What is the 'Myth'?

[Admin]

If you had to sum it up in one catchy sentence, how would you do it? Is it do-able?

[ermete22]

The consequence of too many omissions, by Carroll himself and many others

[bettyboop]

A publicity stunt??

[Jules]

May 12, 2008 4:40:07 GMT -5 bettyboop said:

A publicity stunt??

That's a bit silly isn't it?

[pleasance1]

The Lewis Carroll Myth seems to follow the motto of the tabloids: Don't let the truth stand in the way of a good story.

[frockmaker]

May 22, 2008 8:59:37 GMT -5 pleasance1 said:

The Lewis Carroll Myth seems to follow the motto of the tabloids: Don't let the truth stand in the way of a good story.

Oh gorge! Can I borrow it for the LfLC website?

[bettyboop]

May 22, 2008 8:59:37 GMT -5 pleasance1 said:

The Lewis Carroll Myth seems to follow the motto of the tabloids: Don't let the truth stand in the way of a good story.

Well it has always seemed to me that the idea of a myth is just a bit journalistic and dare I say it, cheesy? A hundred years of biography are suddenly all wrong, and why exactly? Because some person says so. Suddenly everyone is talking about the Carroll Myth. I think it has mostly to do with carving out a niche and making money.
.

[johntufail]

Hi Betty. I do think you are being a little simplistic here, It didn't quite happen like that (in act it didn't happen like that at all!).

There were a number of factors involved in the creation of what is now termed 'The Myth' (in fact there a a number of flaws, falllacies, misconception and misrepresentations in the History of Carroll biographical studies and to call these 'The Myth' is itself rather simplistic.

There are many reasons why what a hundred years of Caroll biography WAS largely wrong. That it was wrong is now pretty conclusively ageed and demonstrated.

Oner of the main reasons, to my mins is the fact that Carroll studies have largely been conducted in a non-academic envionmwent and without rigorous peer review processes. This has led to much shoddy ill-researche and ill presented work. It didn't help that the Collingwood biography, on which much later biographical work was based, was itself such a poor piece of work - though it was really intended more as hagiography than biography.

Control of access to Carroll's diaries was another major difficulty. The Dodgsdon family exerted huge influence over the direction that Carroll research took into well into the 1970's.

Off hand I cannot think of anyone writing a Carroll biography in the first 70 or so years following his death weo could be descibed as even remotely qualified to write a biography of such a complex figure.

The alternative iew of Carroll has really taken place since, I suppose, the mid 1980's and has come from various sources working independently. In most cases, the various actors were not even aware of the others' activities - at least not initially.

I am not aware of anyone inolved in 'New Carroll Studies who can claim to have made significant money - or even reputation fom their activities in this field - certainlt in comparison with what they could have achieved persuing alternative activities (like writing psuedo-psycho-analytic studies of Carroll's paedephilia, or sensationalist hokum exposing Carroll as Jack the Ripper!

Hope this helps

Regards

JT

[jenny2write]

Well said, John. I agree with this

I'm interested that you mention here and in the other forum that anyone attempting to write a biography of Carroll should be "qualified" or "trained".

I agree that any historical biographer needs as good a background in the period as they can get. Being trained or qualified is certainly a help. I wonder, though,whether an academic approach can also be a liability wen trying to understand Carroll. . You see, I think a lot of the problem is that hard evidence does NOT exist about important aspects of Carroll's life, and that is deliberate. His family thought it prudent to destroy so many things - his childhood diaries, the letter register, the photographic register - they have removed pages and scribbled sentences out and made an absolute point of leaving only the un-revealing stuff. Carroll himself was also aware of posterity and was extremely circumspect in his journal as a rule. It is surely not very sensible to assume that this censored and carefully mutilated material should be used as the basis for our view of Carroll. Shuldn't we acknowledge that there is more to any subject than whatever we happen to have to hand?

