Sylvie and Bruno audio at Lit2Go

[quemaqua]

Just wanted to get the ball rolling here with a happy discovery I made a while back: Lit2Go. As described by the website, it's an online service of Florida's Educational Technology Clearinghouse, apparently hosted by the University of South Florida.

So what is it? More or less a repository of audiobooks and poetry, which is cool enough in and of itself, but made all the cooler thanks to fairly competent readings of both Sylvie and Bruno and Sylvie and Bruno Concluded.

The reading isn't perfect. In fact, it's a bit haphazard. However, it seems remarkably nice for what I estimate is essentially a rather unedited, straight read by a fellow named Rick Kistner, who has a thankfully quite pleasant voice even if his inflection isn't always perfect (again, due to what seems to be a straight read).

So really, it isn't bad at all for something free, and even a lot better than what you're like to hear over at LibriVox. Check it out if you're a fan of these stories and have some spare time in the car or the office in which to enjoy them. Not preferable to reading from the books yourself, certainly, but an admirable effort from a single reader in all other respects.

[johntufail]

This is great. It's interesting that Florida, on one coast of the US is celebrating S&B at the same time as California on the Pacific Coast is doing the same. Apparently there has been an immense interest in Carroll's philosophy, particularly in areas such as Hermeticism, Theosophy and Neo-platonism (see the Sylvie and Bruno Prefaces on 'esoteric budhism' and the books themselves onreligious syncretism). As I was saying, there is going to be a major publication out, probably later this year, on Carroll's philosophy written by an academic from one of California's numerous seats of learning, that places Sylvie and Bruno centrally in the Carroll corpus as opposed to its usually marginal position.

Life is getting interesting

[quemaqua]

As little as I love any of California's seats of learning, I'll be very curious to read it. I've always been a firm believer in S&B's central position, myself, which is one of the great reasons that I find it so fascinating and enduring. It seems to me to be one of the ways to get closest to the man, at least in terms of his literary output, and that is what inspired me to purchase the first editions that I have (while not the most expensive things ever, I am far from wealthy and it took a fair bit of convincing on my part to bring the wife over to my point of view on the purchase).

[johntufail]

As little as I love...!

Hmm. Well it is NOT UCLA! But I think you will find it interesting and challenging.
I couldn't agee with you more about the centrality of the S&B books. It infuriates me when I read biographers dismissing them as 'literary failures; and then failing to understand the biographical import of them.

I don't even accept the argument that they were 'literay failures. Commercially they may have been - in terms of literary technique and extending the boundaries of literary discourse they are breathtaking.

The problem is with the S&B books is that Carroll was putting everything he had into the books, so as a simple read he had problems. He really did fail to identify an audience. But he probably didn't really care about this. This was Carroll's 'Finnegan's Wake'.

I find it totally compelling how biographer after biographer totally ignored the blatant biographical evidences of these books. \not only in the prefaces, in which he clearly spelt out his theological postition as 'Broad Church' tending to 'esoteric budhism! but int the text where he absolutely and clearly challenges many contemporary Anglical views in numerous and fundamental issues of theology.

I have to say that every time I read these books I find something new that challenges my understanding of Charles Dodgson.

One thing that depresses me about the current state of Carrollian studies insofar as S&B is concerned, is that Grodbas' brilliant doctoral thesis (University of Rennes, France) on S&B has not been published and is not available in English.

Regards

John Tufail

[quemaqua]

If only I had the time to learn French. But I suppose it's just as well. God knows I haven't even a quarter of the time to keep up with half the Carroll studies I'm aware of, let alone those I'm not! At any rate, perhaps that one will become available in the future. The study of Carroll seems to be flourishing well beyond anything I'd anticipated before becoming interested in him (I became fascinated with him about 6 years ago, and haven't had nearly as much exposure to this stuff as I'd like).

[johntufail]

Now that IS interesting! You only became 'fascinated' in Carroll about six years ago and already you have accessed the Sylvie and Bruno Books. That is a remarkable and unusual transition.

I would be most interested in knowing how and why you developed your interest in Carroll and how this interest led you so quickly to S&B! I'm sure others would find this of interest too! I say this because it took me ten years to become even vaguely aware of Sylvie and Bruno from developing my first interest in Carroll, another two years to overcome the antipathy to S&B to even begin a serious reading of the books, and a further year to begin to realise how central these books were to understanding Carroll!

And I'm told I'm a quick study!

So do tell all!

