Letters to Alice

- Letter One
o “You find her boring, petty and irrelevant and that as the world is in crisis, and the
future catastrophic, you cannot imagine what purpose there can be in reading her” –
hyperbole, reflection of her own time, and the ability of texts to reinforce understanding
of context
o “How can I hope to explain Literature to you, with its capital ‘L’?”
o “Easy tasty substances of the screen in the living room” – the rise of television in given
context; reduction of literature
o “You lulled yourself to sleep with visions of violence, and the crusader strokes of human
action and reaction” – Alice with her green and black hair is a symbol of the emerging
generation, which values ……….
o “You look around for companions in your wild new comprehension, your sudden vision,
and you see the same zonked out stares, the same pale faces and dyed cotton-wool
hair, and you turn, at last, to education, to literature, and books – and find them closed
to you”
o “When you have McDonald’s around one corner and An American Werewolf in London
around the next?” – globalisation and the decrease of meaningful and valuable
connections
o “One both anticipates and fears the kind of swooning, almost erotic pleasure that a
good passage in a good book gives”
o “You must read, Alice, before it is too late. You must fill your mind with invented images
of the past: the more the better”
o “The more wonderful will be the star-studded canopy of experience beneath, which
you, poor primitive creature that you are, will shelter”
o “Literature stands at the gates of civilisation, holding back greed, rage, murder, and
savagery of all kinds?” – the false impression that literature can really influence change
in society in modern day, whereas good literature transcends time to pass down
knowledge which can apply to different contexts
o “But the Castle keeps standing through the centuries and, build as others may they can
never quite achieve the same grandeur” – imagery and extended metaphor which
highlights how good texts transcend time because of their relevance to human condition
and humanity, which drives personal, emotional and intellectual development in society
o “And thus, by such discussion and such shared experiences, do we understand ourselves
and one another, and our pasts and our futures.” – how good texts will relate to
experiences in different contexts
o “It is in the literature, the novels, the fantasy, the fiction of the past, that you find real
history, and not in textbooks.” – real history which provides altered perspectives of the
world and leads to personal and emotional development
o “And very few, sometimes the least suspected, will last, and not crumble with the
decades”
o “You could say that was because she didn’t wear herself out physically running round
the world, pleasing a husband or looking after children” – sarcastic tone
o “Writers deal with their lives as best they can, and their personalities, and the family
and the century into which they were born” – Jane Austen highlights the problems of
her time and advocated for personal and emotional satisfaction as well as education
which promotes a better society
o “I doubt she’s read a novel since an overdose of Georgette Heyer made her marry you
father. Books can be dangerous.”
o “But the passage of time, the peeling of the paint, the very lack of concerned visitors,
reveals it in the end for what it is: a house of no interest or significance”
o “Surprising to see such flimsy structures built with such care and skill” – even if
literature is appealing or written finely, if it does not contribute to an “Idea” or to
society then it cannot transcend time
o “Heart-strings twang, but don’t vibrate” – sound/feelings cannot be produced, the main
objective is not achieved
o “The good builders, the really good builders, carry a vision out of the real world and
transpose it into the City of Invention, and refresh and enlighten the reader, so that on
his or her, return to reality, that reality itself is changed, however minutely” – purpose
of literature should be to enlighten the reader and increase knowledge and perspectives
of the world
o “None of us fainted the day my father came home and told my mother, my sister and
myself that he was leaving us that day to live for ever with his sweet-heart, whose
existence he had never hinted at before”
o “Later female generation has become injured, by reason of a literature increasingly
related to the realities of life, to male surprises?” – sarcastic tone
o “Male whims taking priority, then as now, over female happiness” – even though
context has changed, societal values and attitudes and human experiences traverse time
o “She chides women for their raging vanity, their infinite capacity for self-deception, their
idleness, their rapaciousness and folly; men on the whole, she accepts” – criticising
women (feminist movement for females to step up and find a place for themselves in
society)
o “Women are accustomed to criticism; to being berated, in fiction, for their faults. Men
are quite simply, not. They like to be heroes.”
o “If you plan to build here, you must know the city” – Alice must be confident to traverse