Partly because of the deliberate mutilation of the documents, and partly becuase Carroll was so puzzling in himself, I think we genuinely do need to scrabble around seeking for clues and hints and suggestions, and there is a particular skill in putting these intangibles together which has nothing to do with academic qualifications. It has a lot to do with being able to "read" or understand people, and is almost, in fact, the antithesis of an academic approach! It is difficult to evaluate how well it has been done - and yet is it really so much better to refer everything back to that pathetic heap of mutilated and censored facts ?

Of course, Carroll himself was extremely fond of presenting all kinds of information which appeared to be something other than what it was. His little puzzle about the men building the wall shows that sometimes you have to stop trying to work things out, and simply use your understanding of life.

What do you think?

[bettyboop]

I agree that human beings are complicated and its virtually impossible to accurately sum them up in the pages of a biography, but the so-called 'Myth' seems to go way beyond this into what is basically a 'they were all wrong, and I'm right' mentality. . All I know is no one was talking about a 'Carroll Myth' until a certain book was published with as much ballyhoo as possible attending upon it, and it seems we've all been dragged along in it's wake. Not wishing to cast aspersions, but the whole story of how biographers assembled a fake Dodgson is based on what Karoline Leach claimed in her book so far as I can see, but has anyone bothered to see if it really holds water? She most certainly isn't a qualfied historian, I think she writes plays. To me it reeks of publicity-seeking and show business. No criticism intended of her as a person, of course, but it doesn't make for good history. I think we need to beware of blindly following the current trend. I'm old fashioned. I like things to make sense before I believe them!

[jenny2write]

I had read all the biographies of Carroll that were written in the 20th century before coming to Karoline Leach's "In the Shadow of the Dreamchild". What bothered me about most of the biographies I had read was the way that so many of them, even those from reputable publishers, made Carroll seem utterly drab. Yet nobody can deny that "Alice" has a way of capturing the imagination, and Carroll must have SOME interest about him to have had all those friends, surely?

A couple of the biographies- by Florence Becker Lennon and Derek Hudson were "good reads" and made brave attempts to show Carroll as a credible sort of person, but I suppose they just didn't have enough information to do it.

Although I didn't believe in Karoline Leach's Mrs. Liddell theory, her book was revelatory because she was pointing out things that were true, that were documented, but which had been ignored. Yes, they were true, dammit! She was, if you like, shifting the perspective on Carroll by refusing to conform to the idea that certain things should not be mentioned. Once you shift viewpoint, all sorts of other things come into view. That's why I think her book is the most important recent contribution to the study of Carroll.

I don't know if it was publicity seeking or not, and although she is not an academic, I can't say that I have been particularly impressed by some of the material written by academics who have studied Carroll. My personal award for almost jaw-dropping unreadability goes to the book written by Dr Phyllis Greenacre.

[johntufail]

Completely agree with you about the greenacre book. It was a book about how 'brilliant' Ms Greenacre was and only incidentally about Carroll. I suspect it is a book that would have required ery little change were it to be re-issued as a book about Stalin or Mother Theresa!

I admit I do rasther oer-egg my omelette when I call for 'qualification' and 'training'. It's a measue of my frustration I'm afraid. I have read so manyCarroll biographies where claims were made or assumptions drawn purely because the writer had so very little understanding of the background subject matter. The worst mistakes were made egarding Carroll's religious views, with writer displaying the most awful ignorance of the complex nature of the Chuxch in the Victorian period. Similarly a completer lack of understanding an knowledge of Victorian politics have contributed, in many cases to Carroll being ascribed political views that he clearly did not hold.

I agree with Jenny about Karoline's book. One does not have to subscibe to her conclusions to admire the very real contribution her wok has contributed to Carroll scholarship. In terms of factual accuracy I have yet to meet anyone who has successfully challenged her.

However, although the notoriety of Karoline's book certainly helped create the idea of the Caroll Myth, as i have pointed out elsewhere, huge cracks had already begun to appear in the very tight 'traditional' picture of Carroll'.

