The Annotated Alice
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass give me the heebie-jeebies. They are claustrophobic, displacing, disturbing, frightening books. They scared the bejesus out of me as a child, though maybe that's because they are quintessentially British texts and I do not have the requisite cultural background - bogtrotting Irish culchie that I am.

The Annotated Alice, however, is a dream to read - a fascinating exploration of Lewis Carroll's writing through marginalia and extended footnotes. It's thought-provoking and interesting. It also stopped me being scared of Victorian children's literature. I'm just scared of pretty much everything else still.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 16 May 2008, 11:13, 19 replies)

Alice in wonderland
and through the looking glass are two of my favourite books. My mum bought me a big hardback version that included all the illustrations along with a load of other stories and poems including The Hunting of the Snark, which I also loved.

I think they are a little disturbing, but I doubt you didn't get them just because your Irish.

it'll be because you spent too much time dogging in the buttercup fields. snigger
(Bazongaloid, Fri 16 May 2008, 11:17, closed)

Bogtrotting Alice.
Have you tried Nicholas Williams' translation of Alice into Irish? Jabberwocky works surprisingly well in the oul' first national language.
( Dr Preference AjcuiVd289, Fri 16 May 2008, 11:18, closed)

@al - hey!
I can read the small print, y'know!
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 16 May 2008, 11:19, closed)

@Dr Preference
sadly my Irish is limited to talking about the rain and "Ar mhaith leat cupán tae?". Essential for all Irish occasions, except reading Alice.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 16 May 2008, 11:20, closed)

I love Alice In Wonderland
but then that's cos I'm from Dublin and I'm all mad sophisticated 'n'all, amn't I wha?
(bazmorningstar efil4nat3b, Fri 16 May 2008, 11:20, closed)

oooo
D4 types!
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 16 May 2008, 11:22, closed)

'They are claustrophobic, displacing, disturbing, frightening books.'
Just out of interest, were you also scared of the illustration of Alice with the long neck (see this post for details)?
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Fri 16 May 2008, 11:26, closed)

yup
scary biccies.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 16 May 2008, 11:27, closed)

Bollox to D4!
Northsider luv - howaya?
(bazmorningstar efil4nat3b, Fri 16 May 2008, 11:32, closed)

I lived
on Capel Street for a while. That's a North as I got (aside from being Norn Irish).
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 16 May 2008, 11:34, closed)

Ah you wouldnt know it
Capel street's been all gentrified with gastro pubs and hippy shops on one end and Chinese deli's on the other. And a jazz club called 'The Bleu Note' - gets some decent bands in.
(bazmorningstar efil4nat3b, Fri 16 May 2008, 11:38, closed)

AHAHHH
a jazz club? Why, back in the day it was fields brothels and people shooting up in the doorway of the Ilac centre.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 16 May 2008, 11:39, closed)

Johnny foreigner
and his money has made our streets occupiable, the bastard. I'm moving to Limerick.
(bazmorningstar efil4nat3b, Fri 16 May 2008, 11:41, closed)

The pic scared me so much that
my mum had to hide the book. She hid it so well that nearly 30 years on, still can't find it. I don't remember much of the original story (though I've heard it re-told in various forms, the latest being Humphrey Lyttelton's (RIP) interpretation last Christmas).

One day, I'd love to re-read the original (preferably the same copy once my mum's found it) so I can read it with the eyes of an adult.

Just out of interest, can you relate to my linked post?
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Fri 16 May 2008, 11:43, closed)

yes
but it wasn't her neck I found freaky, it was her dead eyes.

@baz - Stab City is a no-no unless you're a samurai warrior.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 16 May 2008, 11:45, closed)

@CHCB
we Northsiders are all trained from birth in the noble arts of violence and its evasion. Really though, it's all bollox. There are two warring gangs going hell for leather at each other and not an innocent man has yet been martyred. Also, the stats are hugely exaggerated calling Limerick the murder capital of Ireland and/or Europe - there are only 80,000 people down there. We'd need to knock off about 50 people in Dublin to get our title back :) I was there last week for four days - not even an abrasion!
(bazmorningstar efil4nat3b, Fri 16 May 2008, 11:51, closed)

@CHCB
You've just given me a new insight into one of my specific childhood phobias. I still think it was the pic as a whole, but maybe the dead eyes may have played a role too (aged 6, I probably only noticed it on a subconscious level). The pic in my post is a low-rez scan, but I'd be intrigued to find a higher resolution of the image just to test the theory.
( mistaspakkaman and the inedible shifting caterpillars, Fri 16 May 2008, 11:51, closed)

I quite like 'The Automated Alice'
though it's far from Jeff Noon's best book.
( chenobble rocking his explorer beard on, Fri 16 May 2008, 12:14, closed)

Nevermind Louie, twas Enid that gave me the horrors
Alice & Co were just an esoteric bunch of British eccentrics compared to the mass-manufactured institutionalised (& occasionally xenophobic) fairy tales doled out by that priggish schoolmarm Enid Blyton. No matter where the Magic Faraway Tree went ('Where are we going Fanny?' 'We're off to the Land of Do As You're Told') there was no escaping the class system.
I recommend Saki as a wonderful antidote to all that straitlaced surrealism.

Btw, I lived in Limerick for nigh on 10 years and the only ills I accumulated were just two abrasions on the back of me head and only a moderate amount of bile (more due to reading the first two chapters of Angela's Ashes than anything else, there cannot be a more miserable self-pitying whinger than Frank McCourt.)
(Prohibition69, Tue 20 May 2008, 15:41, closed)