Nonsense against sorrow - David Holbrook

What kind of a man was Lewis Carroll, and what motivated him to write the "Alice" books? David Holbrook draws on Carroll's correspondence, as well as the work of 20th century psychoanalysts, to step inside the looking glass of Alice, as it were, and see what the books reveal to us about the desires and conflicts of Carroll himself and about his relationships with those around him.;The eternal freshness of Lewis Carroll's "Alice" books is evidence that there is much more in them than has as yet been examined and explained by the many critics and biographers who have written about his work. There is an enigma here - a man who led a somewhat dull life but who produced these stories that are so fascinating that they have become popular all over the world. Holbrook believes that the clue to their enigmatic appeal lies in the unconscious meanings that the books have for us. He sees the origins of these in the inner preoccupations of the author who suffered a trauma in infancy, and discusses this in detail, bringing in the work of psychoanalysts such as Phyllis Greenacre and D.W. Winnicott in particular.;The book is a journey of discovery into the inner world of a great genius. It contains four photographs taken by Carroll, two of his own drawings, one by his friend Gertrude Thomson, and one by John Tenniel.