Unfortunately, there is actually no way to reconcile the published image of Carroll with the person he actually was. A useful exercise would be to read the Prefaces to the Sylvie and Bruno books (the most autobiographical material Carroll every published) and compare the image of Carroll that appears here with ANY biography of Caroll that appeared up to and including Cohen.

I would be content to rest my case on that alone - though there is much, much more.

Regards

JT

[jenny2write]

Interesting thing about Sylvie and Bruno is that the whole book seems quite personal, in that much of it was probably a sort of stream of consciousness (it "came of itself", didn't it?) To be honest, I feel those prefaces make Carroll seem extremely eccentric. Do you notice the great change that time seemed to have wrought in him? He seems to have been so different as a young man.

[frockmaker]

May 27, 2008 12:44:54 GMT -5 jenny2write said:

I had read all the biographies of Carroll that were written in the 20th century before coming to Karoline Leach's "In the Shadow of the Dreamchild". What bothered me about most of the biographies I had read was the way that so many of them, even those from reputable publishers, made Carroll seem utterly drab. Yet nobody can deny that "Alice" has a way of capturing the imagination, and Carroll must have SOME interest about him to have had all those friends, surely?

A couple of the biographies- by Florence Becker Lennon and Derek Hudson were "good reads" and made brave attempts to show Carroll as a credible sort of person, but I suppose they just didn't have enough information to do it.

Although I didn't believe in Karoline Leach's Mrs. Liddell theory, her book was revelatory because she was pointing out things that were true, that were documented, but which had been ignored. Yes, they were true, dammit! She was, if you like, shifting the perspective on Carroll by refusing to conform to the idea that certain things should not be mentioned. Once you shift viewpoint, all sorts of other things come into view. That's why I think her book is the most important recent contribution to the study of Carroll.

I don't know if it was publicity seeking or not, and although she is not an academic, I can't say that I have been particularly impressed by some of the material written by academics who have studied Carroll. My personal award for almost jaw-dropping unreadability goes to the book written by Dr Phyllis Greenacre.

Wasn't it a couple of academics who approved the Hitler diary? Gahd bless em! I'm not academic, can only just about string a sentence together on a good day after a coupla espressos and a cigarette, but I wouldn't have bought that one baby!

[Jules]

May 27, 2008 12:44:54 GMT -5 jenny2write said:

I had read all the biographies of Carroll that were written in the 20th century before coming to Karoline Leach's "In the Shadow of the Dreamchild". What bothered me about most of the biographies I had read was the way that so many of them, even those from reputable publishers, made Carroll seem utterly drab. Yet nobody can deny that "Alice" has a way of capturing the imagination, and Carroll must have SOME interest about him to have had all those friends, surely?

A couple of the biographies- by Florence Becker Lennon and Derek Hudson were "good reads" and made brave attempts to show Carroll as a credible sort of person, but I suppose they just didn't have enough information to do it.

Although I didn't believe in Karoline Leach's Mrs. Liddell theory, her book was revelatory because she was pointing out things that were true, that were documented, but which had been ignored. Yes, they were true, dammit! She was, if you like, shifting the perspective on Carroll by refusing to conform to the idea that certain things should not be mentioned. Once you shift viewpoint, all sorts of other things come into view. That's why I think her book is the most important recent contribution to the study of Carroll.

I agree with this. I read KL's book at uni in my last year, and it was the only one I read (I also read Cohen, which I did enjoy and Clark, which I thought a bit Hallmarky), that really seemed to render a person I could believe wrote the texts I was studying. I get kinda frustrated in a way, because I would have liked a more complete biographical study.

That's why i said to you on the other network Jenny that I'd like to see your new book be more of a conventional bio. This 'new' LC so needs a biography and doesn't really have one yet.

I don't know if it was publicity seeking or not, and although she is not an academic, I can't say that I have been particularly impressed by some of the material written by academics who have studied Carroll. My personal award for almost jaw-dropping unreadability goes to the book written by Dr Phyllis Greenacre.

Cohen's an academic, and his work is pretty good, but shot through with sooo many assumptions you want to shake him!