Alice I Have Been
by Melanie Benjamin, Harper Collins, $38.99
What does a Cheshire cat with a sardonic smile, a hatter high on mercury vapour and a rabbit obsessed with time have in common? Correct. Alice in Wonderland.
The heroine of this novel (based on fact) is one of three daughters of
the dean of an Oxford residence in the middle of the 19th century. The 7-year-old is battling against sibling rivalry, maternal rejection and a horde of Mary-Anns (the collective name for all house maids of that time.)
She has to change her clothes repeatedly because they are muddy or torn. She loathes her clothes. Her days are spent in the school room and going on excursions on the river with a couple of young Oxford dons. One of these young gentlemen, a mathematics tutor, entertains the girls with his imaginative stories. Our heroine is entranced and encourages him. In fact these outings are the only high spot in a dreary life.
This happy state of affairs continues for many years. Then Alice escapes from the deanery while her mother is busy with a difficult confinement and goes to meet the storyteller (his pseudonym was Lewis Carroll).
His hobby is photographing scantily dressed young girls posing as gypsies. I leave you to imagine what happens when Mater and Pater find out. He is banned from seeing the girls and Alice only sees him, very briefly, many years later.
Poor Alice. She lost her friend then later, when she falls in love with the heir to the throne that is not allowed, and then her favourite sister dies. It was many years later, at the end of her life, that she realises what and who her true love was.
This book is fascinating with wonderful descriptions of life in England in this protected environment in the mid-19th century.
Class structure, correct behaviour and inhibited child rearing was the accepted order of things.
The author has done her research extremely well. Archives about Alice, the maths tutor and Oxford have been utilised to the full.
There is a certain amount of embellishment but I think it is excusable and highlights this time in history. I never did work out the role model for the belligerent queen, however.
