now my question about this is the mad hatter's riddle "how is a raven like a writing desk?" i have no clue at all and i was wondering if anybody here knew. i can't get it out of my head.
Full Version: alice in wonderland
alrighty, in the book mentioned in the topic, everybody has heard of the tea party with the mad hatter and the march hare.
now my question about this is the mad hatter's riddle "how is a raven like a writing desk?" i have no clue at all and i was wondering if anybody here knew. i can't get it out of my head.
now my question about this is the mad hatter's riddle "how is a raven like a writing desk?" i have no clue at all and i was wondering if anybody here knew. i can't get it out of my head.
I want the answer too!
Lewis Carroll himself got bugged about this so much that he was moved to write the following in the preface to the 1896 edition of his book:
| QUOTE |
| Enquiries have been so often addressed to me, as to whether any answer to the Hatter's Riddle can be imagined, that I may as well put on record here what seems to me to be a fairly appropriate answer, viz: `Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat; and it is never put with the wrong end in front!' This, however, is merely an afterthought; the Riddle, as originally invented, had no answer at all. |
Did this discourage people? No. They figured, that dope Carroll, he's too dumb to figure out his own riddle, setting aside the halfhearted attempt just quoted. So they ventured answers of their own, some of the more notable of which are recorded in Martin Gardner's The Annotated Alice and More Annotated Alice:
Because the notes for which they are noted are not noted for being musical notes. (Puzzle maven Sam Loyd, 1914)
Because Poe wrote on both. (Loyd again)
Because there is a B in both and an N in neither. (Get it? Aldous Huxley, 1928)
Because it slopes with a flap. (Cyril Pearson, undated)
Not bad for amateurs. But the real answer, to which the careers of Poe and Carroll bear ample testimony, is that you can baffle the billions with both.
Postscript: In 1976 Carroll admirer Denis Crutch pointed out that in the 1896 preface quoted above, the author had originally written: "It is nevar put with the wrong end in front." Nevar of course is raven spelled backward. Big joke! However, said joke did not survive the ministrations of the proofreaders, who, thinking they understood the author's intentions better than the author, changed nevar to never in subsequent editions. The indignities we authors suffer! Sure, it's partly made up for by the money and groupies, but still, if in some book (e.g., this one) you come across a line that really clanks, be assured: it was funny before.
Source
Here you go; pulled it off the Net:
Why is a Raven like a Writing Desk?
Why is a Raven like a Writing Desk?
| QUOTE |
| This is a famous riddle by Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. There is no official answer. However in his 1896 book, he wrote in the preface: "Enquiries have been so often addressed to me, as to whether any answer to the Hatter's Riddle can be imagined, that I may as well put on record here what seems to me to be a fairly appropriate answer, viz: `Because it can produce a few notes, tho they are very flat; and it is nevar put with the wrong end in front!" Famous puzzle maven, Sam Loyd, gives two other possible answers: 1. Because the notes for which they are noted are not noted for being musical notes. 2. Because Poe wrote on both. |
Alice in wonderland reminds me of a fairytale gone wrong on an acid trip!..with cats apprearing out of nowhere and always with a crazy grin, a place where shrooms make you tall or short, fat or skinny and a place where if you lose a game of croquet you'll end up losing your head too. Did i mention a hukah smoking catapiller?
The game version called Malice in wonderland was really freaky
The game version called Malice in wonderland was really freaky
Was that released as American McGees Alice? If so that was one really screwed up game.
a good reason it was so messed up was that lewis carrol was on acid or some other hallucigenic when he wrote the thing.
| QUOTE (Dementia @ Apr 26 2004, 04:02 PM) |
| The game version called Malice in wonderland was really freaky |
there is also another wonderland game called "alice", where you play as an evil version of alice who is in a mental institute in which she gets trasported to an evil ridden version of wonderland... oh and she uses weapons ranging from a knife to razor sharp palying cards...damned crazy game...
Yes, that game ALICE is very wicked.
Alice the game version is a more like a hybrid of both Wednesday Addams and Sarah Conner from Terminator 2
Alice the game version is a more like a hybrid of both Wednesday Addams and Sarah Conner from Terminator 2
| QUOTE |
| there is also another wonderland game called "alice", where you play as an evil version of alice who is in a mental institute in which she gets trasported to an evil ridden version of wonderland... oh and she uses weapons ranging from a knife to razor sharp palying cards...damned crazy game... |
yup..that was American Magee's Alice.
American Magee's Alice rocked I still play it when I can..... 
Carroll was on an absinthe/opium combo so making sense of most of what he created would be futile.
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