Lewis Carroll, Escapist

First, from Jim Clark, who brought the world the Scary John Steinbeck “Movie,” a Lewis Carroll “Movie,” in which the mutated nonsense poet, author, mathematician and reverent contorts and twists his way through “Father William,” which Louis Untermeyer features in his Carroll installment in Treasury of Laughter.

My advice, don’t watch it all the way through.

For some reason – and I’m guilty of this as well, though there is no audio or video proof – this poem is highly popular among poetry performers. Here’s the least annoying example I can find:

Then there’s “Jabberwocky,” here as presented by The Muppets:

As delightful as these first two poems are, in my opinion nothing beats the nonsense of Carroll’s tightly-wound “The Mad Gardener’s Song,” from his decidedly less popular novel, “Sylvie and Bruno.”

He thought he saw an Elephant,
    That practised on a fife:
He looked again, and found it was
    A letter from his wife.
'At length I realise,' he said,
    'The bitterness of Life!'

He thought he saw a Buffalo
    Upon the chimney-piece:
He looked again, and found it was
    His Sister's Husband's Niece.
'Unless you leave this house,' he said,
    'I'll send for the Police!'

He thought he saw a Rattlesnake
    That questioned him in Greek:
He looked again, and found it was
    The Middle of Next Week.
'The one thing I regret,' he said,
    'Is that it cannot speak!'

He thought he saw a Banker's Clerk
    Descending from the bus:
He looked again, and found it was
    A Hippopotamus.
'If this should stay to dine,' he said,
    'There won't be much for us!'

He thought he saw a Kangaroo
    That worked a coffee-mill:
He looked again, and found it was
    A Vegetable-Pill.
'Were I to swallow this,' he said,
    'I should be very ill!'

He thought he saw a Coach-and-Four
    That stood beside his bed:
He looked again, and found it was
    A Bear without a Head.
'Poor thing,' he said, 'poor silly thing!
    It's waiting to be fed!'

He thought he saw an Albatross
    That fluttered round the lamp:
He looked again, and found it was
    A Penny-Postage Stamp.
'You'd best be getting home,' he said:
    'The nights are very damp!'

He thought he saw a Garden-Door
    That opened with a key:
He looked again, and found it was
    A Double Rule of Three:
'And all its mystery,' he said,
    'Is clear as day to me!'

He thought he saw a Argument
    That proved he was the Pope:
He looked again, and found it was
    A Bar of Mottled Soap.
'A fact so dread,' he faintly said,
    'Extinguishes all hope!'

It’s silly, of course, but ultimately sad, as we’re left not to revel in the madness but in the piteous state of the madman, deluded not by what he thinks he sees, but by the banality of his life. This is Walter Mitty a full century before James Thurber thought him up. And escaping the banality of mathematics, clergydom and the stuffiness of England at the time may have been why the Rev. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson fled into the wonderful world that is nonsense. As we re-read his forays into the insane now, we see a person who accomplished what we might want to accomplish: An escape from the ordinary. That is the genius of Lewis Carroll.