inkbluesky

I swear I haven’t developed a sudden fascination with children’s literature – Seuss and Lewis Carroll have both probably been read by more adults then children anyway. Still this article brought to my attention that the 175th anniversary of Lewis Carroll (or rather Charles Lutwidge Dodgson: January 27, 1832 – January 14, 1898), Alice’s New Adventures

“Alice” first came out in Russian nearly 130 years ago, but back then, it seemed the book would not fare well here. The anonymously translated version of 1879 was met with confusion and bewilderment. “Tiring, most boring, most confused sick delusions of a little girl”; “absurd dreams may be recounted in a family circle for fun, but they are not published, illustrated and presented to the general public“; “one can hardly imagine anything less sensible and more absurd than this fairy tale; all mothers are urged to disregard this worthless fantasy” — such was the critical consensus in Russia at the time.

An interesting snapshot of Russian culture and criticism circa 1879. Yet that view of Alice isn’t unheard of in modern America – you know the land of cable and 24/7 cartoons and political pundits that seem as though they phone in their opinions from one of Saturn’s moons. Russian society or at least Russian artists did accept and embrace the absurd eventually, Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky (born in 1866) painted Composition VI in 1913. To me at least Carroll would have seen some similarity between what Kandinsky did in paint to what Carrol did with prose. So the 1879 edition of Alice didn’t do so well even if not the best translation. How long did it take before Russia came around to appreciating “sick delusions”?

Nina Demurova, pictured in her Moscow apartment, did a 1967 translation of “Alice” that became wildly popular in the Soviet Union.

The dark-blue book with a key on its cover was coveted by everyone, and its black-market price amounted to an engineer’s monthly salary. When I was 10, I spent several months in a hospital, and a young nurse once saw “Alice” by my bed. She was completely overwhelmed and begged me to loan her the book for just one night. Many stories of that kind will be recounted in a forthcoming book, edited by Demurova, about Carroll’s reception in Russia. (Part of it was published in January’s issue of the journal Inostrannaya Literatura).

bright orange red flower. Like one that might be found in Wonderland – a little surreal.

Did GOP Lawyer Mislead Congress About Plame Case?

In her recent Washington Post piece, Toensing wrote of Valerie Wilson, “She worked at CIA headquarters and had not been stationed abroad within five years of the date of Novak’s column.” This means, Toensing has argued, that Valerie Wilson could not be covered by the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. But Valerie Wilson testified that she had been dispatched on overseas missions under cover in the five years prior to the Novak column–an indication she had “served” abroad. (Hubris reported that as well.) Toensing is free to maintain that the law ought to cover only those officers residing overseas as part of a long-term foreign assignment. But that is not what the act says. By stating that the act defines a “covert agent” as an officer residing abroad (as opposed to an officer who had “served” overseas), Toensing misrepresented the law to members of the committee. (By the way, both Fitzgerald and the CIA have said that Valerie Wilson’s employment relationship with the CIA was classified.)

So much for the liberal media canard. Toensing seems to have her blinders on. That couldn’t possibly be because her loyalties are not with truth in journalism, but a particular political movement that is known for its propensity to stick its fingers in it’s ears and cover it’s eyes whenever some inconvenient truth gets in their way. Plame was covert and several members of this administration betrayed their oath to keep Plame and every CIA agent’s identity a secret.