Alice Through Wonderland  (Paperback, Nandita Banerjee)

Alice through Wonderland, an anthology of various types of poems, is inspired by two great works of literature, namely, Lewis Carol’s novel, Alice in Wonderland (1865) and William Wordsworth’s ode, Intimations of Immortality (1804). It traces the journey of a girl, Alice, into and through “Wonderland,” her childhood in our modern day. Like Wordsworth’s ode, this anthology claims that human souls have their own joyful existence in Heaven before they come to Earth, and when they are born, they bring heavenly perceptions with them. Little Alice in the anthology sees the everyday world through the lens of her earlier heavenly existence. Like her namesake in Lewis Carol’s novel, she meets and interacts with anthropomorphic creatures. However, her experiences in “Wonderland” do not end there. “The world oozes pleasures of her own.” Like the other Alice, she gains a deeper understanding of the world through her involvement with its denizens and their activities, while letting go of her childish innocence along the way. And it is not just her innocence that Alice loses in the anthology. As she grows, the heavenly vision she is born with fades. The routines and habits of daily life set in, and the world goes from looking enchanted to looking “common.”