[pleasance1]

When I read in the "Welcome" section that quemaqua was interested in Sylvie and Bruno, I thought "That is a rare breed of Carrollian and a very brave admission." I too have a first edition of "Sylvie and Bruno" and I was rather chuffed when I bought until someone told me that it wasn't worth much because the book was rubbish!Even though it is not my favourite Lewis Carroll book, I don't think it is rubbish either. There are some very interesting ideas in it and some of the writing is quite good.

I agree, John, that S&B probably tell us more about Charles Dodgson and what he thought/believed than any of his previous writing. It seems to me (and I am not a scholar by any stretch of the imagintion) that the "Alice" books and even the Snark were written for the fun of it, for sheer enjoyment... the commercial success an agreeable bonus. Maybe Sylvie and Bruno were written with a more serious motivation; perhaps Dodgson didn't care for commercial success at this point, perhaps he was more interested in getting his ideas published and read, using his success as"Lewis Carroll" as the vehicle. Perhaps it was these unorthodox beliefs that put him at odds with other members of his family.

I hope this forum will open new discussions about "Sylvie and Bruno"

[quemaqua]

I wish I could say that my love of the books and my placing of them higher on the totem was a terribly interesting story. I don't know if it was due to anything on my part other than perhaps some vague identification with the man who wrote it? I really don't know.

I was always sort of interested in Carroll, but I never really knew anything about him. I'd read the Alice books a few times, but that was it, and my father had at a few points told me that the guy wasn't all that well understood and there seemed to be various schools of thought on him. Many years later, hanging out at a bookstore, I happened upon a copy of Morten Cohen's biography. I bought it, thinking it would be cool to finally check something out, and started reading it at work (I ran a mailroom at the time, so there was significant downtime when things were slow). To my surprise, I was totally absorbed. I just couldn't put it down and ended up finishing it in around two days. Still not sure what it was specifically that drew me to it, but I was hooked. I purchased a collected works volume after that, read through a good portion of it, and eventually hit Sylvie and Bruno. By that time I felt like I'd gotten to know the man pretty well, and plainly felt how deeply personal that particular work was. Due to my growing interest in him, that aspect made it even more interesting to me. By the time I was done, I had labeled it my personal favorite and had toyed with the thought of buying first editions if I could find them reasonably enough, which I eventually did.

Now I just need to find a decent pair of books with the original illustrations that aren't a hundred years old so I can really see them.

[johntufail]

I think the Penguin 'Collected Works' have the origian Funiss illustrations. Should be fairly easy to get hold of a copy.

I think one of the main problems with readers of Sylvie and Bruno is the weight of expectation going into the books. They are so completely unlike anything Carroll had written previously.

Looked at objectively, much of the 'cloying nature' of some of the narrative and language is no worse (or bette) than a great deal of Voctoian literature. Dickens famously had this problem and lets face it, much of the language of 'The Water Babies' is pretty OT by today's standards!

I love the S&B books, but I confess to twinges of embarassment with much of the prose surrounding 'Sylvie' and 'Bruno'. Hiweve at least 90% of the narrative, and 70% of the prose and dialogue is actually extremely well written.

I think that Carroll chose such a complex structure for the novels cannot be seen as detrimental, and certainly doesn't contibute to the books' 'failings'.

Some have called them unstructured and rambling, but this is far from the truth. In fact the complexity of the structue demands extremely careful contol, and overall Carroll does an admirable job.

Part of the problem of course is that the book DOES lack a defined audience. It is certainly unclear whethe the book is primarily intended for adults or for particularly bright childe. However, Carroll himself does answer this objection (to his own satisfaction at least!) when he stated that his works were intended for 'Children of all ages'!

In many ways these books are a complete expression of Carroll. I would go so far as to say that, so important were these books to him that, for the first time in print, the barriers between Lewis Carroll, writer of fiction, and CL Dodgson, logician, mathematician and theologian are completely and openly discarded.

Regards

JT

[Admin]

johntufail said:

...thingyens famously had this problem...

It took me a little while to figure out who thingyens was, but having done so I have now instructed the automatic censor (thank you Proboards) to recognise complete words only.


Admin

[bettyboop]

Well, after reading these messages I unearthed my dusty copy of S&B and sat down to give it another go....

My verdict?

It's - good in parts, in parts almost unreadable. The writing veers from lyrical to the worst of sentmentality. But ys, very very revealing of the man's mind in the later years. Not altogether a happy mind, it seems. His talk about the importance of his religious faith touched me though very much.