Behind the Looking Glass Released!

[ackerman]

Greetings Carrollians,

I wanted to make you all aware that my new Carroll book, Behind the Looking Glass, published with Cambridge Scholars Publishing, has just been released. I know that John Tufail has a copy and has been reading it, so maybe he can add a word or two about it on this discussion board! I am hoping that some of you will get your hands on it (www.lewiscarrollmyth.com) and we can have some discussion about it here. I'm eager to get your feedback! I hope that you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Sherry L. Ackerman

[johntufail]

Hi Sherry,

Nice of you to join us!

I'm still reading your book - though of course I did read it in draft form earlier! I recommended it then, and still do. It's a must read. Not only for anyone interested in Carroll's philosophy, but more generally to anyone at all interested in the constant and highly relevant debate between Platonic and 'Aristotalean' world views. It very persuasively puts the case for a thorough critical re-assessment of Sylvie and Bruno and adds new insites into the two Alice books. I particularly like the way that the arguments you put engage the reader, inviting (not challenging) a response.

As you know i rather see this book as an introduction rather than an end in itself. Because of this I find it even more enticing - looking forward to a more definitive (authoritive even?) sequel.

Regards

JT

[ackerman]

What you, John, call the debate between the Platonic and Aristotlean traditions have come down to us, historically, as the opposing/competing agendas of Romanticism and Englightenment. Oxford was an inveritable storm-center for these competing intellectual agendas and we see this influence in Carroll's work, as well as in the work of most other major intellectuals of the period/place. We are still, in post-modernity, thrust into artificially constructed divisions between these two mindsets. I am quite convinced that Carroll had "a foot in each of these worldviews" (as did/do most serious intellectuals...the drive toward cognitive integration being fueled by inclusion) which is part of what made him such a complex and, oft times, contradictory character.

Sherry L. Ackerman