There is much to be said to a Carrollian approach to life, that is, using the work of The Reverend Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, aka Lewis Carroll, in books like Alice Through the Looking-Glass, as a guide.
I was thinking of one aspect in particular, the concept of the “un-birthday” that Humpty Dumpty explains in Chapter VI of Through the Looking-Glass. You have only one “birthday” a year, but you have 354 “un-birthdays” in most normal, non-leap years. Thinking about it, the idea of an “un-birthday” is more like something Pooh could have discussed with Piglet and Owl, rather than something out of the altogether darker pages of Carroll, but Carroll has the credit.
Further thinking about it, I do have a (borrowed) copy of The Tau of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff, where the Pooh books are mined to show how far the stories and the characters exemplify elements of Taoist religion, with Pooh himself of course being the prime example of someone or something that can just be!
Far from being a mere frippery, this book is well worth reading. Yes, it is witty and amusing, but it is also serious – and a gentle way into one of the world’s major religions.
The “reading in” of meaning also reminds me of a book that I have treasured for some time, ever since I found a compelling Penguin paperback version in the sixties, The Annotated Alice with the texts by Lewis Carroll, academically (if indulgently, and nothing wrong with that) edited and footnoted by Martin Gardner – any book that prints foreign language versions of the Jabberwocky nonsense poem has got my vote!
And there is a lot to think about in what Carroll wrote. The footnotes do not seem forced, and the wealth of information and thought prompted by discussion of the text can be demonstrated by the fact that Gardner’s book has been republished as More Annotated Alice and Annotated Alice – The Definitive Edition - I am only writing out their titles in a vain attempt to stop my purchasing them!
So, “un-birthdays”. These have been on my mind as my birthday was on United Nations Day and, for the second year running, the people with me to celebrate were limited by the pandemic. To compensate, therefore, I have decided to have a week-long birthday with treats on each of the seven days!
So far, apart from The Day itself, on other subsequent days I have, so far, had a lane to myself for my morning swim; a truly outstanding menu del dia; the arrival of the catalogue of the Surrealist exhibition in The Tate (ordered months ago); tomorrow a book on the French painter Poussin arrives, so my extended festivities are going well and look set to continue.
I hope you enjoy your un-birthday days as well!
