419 Reading and Research Journal
January 7
D.F. Mackenzie Quote from “The Dialectics of Bibliography Now”:
“Whatever its metamorphoses, the different physical forms of any text, and the intentions they serve, are relative to a specific time, place and person. This creates a problem only if we want meaning to be absolute and immutable”
-Pretty sure I have an understanding of the assignment we’re supposed to be doing. No idea what I’m going to be doing it on.
January 21
- Thomas Tanselle Quote from “The Editorial Problem of Final Authorial Intention”:
“What controls the editor’s freedom of interpretation is his self-imposed limitation: he is concerned only with that intention which his knowledge of the author and the period allows him to attribute to the author” (144)
January 26 RBSC Group A
February 4
Paul C. Gutjahr and Megan L. Benton Quotes from “Reading the Invisible”:
“A book is created when a text is transformed by print, when it is literally shaped into a material object whose visual and tactile features render it perceptible and accessible to others” (65)
“Just as we can hear music only by listening to a particular performance of it, we can read a text only by reading a typographic presentation of it. Typography, then, is what Bringhurst calls “an essential act of interpretation, full of endless opportunities for insight or obtuseness” (65)
March 8
Adrian Johns Quote from “Introduction: The Book of Nature and the Nature of the Book”:
“The unifying concept of Einstein’s argument is that of ‘print culture’. This ‘culture’ is characterized primarily in terms of certain traits that print is taken to endow on texts. Specifically, those produced in such an environment are subject to conditions of standardization, dissemination and fixity…According to Einstein, printing meant the mass reproduction of precisely the same text, repeatable on subsequent occasions and in different locations” (272)
March 29
Franco Moretti Quote from “Style, Inc. Reflections on Seven Thousand Titles”:
That’s why long titles disappeared: because between the size of the market, and the length of titles, a strong negative correlation emerged: as one expanded, the other contracted” (529)
March 3, 2016
-Called up the “Alice One Hundred” catalogue
-Noticed that the Alice 100 Collection contains images and references to the children’s classic “Humpty Dumpty” on the 14th page.
-Looked back to see why, and the section that I was looking under was entitled “Alice with other Illustrators” on page 13.
-Feally interesting to see a shared fictional character across different children’s works
-Pulled up the Salvador Dali illustrated “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” 150th Anniversary Edition to explore the illustrations in the edition
-Opening page of the book speaks to the illustrations with, “and what is the use of a book,” thought Alice, “without pictures or conversations?” (7)
-At the end of the first chapter I noticed a small, faint watermark on the bottom of the page that mimicked the image of Alice portrayed in the chapter’s Dali painting.
àIn Dali’s painting she is painted with black ink holding what appears to be a jumping rope. At the end of the chapter he is mimicking this movement with this object, however it is an almost-invisible watermark.
1st Dali Painting:
-Alice has a large, black shadow, and she is standing on an oversized mushroom. The bulk of the painting’s background is of a large, colourful, overseeing rabbit amongst an assortment of orange, blue, and other colours.
-Alice’s size is true to the story
2nd Dali Painting:
-Again, Alice is painted with black ink against a colourful sea of blue and purple. The sky appears to portray an image of a face amongst raindrops
3rd Dali Painting:
-Alice is depicted smaller in this painting. Dali creates a more frightening image, but of harmless creatures. His sharp, black outlines contrast against the dripping colour of the page, creating uncanny, fantastic depictions of everyday creatures. His use of colour also changes, as he uses dark navy blues against the whiteness of the page with little use of other colour. This adds to the darkness of the piece.
4th Dali Painting
-Depicted again with black ink, Alice is juxtaposed against a colourful green caterpillar that is amplified in a larger, more frightening image. The paint in the larger caterpillar image is more yellow and blue, and appears to be meltin down the page. Flecks of black ink against the colour add to the frightening element of the painting.
March 15, 2016
Alice in Wonderland Research Continued
“Lewis Carrol’s Alice: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” as designed and illustrated by Barry Moser
Down the Rabbit Hole: Chapter I
-I immediately notice that the illustrations are completed with cross-hatching, and without colour.
-Second page of the novel contains a footnote for the term “curiosity” and is explained in red ink on the side of the page.
