Book Review: Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin

Stars: 2 out of 5
Pros: Very well written; good characters

Cons: Unbelievable climax; truly creepy scenes between a girl and adult

The Bottom Line:

Excellent writing

But too many creepy scenes

Plot doesn't hold up, too

Weirdly Creepy but Well Written

There was a resurgence in interest in Alice in Wonderland in 2009 and 2010, and I took part in a reading challenge surrounding the classic tale.  As part of the reading challenge, I was supposed to read the novel Alice I Have Been.  The book was well written, and on the surface I am glad I read it.  But when I stop to think about it, I wish I hadn't.

This book is a fictional biography of Alice Liddell Hargreaves, who, at age 10, provided the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland.  She grew up as the daughter of the Dean of Oxford and next door to Charles Dodgson who would publish the famous book under the name Lewis Carroll.

The book starts out with Alice as a little girl and explores her relationship with the shy author.  But it doesn't stop there.  It tells the complete story of her life and the ramifications the relationship had over her entire adult life.

It seems vaguely familiar to me that there are rumors about Charles Dodgson having an unhealthy interest in little girls.  That by itself would have been creepy enough since the book actually starts with Alice as a seven year old.  But what is worse is the way Alice actually, knowingly, encourages him.  The book is told from Alice's point of view, but even in the sections where Alice is a child, she never behaves as a child.  There are some very erotic passages that, while not explicit and nothing truly unethical happens, were just disgusting.

And it doesn't help that the portion when Alice was a child moved rather slowly.

Once Alice becomes an adult, I was able to get into the story more.  I think part of this is just because I felt I had gotten to know Alice enough I wanted to know what happened to her.  This is real a character study, so it doesn't have the exciting, intense plot I normally enjoy, but I was able to get into the story.

But as the story is really the repercussions and rumors surrounding Alice's relationship with Dodgson and how they affected the rest of her life, the scenes I found so creepy kept coming back like the main theme of a symphony.  And every time they did, I once again squirmed as I read them.

The book is expertly written.  Whenever I was reading the story, I was there with the characters.  A couple times, I was surprised at just how much time had passed since I was lost in the world.  The writing was evocative, creating the scene for me.

And the characters were rich and full, real people.  Maybe that's part of why I felt disturbed by the early scenes in the book.  I didn't want to see these friends get hurt.  That includes Charles Dodgson.  He was shown to be a sympathetic character who is actually hurt by the events as much as Alice.

The later part of the story becomes quite moving as we see what happened to Alice later in her life.  I was in tears over some of the events.

But then came the climax.  While it does provide a nice context for some of what has come before, it is also completely unbelievable.  I set the book down shaking my head that things would happen as portrayed here.

Despite the wonderful writing and characters, I cannot recommend Alice I Have Been.  The story doesn't hold together in the end, and there are too many disturbing scenes to make the book truly enjoyable.