Still She Haunts Me

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A haunting work of fiction - Rated
Writing a fictional account of a very real person's life is a tricky endeavor - it also complicates the reviewing process. I've read Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, but all I really knew about Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) was the fact that he was a mathematician. That being the case, I've tried very hard not to let this fictional treatment of the man influence my opinion of him - especially since this is a rather unsettling account of his relationship with young Alice Liddell. We know that, as a young mathematics lecturer at Oxford, he enjoyed a special relationship with young Alice for seven years - then, the Liddells made it clear that they did not want Dodgson spending any more time with them or their eleven-year-old daughter. The reasons for this sudden break are shrouded in a bit of mystery, and those are the facts that I hold to. What Katie Roiphe has done is to take the known facts and construct a fascinating story around them. She may be right on the money - or she may be way off base. The important thing to remember is that Still She Haunts Me is essentially a work of fiction.

Some readers may be disturbed by the story Roiphe tells in these pages. Some will look at Dodgson's passionate, confused feelings for Alice as borderline depravity, while others will see something strangely beautiful about the relationship. Dodgson is an incredibly complicated character in this novel. He meets Alice when he is nearing thirty and she is four years old, and he clearly grows to love her in some remarkable fashion over the ensuing seven years. She is forbidden fruit, something he can cling to yet never really grab hold of. There is nothing conclusively sexual about his feelings at all, though - in my interpretation. To me, Dodgson worships the beauty and simplicity of childhood - the innocence of childhood. He's a lonely man living a sheltered life, and Alice becomes a symbol for the kind of happy, carefree life he would dearly love to live himself. Afflicted with a stuttering problem, Dodgson is withdrawn and incredibly private; what he cannot experience with adults he can live with and through her. His life and his naïve love for Alice are as much symbolic as real.

An accomplished amateur photographer, Dodgson delights in taking picture after picture of Alice, capturing the essence of her in the camera's lens, seeking to preserve her childhood for all time. He sends her an abundance of notes, some of them in secret (yet easily decipherable) code. He tells her poems and stories in order to please her. It is there that Alice's Adventures Under Ground (which would later become Alice's Adventures in Wonderland) was born, as Alice insisted he write the story down for her.

Then the sudden break from the Liddell family takes place. Roiphe makes a compelling case for what might have happened, but I think she takes a little too much liberty with the story here. What has been a disturbing yet naively sweet relationship suddenly takes on a much darker cast. For the first time, Roiphe introduces quotes from Dodgson's letters that are entirely of her own making, and her description of Dodgson's reaction to his dismissal from the Liddell household also seems a little too sensational. This may not bother some readers, but it does me. Here and only here, Dodgson's relationship with Alice grows undeniably disturbing.

The truth of the matter seems to be obscured forever by the mists of time, especially since Dodgson (and/or his heirs) removed the relevant sections of his journals. (Recently, evidence - rather scanty evidence, if you ask me - has surfaced indicating the break with the Liddells had nothing to do with Alice whatsoever.) As a work of fiction, Still She Haunts Me does indeed prove haunting - and extremely compelling. This is a novel that will evoke an emotional response of one type or another from every reader. You just have to remember that this is a novel, not a biographical account of the unique relationship that gave birth to two extraordinary works of children's literature.

Well-written, but somewhat disappointing. - Rated
Katie Roiphe’s first novel is an imaginative recreation of the relationship between Lewis Carroll and the child Alice Liddell, for whom he wrote Alice in Wonderland.

Roiphe handles this potentially disturbing subject matter sensitively, neither demonizing Carroll nor attempting to sanitize the darker side of his attraction to Alice. The writing is imaginative and sometimes strikingly vivid. But in the end I was not really convinced by the characterization, or by the portrayal of the society Carroll inhabits. What really happened between Lewis Carroll and Alice we will never know, but I don’t believe it was like this.

Well-written, but somewhat disappointing. - Rated
Katie Roiphe's first novel is an imaginative recreation of the relationship between Lewis Carroll and the child Alice Liddell, for whom he wrote Alice in Wonderland.

Roiphe handles this potentially disturbing subject matter sensitively, neither demonizing Carroll nor attempting to sanitize the darker side of his attraction to Alice. The writing is imaginative and sometimes strikingly vivid. But in the end I was not really convinced by the characterization, or by the portrayal of the society Carroll inhabits. What really happened between Lewis Carroll and Alice we will never know, but I don't believe it was like this.

An enjoyable novel - Rated
...Roiphe does not claim that this novel is a definitive work on the relationship between Carroll and Alice Liddell. Roiphe clearly states that her novel is more a work of fiction than anything to be set in stone. Although she may not offer completely original ideas to why their relationship ended so suddenly (due to his taking nude photographs of her at 11 years old), I think however, she does put these ideas across in a sensitive, interesting way. The relationship they shared is looked at, not only through the eyes of Carroll and Alice, but Roiphe also allows the posssible viewpoints of other characters to be expressed.
I think as long as you read this book foe what it is, a light-hearted insight into the lives of two people who shared quite a strange bond, you should enjoy it.
I would certainly reccommend this book to others, not as a way of learning something definitive about past events, but as an enjoyable novel.

outdated in every way - Rated
This book claims to be a sensational new look at 'Carroll and Alice'. Actually it's just a warmed-over serving of old old news. Worse than this - it is totally out of date. All the 'facts' that Ms Roiphe bases her novel on were totally debunked two years ago in Karoline Leach's book 'In the Shadow of the Dreamchild'.

It's ironic that beneath all this 'revelation' and 'mystery' in Roiphe's book there is a REAL mystery in Carroll's life that Leach revealed and which would make a great piece of novelisation.

If you want to read piece of silly pseudo-history buy this book. But if you want to read a great story - which has the advantage of being totally factual - then read Leach's book. It's better written, more exciting and wil tell you a lot more about Lewis Carroll