-The images are true to their descriptions, with the endless rabbit hole with a teapot and the orange marmalade, but they are curiously comic-book looking with their cross-hatching. The colourlessness is an interesting depiction of Alice’s world, considering the story itself is so colourful and imaginative
-p41: frightening, blended images of cats
-p42-43: Far more text on the page, far less illustrations with the “drink me bottle” on the right hand side of the page. The annotations are now in black and white instead of red.
-p55: Like other editions of the story, the text seems to whirlpool down into smaller and smaller text from the mid-left to bottom-right hand side of the page to emphasize the story behind the literature and create more of a dramatic depiction of the images presented.
-63: frightening and unexpected illustrated image of a puppy
-68: the caterpillar is drawn in blue ink instead of the typical black, allowing him to stand out from the rest of the material
-81: theme of frightening images continues with the Cat (typically known as Cheshire cat)
-92-93: two rectangular images dedicated to the beautiful garden
-143: “A Note on the Prints”
à Alice is noted as “a story of loneliness” illustrated by many artists that this edition states “intruded on the privacy of Alice’s adventure, standing apart and observing Alice in her dream” (143)
April 11 Research Continued
-> Today I decided to focus more in illustrators and those who have illustrated Carroll’s stories before. I feel like they might provide a different perspective and understanding of the audience’s reading experience
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll: Illustrated by Arthur Rackham (older edition of the story)
Cover:
-faded teal with darker due for the font colour:
-Cover art is very 2 dimensional/medieval. Unlike more recent versions of the story, this cover art does not indicate any of the events/plot points/characters depicted in the story.
-Definitely makes the book feel older and like the story is more of a Brother’s Grimm story
Paper
-Much thicker than other copies.
-Somewhat yellowed and smells like it’s tarnishing
Arthur Rackham:
-Attributions given to illustrator in the opening pages: See photo of other books illustrated by Arthur Rackham
Illustrations:
-Cross-hatched, two-dimensional, colourless art
-Occasional insertions of lightly coloured illustrations by Rackham that appear to have been created later called “plates”
-List of plates given in the opening pages of this version.
Audience?
-This particular version appears to be meant for an older audience. Why?
àlonger chapters,
àfewer illustrations, and those provided are colourless
àThick blocks of text only broken by paragraph breaks and indents
**Interesting about this version:
-Poem near the beginning by Austin Dobson. Beginning to notice that every version of the story seems to have some sort of poem at the beginning.
-pIIIV indicates that this version was first published in 1907 with a cheaper version published in 1933. Interesting; initially thought this would be a more expensive verison
-Blank card with number “86” printed: likely indicating it is number 86 of the Alice 100 collection
-Paper insert indicates that it was one of the 1st cheap editions to be created (photo provided). I was definitely wrong about this being a more expensive version. I wonder what the expensive version looks like.
àGlued binding that is somewhat falling apart. Little stains on the back pages of the book indicate wornness
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll: With forty-two illustrations by John Tenniel
-Tenniel consistently arises with my research. His illustrations appear to be pretty famous
Cover:
-Leather edges and binding indicate that this is a more expensive version of the story
-Same design on the outside is replicated on the inner side of the cover and the first side of the first page: snake-skin and paint-smudge like. Very unique.
Binding
-States shortened “Alice’s Adventures” instead of the traditional “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”
-Binding has been sewn, not glued
Paper:
-Thin, yellowed, yet smoother to the touch than the Rakham version
Text:
-Remains fairly consistent.
-Larger spacing between sentences and more narrow in this version than the last version
-Edges of the pages have the same design as the front and inner cover of the book
Publisher:
-MacMillan and Co. stamp on left page within first opening pages of the novel
-Published in 1870
Illustrations:
-Colourless
-Cross-hatching
-Depiction of Cheshire cat = strangely identical to Disney’s depiction (Image provided)
-The art in Tenniel’s version is definitely unique. Definitely less focused on the art and more focused on the cartoon-ness/adventure of the story. While Dali’s version is more art-focused and sucks the reader into the frightening images as opposed to the story itself, I feel like Tenniel’s version allows the reader to focus on the story and receives further understanding/appreciation for the story through the paintings.
Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland: Illustrated by Ralph Steadman
Cover:
-Simply states “Alice”
-Uncoloured
-Stark and unique
Opening Pages
-Contains an introduction by Steadman.
