Alice’s ‘Rabbit Hole’ Was Door To Lecturer Lounge

Oxford, the city of universities in England, is a city of dreams. It is so for the great many students who have studied there, as well as for people who have not (Thomas Hardy’s ‘Jude the Obscure’). Among these people, one writer who wrote a storybook during the Victorian era made Oxford the center of nonsense and fantasy.

“This is not England, but Christ Church,” says Christ Church College’s guard, who is the only one in Oxford University to wear a bowler hat (from German art critic Peter Sager’s ‘Oxford & Cambridge,’ Kavin Media). This displays the pride of Christ Church College, from which 13 English prime ministers having graduated and whose scale is also the biggest among the colleges.

Once visitors step into Christ Church College, which requires an entrance fee, they are captivated by the atmosphere of the neo-gothic structures (built in 1640). Within this atmosphere, two books of completely different styles were created. One is John Locke’s ‘An Essay Concerning Human Understanding,’ which is the most well known book dealing with reason, while the other is Lewis Carroll’s (1832-1898) ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,’ which is the most well known book for nonsense and fantasy. The latter, together with Carroll’s other book, ‘Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There,’ are quoted the second most often in English literature other than Shakespeare’s dramas.

‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,’ which was published in 1865, was a story that Carroll, a mathematics lecturer at the college, told to the three young daughters of Dean Henry Liddell while playing on a boat on the river Thames. Alice, the second oldest daughter, is said to have paid close attention to Carroll’s stories and enjoyed them immensely.

Past the old library, above the staircase that leads into the hall, sightseers are once again overwhelmed by the ceiling. However, people have to wait below the stairs until two in the afternoon because this hall is used as a college dining hall. The magnificent hall was used as the main hall at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Witchery in the movie ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone.’

“That over there is the white rabbit wearing the waistcoat and next to him is the mock turtle.” A tall male tourist lifts up his young son and points to the ‘Alice window.’ All the motifs that are present in this book are expressed in stained glass.

The hall is filled with brightly polished long oak tree tables and neo-gothic style chairs with high backrests. The plates have the college emblem, which is a red hat, printed on them. All around the room, in gold-colored frames, are portraits of famous figures that have graduated from the college, and to the right of the entrance is Lewis Carroll’s portrait. It almost feels like a mini-national gallery. There is a door that is not easily noticed because of the portraits. It is a door that leads directly into the senior common room, which is the lecturers’ lounge. Some say that this door was the ‘rabbit hole’ that made Alice fall into ‘Wonderland’ while chasing after the white rabbit.

Alice continues to fall down. “I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny it’ll seem to come out among the people that walk with their heads downward! The ‘antipathies’, I think (she was rather glad there was no one listening this time, as it didn’t sound at all the right word)…” (‘Alice in Wonderland,’ BIR Publishing).

Alice wrongly refers to the opposite side of the earth, which should be ‘antipodes’ (Daecheok-jeom), as ‘antipathies.’ In the books published in Korea, this has been translated as ‘Daechu-jeom,’ as well as ‘Geukcheok-jeom’ (Sigong Junior) and ‘Daerip-jeom’ (Froebel) while there are cases when it has been directly translated as ‘disgust’ (Chaeksesang).

Kim Gyeong-mi, who is considered to have translated the book best so that it is easy to read, said, “This story plays with words a lot.” Considering that Carroll was praised by James Joyce as the ‘Godfather of Modern Literature,” the book is full of word play. For this reason, it is considered a difficult piece to translate.

Alice’s adventure is a train of language experiments. On top of this, Carroll did not forget to include a parody of the stern world of a lecturer. Through the eyes and ears of Alice, the customs of the adult world are taken to pieces, and it becomes a ‘wonderland’ dominated by nonsense.

From here, walking further down from the Bodleian Library, an Iguanodon, a dinosaur standing tall, awaits the visitors in front of the university’s Natural History Museum.

Carroll’s real name is Charles Lutwidge Dodgson. In the museum’s exhibition, if looked at carefully, a dodo specimen from 1683 can be found. Carroll, who once stammered when saying his name, “Do…Do…Dodgson,” identified himself with this extinct bird, and wrote about the bird in his books as well.

kjk9@donga.com