Watching Alice earlier made me remember my childhood reading misadventures. I tried to remember how I read them or knew them or get a hold of them before I actually started reading by the age of thirteen (Brown's The Da Vinci Code). Then it came to me that I don't read when I was littler. I borrow books from our grade school library because their covers are pretty. I knew the story of Cinderella through a toy; a Fisher Price Movie Viewer and the pictures of my sibling's story books. A few of them, I have known through my mother's or maybe from my pre-school teachers.
I guess this applies to me until now - though I must admit that I've grown a discipline in reading. Telling and reading a story has always been better in outlines, in colors, in pictures. Alice for instance, has been better on the screen. The movie has sewn the pieces of story that I heard. The mad hatter, the rabbit hole, 'drink me', and the tea cups made sense. It made sense with Tim Burton's moving pictures and a short trip to Wikipedia. I haven't given justice to my Disney book of Alice lying around the house for a matter of years already by not reading it -- but it has given justice to my reading misadventures that I'm trying to tell to you.
I believe it was not only me who takes part in this misadventure. Every one who has known that the glass slippers doesn't fit in Cindy's ugly step sisters and ended the conflict there is a part of the misadventure. Any one who knew that Snow White's prince has fallen madly and truly in love with her takes part too. Most of this is Disney's fault. Yet, I cannot say that completely, because Walt, my good friend, is more cunning than we thought. Too bad he's no longer around to explain the connection of the visual creation of Ariel with the redhead who was persecuted in the Bible. (Oops, I didn't know that.) Well, my point, aside from all of my blabermouthing- is that this manufactured happy endings is a misadventure too, aside from me not reading.
Remakes of these tales made us fell down the rabbit hole, away from where we can hear the stories from how they are purely written. Like for you curiousers and curiousers, Cindy's step sisters were pretty, and they have cut their toes and heels to fit the glass slippers to be the queen. Aside from that, Snow's prince is a necrophiliac - and he took Snow's corpse from the little men for, you know now why. Now that is not a happy ending. Just imagine how you'll paint toe-cutting and heel-cutting and necrophilia in storybooks...
And so, to end the misadventure, I climbed out of the rabbit hole with the help of these movies and the internet. It was not late yet anyway for bed time stories through my desktop. Reading through the original translations does not take away the magic, beauty and essence of the stories but it is real that they are written grimly. It's like, if with this we can make a theory that pixie dusts consists of sugar, then the pixie dusts of the original tales contains less sugar. It ain't sweet and I'm absolutely not reading necrophilia to my daughter if I have one. But they are still beautiful stories. I would make a film out of them if I dreamed harder.
Burton's Alice in Wonderland brought me a lot of things and it is no wonder one of a good and special movie to me. There's just this ecstasy and intoxication in seeing the rabbit and the rabbit hole, the Mad Hatter alive and real, Alice shrinking and growing back, the Red Queen who seems actually screaming at you to take ''off their heads' -- an ecstasy like me with a new pair of shoes or me taking too many shots. It was all those outline, the colors, those moving pictures.
Who cares if it made sense to me just now. I fell down the rabbit hole of happy endings from hearsay and films. And I don't read when I was five, or seven, or ten. But I read now.
For the curiousers: National Geographic on Brothers Grimm fairy tales.
I guess this applies to me until now - though I must admit that I've grown a discipline in reading. Telling and reading a story has always been better in outlines, in colors, in pictures. Alice for instance, has been better on the screen. The movie has sewn the pieces of story that I heard. The mad hatter, the rabbit hole, 'drink me', and the tea cups made sense. It made sense with Tim Burton's moving pictures and a short trip to Wikipedia. I haven't given justice to my Disney book of Alice lying around the house for a matter of years already by not reading it -- but it has given justice to my reading misadventures that I'm trying to tell to you.
I believe it was not only me who takes part in this misadventure. Every one who has known that the glass slippers doesn't fit in Cindy's ugly step sisters and ended the conflict there is a part of the misadventure. Any one who knew that Snow White's prince has fallen madly and truly in love with her takes part too. Most of this is Disney's fault. Yet, I cannot say that completely, because Walt, my good friend, is more cunning than we thought. Too bad he's no longer around to explain the connection of the visual creation of Ariel with the redhead who was persecuted in the Bible. (Oops, I didn't know that.) Well, my point, aside from all of my blabermouthing- is that this manufactured happy endings is a misadventure too, aside from me not reading.
Remakes of these tales made us fell down the rabbit hole, away from where we can hear the stories from how they are purely written. Like for you curiousers and curiousers, Cindy's step sisters were pretty, and they have cut their toes and heels to fit the glass slippers to be the queen. Aside from that, Snow's prince is a necrophiliac - and he took Snow's corpse from the little men for, you know now why. Now that is not a happy ending. Just imagine how you'll paint toe-cutting and heel-cutting and necrophilia in storybooks...
And so, to end the misadventure, I climbed out of the rabbit hole with the help of these movies and the internet. It was not late yet anyway for bed time stories through my desktop. Reading through the original translations does not take away the magic, beauty and essence of the stories but it is real that they are written grimly. It's like, if with this we can make a theory that pixie dusts consists of sugar, then the pixie dusts of the original tales contains less sugar. It ain't sweet and I'm absolutely not reading necrophilia to my daughter if I have one. But they are still beautiful stories. I would make a film out of them if I dreamed harder.
Burton's Alice in Wonderland brought me a lot of things and it is no wonder one of a good and special movie to me. There's just this ecstasy and intoxication in seeing the rabbit and the rabbit hole, the Mad Hatter alive and real, Alice shrinking and growing back, the Red Queen who seems actually screaming at you to take ''off their heads' -- an ecstasy like me with a new pair of shoes or me taking too many shots. It was all those outline, the colors, those moving pictures.
When you read, you imagine her shrinking, you see it in your head. When you see her shrinking, you might actually shrink with her. Either way, is beautiful. What I assure you, is that you and me, we both fell down the rabbit hole that I'm talking about.
Who cares if it made sense to me just now. I fell down the rabbit hole of happy endings from hearsay and films. And I don't read when I was five, or seven, or ten. But I read now.
For the curiousers: National Geographic on Brothers Grimm fairy tales.
Since you're talking about real stories behind fairy tales...Did you know? The author of Alice in Wonderland was said to be a pedophile. And that he actually wrote the story for a real girl named Alice. And Little Red Riding Hood suddenly had her period while she was walking in the woods. So the wolf smells something and yeah...morbid stuff. Just got that from a random conversation with a blockmate. :|
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BTW, before I could effing comment, I had to sign in to my old blogspot. HASSLE.