-Explains some of the artistic changes that he made to the story
-Indicates a personal connection that he has to the story as he states his “only regret is that [he] didn’t write the story”
Chapters:
-Broken by large black-and-white illustrations
-Large text titles each chapter with numbers that indicate the chapter number
Illustrations themselves:
-Cross-hatching
-Modern, more imaginative illustration techniques
**Interesting: Both this version and the Rackham version use spiralling text to indicate that Alice is falling down the rabbit hole
Experience of Reading:
-Because of the unique illustrations and unpredictable sums of text on each page a degree of newness was associated with reading each page of this version.
àWhile some pages would contain large sums of texts, others would contain short paragraphs and smaller sums of texts
àSome pages would have wider paragraphs, while others would have rectangular shapes of text
April 12, 2016 Research Continued
Anderson’s Alice: Walter Anderson Illustrates Alice in Wonderland
Cover:
-2 dimensional artispiece of Alice in a forest
-Black and white with robin blue accent colour
Art:
-Simple, Picasso-like
-images made from few lines
-Impactful on the reading experience: compared to other versions of alice, this version provides the reader with simple images that appeal to a more realistic Alice, instead of an imaginative Alice. This is particularly compared to the vivid images provided to readers of Dali’s Alice.
Introduction:
-Anderson provides the audience with a lengthly introduction that explains her extensive relationship with Carroll’s story
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: with ninety-six illustrations by George. A. Walker
Composition
-Leather binding and corners
-The book itself is absolutely beautiful, provides the reader with an old-fashioned Alice reading experience
-Illustrations/images look to have been provided by woodblock press
-a beautiful custom illustration is attached to the inside of the 3rd opening page that is signed by George Walker aka the illustrator
-Sewn binding
-Beautiful, imprinted type. I flipped to te back of this version and there is a note on the paper that is used and the type that is used.
-Typeface: handset Century Schoolbook, roman and italic, Hadriano and Hadriano Stone-Cut all impressed on paper
-Note at the back states that the paper used is Masa Dosa hand made paper and the colours are also hand painted and provided by wood engravings
**Maintaining interest in illustrations, I have decided to check out “The Illustrators of Alice” By Graham Ovendon and John Davis
àHoping it might give me a better idea as to why so many artists decided to illustrate Carroll’s story
-Noticed that I had understood the nature of this assignment incorrectly, and had been exploring general themes of Alice in Wonderland copies instead of a single Alice copy.
àDecided to go back to where I began and compare my reading experiences with the Dali, as the Dali is what inspired me to take on the Alice project in the first place
Back to the Ovendon and Davis book on the Illustrations of Alice
-95% black and white images that each work to convey Carroll’s story.
-Different depictions of different events in the story elicit different emotions. Eg. Tenniel depicts an image of Alice sitting at the tea party grumpily with the rabbit and the mad hatter, whereas Mervyn Peake leaves Alice out of the frame and illustrates an image of the mad hatter and the rabbit smiling in (presumably) Alice’s direction.
àDIFFERENT DEPICTIONS OF THE MAD HATTER: photo provided. Almost always exuberantly speaking or moving, however the degree of “madness” is arbitrary based upon the image provided, as Bowley’s illustration is far less “mad” looking than Furniss’s illustration.
-Thinking about watching Disney’s Alice in Wonderland and conveying how my experience watching a digital rendition of the story compares with the traditional print version.
-Also thinking about watching a play and seeing how performative interpretations contribute to the story.
-How do I bring this back to Dali?
-Dali’s art = explosive, impactful, dramatic, colourful, unpredictable, much like the randomness of the story itself. Mixes the thin, hard, dark black lines with colourful smudges of paint to illustrate the story. Most of the other Alice versions seem very black and white, possibly for mass-production purposes? Dali’s version is limited edition.
History of Alice in Wonderland: Review of Zoe Jaques and Eugene Giddens work by Jan Susina
-“Carroll was a demanding author who valued quality book production over profit but at the same time he was a savvy marketer looking to expand the market and audience for his Alice brand” (Susina 578)
April 13 Research Continued
-Called up 150th anniversary edition of Alice in Wonderland illustrated by Salvador Dali again
-Also called up the large loose-leaf version of the story illustrated by Dali but from 1969 (the original that inspired my research)
-photos taken of every painting in the large 1969 version. Absolutely stunning experience reading this version of Alice; best thus far.
