R2OK!

Clive55 · Joined: 08 Dec 2006 Posts: 1336

I am a big fan of the "Alice" Books by Lewis Carroll/Dodgson. They are great treasures of literature. Overflowing with humour, puzzles, logic, perspective & humanity.
In my lunch break I was in the library perusing a book about Lewis Carroll & the Alice books & their resonance in 20th century culture.
An interesting book. Now, i have not lived in a cocoon & I have heard the inuendos as to dodgsons sexuality.
But none of these are borne out by the facts.
Dodgson was a very prim Victorian gentleman. He was very atracted to young girls, & enjoyed their friendship.
Whether he was ever also at times sexually atracted to them, no one would ever know.
Least of earl the young girls whose friendship he treasured.
No suggestion ever came from any of these girls of even the hint of sexual molestation from him.
Anyway, reading the above mentioned book I saw that a number of sick paedophile rings have started up using references to the Alice books in their title.
A book, even exists titled "Alice" which depicts the sexual molestation then the mutilation & murder of a young girl called "Alice". This is considered a turn-on for these sickos.
Thing is, they are using the Alice name & other references (Wonderland et al) in a total perversion of everything Lewis Carroll & the Alice books were about.
How these guys latched on to something of great beauty & charm to create their sick fantasies.
People who don't know much about Dodgson & the Alice books may see him as tainted by all of this.
He couldn't be further away from it

John W · Joined: 07 Dec 2006 Posts: 3367 Location: Warwickshire, UK

Clive,

I really am disappointed that this had happened. This is the sort of thing that 'The Internet World' needs to sort, needs to remove.

When wikipedia started up it was getting ruined by people editing freely and putting on untruths, speculations and just being idiots and changing bios for the hell of it. I believe wiki has really tightened up now and thanks to many devoted contributors it is fast becoming a very reliable reference source. So it can be done.

People's reputation, work and history needs to be protected otherwise the 'world knowledge' becomes a nonsense; quite a challenge for the internet in the future.

John

Clive55 · Joined: 08 Dec 2006 Posts: 1336

I agree, John.
It is amazing how many people simply hear something, & will come up wih something like, "of course, Lewis Carol was a paedo" as if it is "common knowlewdge"
I am fascinated by the Alice books, & think there is so much in them & in some of Carrolls other writtings.
I am just so disturbed that something so beautiful is being sullied in this way.
The book reffered to a couple of paedophile web sites with Alice inspired names that are "well known"
If they are well known, why can't they be closed down?
Surely a site can be traced to the computer it orinates from? And can't such a site be pulled from the web?
My technical knowledge is not good enough to know the answers.
That is a problem with the internet.
It is a brilliant resource, but it can be abused, too

John W · Joined: 07 Dec 2006 Posts: 3367 Location: Warwickshire, UK

Similar thing has been happening to Herbert von Karajan, the most celebrated classical conductor of the 1960s-1980s. (died 1989)

Because he joined the Nazi party in the 30s or 40s he was reviled by some in the 1960s as a Nazi and, especially after his death he was getting a bad press. Opinion is now swaying given more evidence. Most conductors who stayed in Germany in the 1930s HAD to join the party if they wanted a career, and it seems likely that was the case with Karajan, he joined to enhance his career not for politics, and turns out his wife was part-Jewish and he knew. There were stories that he divorced her in 1942 because of it but the truth is, apparently that that's when they married and they got divorced in the late 1950s.

A recent interview on BBC Radio 4 tore an anti-Karajan jounalist to shreds.

Karajan was a genius, I have about 50 of his recordings on Deutsche Grammophon, I don't care if he joined the party.

Soulsister · Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2010 4:17 pm Post subject:

This thread has really struck a chord with me.

I did an English degree a while back, and we were studying the Romantic poets when the lecturer just threw in the line 'and of course it is almost certain that Wordsworth had an incestuous relationship with his sister'. I was like Whaaaat?

Some historian after 200 years had 're-examined all the evidence' as they do, and decided that, to put it crudely - William was giving Dorothy one, or rather several. I was outraged, and what upset me most was that the class was full of young kids straight out of school and this stuff is being spouted to them on the basis of one book written centuries after the event.

Fact is they had an absent father, mother died young and they lost a brother and yes they did live together, but there are absolutely no contemporary accounts or suspicions from the dozens of friends around at the time, nor the press or anyone else. Dorothy was a typical, shy spinster who wrote copious diaries and was utterly devoted to her brother. Not forgetting the fact that he certainly wasn't firing blanks. He had a short liaison with a French woman which produced an illegitimate daughter, and his wife became pregnant soon after they married and went on to have 5 children. Yet somehow his sister who he was supposedly seeing to on a regular basis over many years, managed to avoid pregnancy? She also suffered from mental illness and was incredibly dependent on her brother and indeed his wife, but all this is discounted to sell a book.

No-one can say categorically that they weren't .. but all the contemporary evidence from those who knew them suggests no such thing was going on. How can you 'rediscover' something like this after 200 years? Yet here's this guy giving a lecture to a 100 students saying yeah, well it's almost certain? This sort of 'history' really makes my blood boil tbh. It's sensationalist garbage most of it.

It's like the recent assertions by certain 'historians' that it wasn't the RAF who saved Britain in 1940 but the navy apparently. The fact that the Germans were doing everything they could to wipe the RAF from the skies, and the Navy were holed up in Scapa Flow out of range, a day's sail away and would have been shot to hell in the narrow waters of the channel by U boats and Stukas is completely overlooked. The size of our navy was of course a factor - but to dismiss what actually happened and why it happened and to twist history in this way is outrageous in my view. Glad to hear that the anti-Karajan 'journalist' got his come uppance John.

ColinB · Guest

ruddlescat · Joined: 16 Sep 2010 Posts: 18010 Location: Near Chester

I was always led to believe that the author of the Alice books was a Vicar at Daresbury Parish Church Near Warrington which is not all that far from where I live
I seem to recall there are images in some of the stained glass windows depicting scenes from his books but I could be wrong as I was about 7 years old last time I went there
Certainly many of my family come from the North Cheshire area and I am sure there has never been any remote talk of paedophilia until the internet came along
Whilst it can be a great and useful tool believe me it can also destroy peoples lives and reputations because once something is placed there it is there for all time whether it is right or wrong
I am frankly surprised there have not been more suicides as a result of some of the disgusting things written about people on line
We all have a responsibility to excercise some degree of restraint and thought before taking actions which could do serious harm to others
Happily I can't ever see it being a problem on this forum which speaks volumes about the decent and honest attitudes which prevail here
And the fantastic moderation John!!!