Go ask Alice When She's Ten Feet Tall

[Mark Kohut]

We know it " influenced" Pynchon because he makes a couple-three allusions.

In which we learn its sixties connections. 

In which we learn that cultured European men ( like Humbert Humbert) in the Victorian Age often went
Boating with young girls, many of whom married in their mid-teens.  We learn the age of consent to marry went from 12 to 13 in 1865 in England! 

In which we learn that one lesser known way that Carroll may have influenced TRP's AGAINST THE DAY is by Carroll's mocking dislike of "imaginary numbers". At least one reader of AGAINST THE DAY sees Pynchon mocking imaginary numbers big time ( and the whole modernist mindset which created such distancing from real numbers--reality) 

And more. 


https://lareviewofbooks.org/review/about-a-girl/


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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l