2015 150 Anniversary Alice Quotes:
Introduction
“A work of art incorporating rebelliousness, revolution, paradox; distortions of space and time, logic, size and proportion; disbelief in conversational reality; assimilations of dreams, wordplay, and ineffable nature of childhood” (VII)
“..the creative processes of Carroll and the surrealists were similar” (VIII)
“Dali’s surrealist endeavours began in 1929…his painting style, which showcases his academic training in precise, quasi-photographic realism, continued to weave dreams and hallucinations into ‘enigmatic’ canvases for the rest of his life” (x)
**On the Maecenas Press imprint of Random House in 1969 version:
“Printmaking showed Dali at perhaps his most virtuistic…Maecenas Press imprint of Random House in 1969…contained twelve heliogravures of original gouaches and one signed engraving, and was distributed as one of the publisher’s Books of the Month. The twelve chapters were printed in France, collected into folded portfolios, and housed in a clamshell box eighteen and a half inches(forty-seven centimeters) tall. Only twenty-seven hundred were printed, and they command very high prices today.” (xi)
“Dali’s drippy, trippy, hypersaturated pictures are far removed from the photo(sur)realism we associate with him; they feature an enigmatic icon of Alice whose arms form part of a circle that is complete by what could be a jump rope, a mirror, or the edge of a rabbit hole…its hermeneutic ambiguity was certainly intentional. (And in none of the representations is the girl wearing anything that would remotely permit her to actually jump rope, even in a dream.)”
“This image was a rather significant, if long unused, trope for Dali, which first appeared as a sketch (later completed as a painting, The Nostalgic Echo)…from this image evolved the silhouette of a girl in a long pleated dress, her outstretched arms forming a circle above her head, in the foreground” (xi)
“The Icon, emblematic rather than human, is also manifested in many of Dali’s paintings through the mid-1940’s but does not seem to have caught his attention again for a quarter century, after which he very much associated with Alice” (xiii)
***for other illustrators****
“Carroll’s lack of descriptive text, a consequence of his close art direction of the illustrator, Punchcartoonist John Tenniel, has given artists tremendous interpretive license throughout the years” (xiv)
“Dali’s work seems not to much to translate a literary text into another medium as to provide a complementary experience, one in which Alice herself is not really involved and very few characters are depicted” (xiv)
Adriana Peliano:
“Dali stimulated delirium, speculating on the propriety of the uninterrupted becoming of every object upon which he carried out his paranoid activity…The limits between the real and the imagined became ambiguous. And his paintings bega to represent a space in which everything that can be seen is potentially something else. Wonder, dreams, and the unconscious serve as stages for metamorphoses, where the objects, symbols of irrational desires, are subjected to sudden mutations, an uninterrupted becoming” (xiv)
Sears Goldman:
“Unsettling shadows and odd juxtapositions make for sinister and sometimes frightening images/ His Mad Tea-Party is not an intelligible image at a first glance. But slowly the individual images come together and the scene becomes apparent. The Tea-Party floats ambiguously and is interspersed with dots and oversized insects; the latter are, curiouslym the only realistically rendered images. The pocket watch, central to the Tea-Party in this text, is cleverly conceived by Dali as an oversized drooping clock, thus surely alluding to his Persistence of Memory…The background of his illustrations consists of vast, seemingly infinite expanses, mountains, and a few scattered trees, and is perhaps more suitably considered a surrealistic backdrop than a veritable landscape…Yet these are dreams that, surreal as they are, are tinged with innocence and even nostalgia” (xv-xvi)
Thomas Banchoff:
“When Dali faced the challenge of producing illustrations for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, it is clear that he wanted to have something to hold the story together, and that was the figure of Alice herself, the only character appearing in all of the chapters. He already had an iconic figure available: an image of a girl skipping rope…Dali chose this image to represent Alice” (xxviii)
EXPERIENCE OF READING THE RANDON HOUSE 1969 VERSION OF ALICE:
-Beautiful, clamshell casing
-Loose pages leave for a more delicate reading and an appreciation for the book’s composition as opposed to the mere narrative content
-next to each indented paragraph = a little orange flower.
-Massive book size adds to the surreal and fantastic reading experience
-Uncut, jagged edges emphasizes quality of this edition
-Thickness and distinct smell of the paper is reminiscent of a traditional, old-fashioned fairytale. It feels like an antique.
-One of the coolest things about the Alice story is the spiralling text that appears in every edition.
Play Versions of Alice in Wonderland
ALICE:
-Explore digital depictions of the story: Disney, plays, etc, Alice today