the shop and stop in to chat with whoever's there for that day.
  That day, there was a grandmotherly looking figure sitting behind the desk, with a very sweet face. :) She smiles and we exchanged 'hellos' as I came in. Looking around for a second, I found a 1945 leather-bonded atlas for sale for $2. Grabbing that, I said to myself.
I could not find anything else worth spending my few, college-student bucks on so I plopped my atlas down to 'check out'. :) A little boy (maybe 6 years old) and his dad had come in meantime; the dad was checking out the old VHS collections for sale while the boy found a dinosaur book. So sweet. :) The little guy, wearing a matching baseball cap like his dad, was chattering about why he loves dinos to the librarian lady. (Did I ever mention I love seeing kids, being able to live just as they should be--kids? Curious, trusting, smiling. It's a gift, a real gift.) He was clutching the dollar and 75 cents necessary to buy the book in his little hands.

Anyway, the Dad wasn't ready to check out yet so even though the dinosaur lil' guy was ready, he let me graciously go first. So I was getting ready to buy my only book when the cover of the book the lady was reading stuck out to me. 'What's that book like?' I asked. She looked surprised to be asked about it first, then she smiled and said, 'Oh, it's a great book. A really good one! I've been sitting here all afternoon reading it and it's amazing...' Oh? hmmmmm, sound like a good one, thought I. I asked her what it was about.
She told me it was about the wars in Europe, the French occupation, and what happened during and after the Nazis rounded up several thousand French Jews. She said, be warned, it was a tear-jerker.

What's the first thing that goes through our  minds whenever we hear words like "Nazis", "World War I or II", 'the Jews'? What goes through your mind whenever anyone speaks of those things that happened long, long ago? I know what goes through mine.

Images and feelings of deep pain, horror, sadness.
Huge losses of lives, of families, faith,  and innocence.

It's hard to put into words what kind of things so many went through so long ago, especially when you yourself have no idea of just how painful all that must have been.

This book is about a fictional girl named, Sarah Starzynski. Her actual account is fictional only in the sense that she never existed. However her story, and the story of the French Jews men, women and children of Vel' de Hiv' like her was very, very real.

This book is much like another book I read, The Shape of Mercy: A Novel. It's not for the faint of heart.
But it also tells a story that should not be forgotten.
So, if you are up to it, read on and remember.