Just finished Alice in Wonderland - such a great book [here are a few bits and peices that stuck out in my mind]
I really enjoy the tea party with the mad hatter and how they speak of time. Here is an exerpt. There is more to it I am
currently trying to decipher it.
Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in its sleep "Twinkle, twinkle,
twinkle, twinkle - " and went on so long that they had to pinch it to make it stop.
"Well, I'd harldy finished the first verse," said the Hatter, "when the Queen bawled
out 'He's murdering the time! Off with his head!' "
"How dreadfully savage!" exclaimed Alice
"And ever since that," the Hatter went on in a mournful tone, "he won't do a thing I
ask! It's always six o'clock now."
A bright idea came to Alice's head. "Is that the reason so many tea-things are put
out here?" she asked.
"Yes, that's it," said the Hatter with a sigh: "it's always tea-time, and we've no time
to wash the things between whiles."
"Then you keep moving round, I suppose?" said Alice
"Exactly so," said the Hatter: "as the things get used up."
"But what happens when you come to the beginning again?" Alice ventured to ask.
"Suppose we change the subject," the March Hare interrupted, yawning. "I'm getting
tired of this. I vote the young lady tells us a story."
me again...
ReplyDeletekeep in mind that Dodgson was trained as a mathematician and logician. there's an instance in the book where Alice is counting and unknown to the reader (or Alice if I recall) she's counting in something odd like base-26 instead of base-10 and is seemingly illogical. I wouldn't be surprised if he was working around the topic of time in a similar manner - you should pick up a copy of The Annotated Alice which is really insightful to a lot of the story.