Reviews: Wonderland Tales...

I finally saw Alice in Wonderland the other night - the new one, not the Disney cartoon because I've seen that a bazillion times. I liked it! It is different, but hello, it's Tim Burton. Of course it will be different! Wonderland is still wacky, but a bit more run-down than we last saw it. The characters are colorful and bizarre, but with noticeably less pep in their step - must be that overbearing Red Queen dragging them down. Alice is sad and cynical, not at all the bright-eyed and inquisitive child she was on her last visit. Heck, she doesn't even remember her last visit! It is a relief to note that her cynicism is not angry - on the contrary, it seems rather passive. She is not at all fazed by her sudden descent down the hole, nor by Wonderland and its oddities...in fact, one begins to question her unremarkable attitude until you remember she thinks it all a dream - unworthy of a reaction, you see, since in her dream she will come to no harm, she will wake up, none of this is real. Until, of course, she realizes she can, she won't, and it is... In the end, all is right (wrong?) and Alice just tells it like it is. I especially like her advice for Aunt Imogene - "There is no prince. You need to talk to someone about your delusions"...well said. Definitely worthy of a purchase at a later date and time...

Next, The Thirteenth Tale, a book I have now read twice and can see doing so again. Really excellent. Several words come to mind - gothic, strange, twisted, sad, madness, seclusion, incest...yes, I said it. I think what makes this such a good book is that it really is just a good story... A famous, yet highly reclusive author is finally telling the story of her much-sought-after and much-lied-about childhood. Her biographer is a young antiquarian bookkeeper with a haunted past of her own. And speaking of haunted... The Angelfields live in their beautiful but crumbing estate, practically locking themselves inside its decaying walls for generations while ignoring the world around them. They are a strange family. And pretty twisted - at least, Charlie and Isabelle are. The twins are just victims of inbred mental illness and a severe lack of care. Read this book.