Weekly Reader: After Alice by Gregory Maguire; Sequel To The Alice Tale Lacks Sparkle, Magic, and Alice
By Julie Sara Porter
Bookworm Reviews
Spoilers: There's an episode of Mad Men in which the characters watch an ad for Patio soft drink which features a jingle parodying the opening to the movie musical, Bye Bye Birdie complete with an Ann-Margaret look-alike caterwauling the jinglized version of the opening song. The client and advertisers look at it and say, “It's not right. The song's right. The camera angle’s right. The setting’s right. But something’s not right. Something's missing, what is it?” Sterling-Cooper’s womanizing Accounts Director, Roger Sterling (John Slattery) comes up with the answer. “(The look-alike) isn't Ann-Margaret.”
That's exactly how I feel about Gregory Maguire's novel, After Alice. Maguire has made an excellent career of deconstructing popular fairy tales and children's literature to give them a fresh perspective. His OZ Quartet/Wicked Years is probably his best known work. They retell the story of L. Frank Baum’s OZ books from the points of view of Brr, The Cowardly Lion and particularly Elphaba, the presumed Wicked Witch of the West and her family including her son, Liir and granddaughter, Rain. The original and best novel of the series, Wicked, was also the source of the popular Tony winning musical of the same name. Maguire also took a hand at retelling Cinderella (Confessions from an Ugly Stepsister), Snow White (Mirror, Mirror) and A Christmas Carol (Lost). In his most recent work, Maguire tackles Lewis Carroll’s Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. But unfortunately unlike many of his other works, Maguire suffers a major misstep in his writing.
To paraphrase the advertisers in Mad Men, something is missing. The world is right, the Wonderland characters are right, the wordplay is present (Several times the riddle “when is a door not a door?” “When it's a jar” is repeated once literally), and even the oddities of size and depth perception that marks the journey as a Dreamworld are there. But something Isn't there. The protagonists are not Alice.
Now I am biased, I will admit that Alice is one of my favorite literary characters, probably my favorite female literary character. So I take great care in observing how other authors and filmmakers portray her. In Carroll's books, she is a bright, inquisitive, imaginative young girl even before she enters Wonderland. She is fond of pretending to be two people, gives herself very good advice but seldom follows it, engages in games of “Let's Pretend”, and rambles off as much nonsense as the Wonderland residents. (unsure of what Latitude and Longitude are but “finds them grand words to say.”) She also has some pretty strong character flaws such as stubbornness, a quick temper, and a willingness to argue with anyone even authority figures. (Queen of Hearts: Hold your tongue. Alice: I won't!). In other words, she is just as interesting a character as are the eccentric creatures of Wonderland.
That’s why the protagonists of After Alice are so disappointing. There is no spark nor fire to them. They are dull gray protagonists in a world that screams for a lead that is as bright and vibrant as the world around her.
Alice is missing throughout the Maguire book, on her Magical Mystery Tour. So her place is filled with two characters who had minor roles in Carroll's book: Alice's older sister, Lydia (the one who read “a book without pictures or conversations” at the beginning and started Alice off on her journey) and Ada, a friend of Alice's who gets one mention in the original book. (When Alice is trying to figure out who she is, she is certain that she's not Ada “for Ada's hair goes into ringlets and (Alice's) hair doesn't go into ringlets at all.”) Ada is determined to find Alice who she considers her best friend and Lydia, well Lydia, is concerned about her sister but also wants to catch the eye of her father's house guest, Mr. Winter.
There's nothing wrong with retelling a story through the supporting character’s point of view, in fact I love it. Last year I wrote a list of “Our Sides of the Story: Favorite Books and Stories Told From Alternate Points of View.” (Both Wicked and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister are on that list). But like any other protagonist, the author can't just rely in name recognition. They have to give them their own story, their own motives or the book just becomes a rehash of the original and the Reader is left wondering why bother writing it.
The problems with Ada and Lydia are there is nothing there that is interesting. Ada gets to see Wonderland but the beginning tells us that she is a sensible girl, a vicar's daughter, so she doesn't interact or engage with the Wonderland residents in a way that is meaningful. It seems more like Maguire wanted the Reader to say “Oh look there's the Walrus and the Carpenter!” “There's the White Queen” rather than, “What is Ada going to do with them?” While there are some interesting aspects to Ada's character (She is consistently described as a “large and heavy girl” and she has a limp which implies she has some physical and psychological issues.).
There are also some clever references to the original book such as Ada bringing the orange marmalade that Alice finds while falling through the rabbit hole. (and doesn't drop for “fear of killing somebody underneath.”).
However unlike her predecessor, Ada is extremely dull: an ineffectual tour guide to a world we already know about.
Lydia’s half of the book is even worse. Because Lydia doesn't visit Wonderland herself, there is almost no purpose to her story. Her infatuation with Mr. Winter seems more to spring from the comedy of manners from Jane Austen rather than the satiric nonsense of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. She goes to humorous extremes to get Mr. Winter’s attention including befriending Winter’s African-American ward, Siam and considering Ada’s governess, Mrs. Armstrong, a rival for his affections. Like Ada, Lydia has some interesting traits such as taking a maternal role towards her younger sister after the death of their mother, which she determines as a reason that Alice behaves so flighty and wild. (It makes perfect sense.) But Lydia's story is more of a distraction to add more pages to the book than to serve any real purpose. Not to mention, Lydia’s relationship with Mr. Winter doesn't really go anywhere in the end so there's almost no reason for it.
There are a few new Wonderland characters like a Tin Ballerina and a Tin Bear that seem to belong more to OZ than Wonderland. Even Queen Victoria has a cameo to engage in a first person plural “Royal We” conversation with Ada. But these characters are out of place in Wonderland's milieu.
The only interesting original character is Siam. A former American slave, the young boy was freed and unofficially adopted by Winter who is almost suffocatingly overprotective of the boy. After accidentally falling down the rabbit hole and running into Ada, he learns to embrace a childlike nature and falls in love with the place. The resolution to his story is extremely open ended, but he makes the choice that many Readers of Carroll's book no doubt wish they could.
I had such high hopes for this book. I really wanted to love it. As mentioned Wicked and Confessions are among my favorite books that tell stories from Alternate Points of View. (though I can't say the same for the other Wicked Years books.) Mirror Mirror takes an interesting historic perspective to Snow White. Of course as I said I absolutely love the original Alice books.
But After Alice was a true disappointment. There was no magic to the tale. Not enough nonsense. Not enough Alice.
